Wednesday, November 20, 2024

The Fighting Italians would like to have a word....

"Champions!" 

Today, for the fifth time, Italy became the Billie Jean King Cup (formerly Fed Cup) champions, defeating Slovakia in the final, 2-0.  Lucia Bronzetti defeated Viktoria Hruncakova 6-2, 6-4 in the first rubber of the final, and Jasmine Paolina defeated Rebecca Sramkova 6-2, 6-1 in the second. 

Team Italy was in the final last year, too, but they were defeated by Canada when Leylah Fernandez pretty much went crazy on everyone.

Starting in 2006, the fierce squad made up of Francesca Schiavone, Flavia Pennetta, Sara Errani, and Roberta Vinci won the Fed Cup four times, bringing the same grit and excitement that the Czech Republic brought to the competition. I named these players the Fighting Italians because they never, ever gave up, and it was a thrill to watch them battle.

Of the four, only Errani remains on the tour, and she reached what was perhaps her peak this year (of course, she also has a Career Slam in doubles) when she and Jasmine Paolini won an Olympic gold medal. But the spirit of the Fighting Italian is preserved in Paolini, whose cheerful demeanor sometimes conceals her relentless grit. And today, Bronzetti found her inner Pennetta when--playing in the most stressful of circumstances--she won Italy's first point in the final. 

The Italian team, led by Captain Tathiana Garbin, was made up of Paolini, Errani, Bronzetti, and Elisabetta Cocciaretta.

As always, there were a couple of lesser known players who stood out in the competition. Such players sometimes go on to become big stars on the tour (Pennetta, Petra Kvitova); others simply rise to the occasion. During this season, two players earned some special notice--Rebecca Sramkova of Slovakia and Katarzyna Kawa of Poland. 

It's no surprise that Sramkova was a star in this competition. She won her first WTA title this year, and she played in two other finals. During BJK Cup play, Sramkova defeated both Danielle Collins and--in the semifinals--a very in-form Katie Boulter. Kawa was Iga Swiatek's doubles partner, and she showed that she really knows her way around a doubles court.

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Saturday, November 9, 2024

Hot Coco, tough cookie

Today, for the first time, the WTA Finals final went to a third set tiebreak. The match, which lasted just over three hours, featured 3rd seed Coco Gauff and 7th seed Zheng Qinwen, and they put on a show totally worthy of the last big final of the season.

Zheng won the first set 6-3, and immediately went up a break in he second set. But just when it looked like the Chinese star might run away with the match, Gauff broke her, picked up momentum, and took the second set 6-4. The third set was exactly what it should have been--a contest of changing momentum, with each player broken twice. The set went to a tiebreak, and Gauff pretty much did run away with that, going up 5-0, and eventually winning it 7-2.

It was an interesting event, which began with poor attendance, but then drew crowds. Under the new rules (about which I have mixed feelings), Barbora Krejciova made the final eight because she had won a major. And regardless of how I feel about the rules, I'm never really unhappy if the Czech is part of the mix. 

Krejcikova hasn't played a lot lately, and--aside from winning Wimbledon--hasn't won much this year. After struggling in 2022 with an arm injury, a knee injury in 2023, this year, she was out for a long time with a back injury. Of course, it's much more fun for fans to say that she's inconsistent and that's that, when---in fact--her body just hasn't allowed her to gain any momentum. (When a woman on X wondered how Krejcikova had won Wimbledon, the champion herself showed up and replied: "I won seven matches in a row." So there.)

The Czech star has sometimes acted as Iga Switek's kryptonite, defeating her in two finals. They played each other in the first opening round of round robin play. Neither had played much tennis lately, yet Krejcikova went up a set and 3-0--then her back went out again. She continued to play, but lost to Swiatek. Krejcikova next played Jessica Pegula, who was dealing with a worsening knee injury (she eventually withdrew from the event); Krejcikova defeated her, then went on to defeat Coco Gauff 7-5, 6-4.

The WTA Finals present most of us with some math challenges; I just wait to hear who made it to the semifinals. World number 1 Aryna Sabalenka did, but world number 2 Swiatek did not, despite winning two of her three round robin matches. In the semifinals, Gauff defeated Sabalenka, and Zheng Qinwen defeated Krejcikova.

Winning the doubles championship were former U.S. Open champions and 2nd seeds Gabriela Dabrowski  and Erin Routliffe, They defeated 8th seeds Katerina Siniakova and Taylor Townsend 7-5, 6-3. Siniakova and Townsend defeated Dabrowski and Routliffe in this year's Wimbledon final.

Former world number 1 and two-time major champion Garbine Muguruza served as tournament director, and of course, the question hanging over the event was/is "Why is this happening in Saudi Arabia?"

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Saturday, November 2, 2024

WTA Finals begin with a win for Sabalenka

After what seemed like a very long Asian swing, the WTA Finals began today. World number 1 Aryna Sabalenka started things off in singles by defeating Zheng Qinwen 6-3, 6-4. Sabalenka is now 4-0 against the Chinese star. Next, Jasmine Paolini defeaed Elena Rybakina 7-6, 6-4. Not to take anything away from Paolini, who played very well, but it wasn't a surprise that Rybakina--who hasn't played much lately--lost this match. This was, by the way, Paolini's first-ever WTA Finals match. 

