Friday, June 7, 2013

Errani and Vinci advance to French Open final

Defending champions Sara Errani and Roberta Vinci, seeded number 1 at the French Open, advanced to the final today when they defeated 3rd seeds Nadia Petrova and Katarina Srebotnk 6-3, 5-7, 6-3. Their opponents in the final will be 4th seeds Ekaterina Makarova and Elena Vesnina, who defeated 2nd seeds Andrea Hlavackova and Lucie Hradecka 6-4, 7-5. Hlavackova and Hradecka won the French Open in 2011.

5th-seeded junior Antonia Lottner of Germany knocked top seed Ana Konjuh out of the semifinals today. Lottner beat Konjuh 6-0, 6-1 in just over an hour. Lottner was  broken one time. Konjuh, with partner Carol Zhao, is still active in the doubles draw.

Maria Sharapova said yesterday that, in order to defeat Serena Williams in the singles final, she'll have to do something different, since what's she's been doing (for years) hasn't worked. The defending champion really has her work cut out for her. Williams is out-serving her and out-moving her, even with Sharapova's greatly improved movement on clay. And Sharapova's service inconsistenies won't be negotiable when Serena is on the other side of the net. Sharapova has to bring her very best serve--first and second--and she has to wrong-foot Williams enough to get into her head. A formidable task, for sure.

(Note to Jo-Wilfried Tsonga: That was a lot of talk about being such a better hitter and server than your opponent. Too bad that an apparent excess of testosterone has kept you from being consistently competitive--like, say, Serena or Maria.)

2 comments:

Colette Lewis said...

Hi Diane:
Just a heads up on the stats for junior matches at Roland Garros. They don't track winners and unforced errors. Those Lottner numbers you mentioned are just her aces and doubles faults.

Diane said...

I thought they had started tracking them. So few winners are hit, I didn't find the stats odd. Thanks for letting me know, Colette. Will correct.