For her part, Rybakina--we hope--is in better physical health; she's been chronically ill since the spring. And one reason that she may have had a prolonged illness is that she apparently received significant abuse from her former coach. The 2022 Wimbledon champion is now working with Goran Ivanisevic.

In doubles, Nicole Melichar-Martinez and Ellen Perez defeated Hsieh Su-wei and Elise Mertens 1-6, 6-1, 10-6, and Katerina Siniakova and Taylor Townsend upset top seeds Lyudmyla Kichenok and Alona Ostapenko.

Returning to the Asian swing: The good news is that Karolia Muchova performed very well; the bad news is that she sustained yet another injury. However, it was her hip (and not her wrist) that she injured, which is a kind of inside-out piece of good news. Muchova lost to Coco Gauff in the Beijing final. This was her third loss in a row to Gauff. On her way to the final, Muchova defeated Sabalenka, and that was the third time in a row that she had beaten the world number 1.

The top  (500 and 1000 events) Asian swing champions were Beatriz Haddad Maia (Seoul), Coco Gauff (Beijing), Aryna Sabalenka (Wuhan), Daria Kasatkina (Ningbo), and Zheng Qiwen (Tokyo). Beijing an Wuhan are WTA 1000 tournaments.

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Sunday, September 8, 2024

My U.S. Open top 10

 Here are my top 10 U.S. Open occurrences, in ascending order:

10: Everything is relative: I always think that it can't get any worse than Tennis Channel, but then I'm forced to watch and listen to ESPN. Just like on Tennis Channel, the commentators on ESPN mispronounce the players' names and sometimes say inane things, but they go beyond that, sometimes never shutting up, despite what's happening on the court. They took away the winners' ability to make acceptance speeches by interviewing them instead, and the results were definitely inferior. They also engaged in a kind of emotional pornography, doing tracking shots of the losing players' long exit from the court. This practice reached its peak when--right after Aryna Sabalenka lifted the trophy--ESPN showed footage of her multiple off-court racket breaks after she lost the final last year. A commentator even rushed to explain that "we're showing you this because...." Because you have no taste at all.

9. Conspicuous by their absence: Who knows what led to the scheduling, but the U.S. Open and the Paralympic Games were held at the same time, so there was no wheelchair tennis (other than juniors) at the Open this year. This was really unfortunate for both the players and for fans. The Paralympic results were shocking: Defending champion Diede de Groot wound up with two silver medals, while her closest rival, Yui Kamiji, left with two gold medals. de Groot's doubles partner, Aniek van Koot, won the bronze medal in singles.

8. The rise of Ruse: Ever major has a breakout player, and at the U.S. Open, it was Elena-Gabriela Ruse of Romania. Ranked 122 in the world, Ruse made it to the third round, and it was hard not to notice her. In the second round, she upset 8th seed and Wimbledon champion Barbora Krejcikova. Krejcikova had withdrawn from Cincinnati (to my great dismay) because of an injury, and I'm sure she wasn't at her best in New York, but it was still an impressive win for Ruse. The Romanian player then went on to take a set off of 26th seed Paula Badosa before falling to the Spaniard in three sets.

7. Farewell to Flushing Meadows: Danielle Collins, sadly, lost in the first round. It was her last U.S. Open, and I was hoping  that she'd be around in the second week; in fact, I expected her to be. Collins withdrew from Cincinnati because of injury, so perhaps it wasn't as surprising as it seemed that she made an early exit. It would have been nice, though, to have her extend her stay in New York. 

6. "Upset" is just a word: When world number 1 Iga Swiatek won the U.S. Open in 2022, she reached the final by defeating Aryna Sabalenka in the semifinals. Last month, she lost to Sabalenka in straight sets in the Cincinnati semifinals. At the U.S. Open, Sabalenka didn't have to concern herself with taking out Swiatek--Jessica Pegula did it for her, in straight sets in the quarterfinals. Players who hit the ball really hard and play really aggressively are problematic for Swiatek (e.a., she has yet to defeat Alona Ostapenko), yet the world number 1 seemingly hasn't learned how to create the time that she needs to counter such players.


5. New York is an art capital: And there was an artist on the court throughout most of the tournament. Karolina Muchova, the chronically injured, extremely gifted and stunningly athletic Czech player, made it to the semifinals last year during one of her rare spans of good health (she also reached the final of the French Open). But then she had wrist surgery and was out for months, returning this summer to play a few matches. The thought that she would defend her semifinal points seemed the stuff of wishful thinking, yet that's exactly what she did. Unfortunately, she did something else, too--Muchova contracted a stomach virus. We can't know for sure, but it's very likely that the illness was what caused her to slow down, sweat profusely, and run out of fuel during her third set against Jessica Pegula in their semifinal match.

4. Breaking the curse: Before coming to New York this year, Jessica Pegula had contested a half dozen major quarterfinals and had lost all of them. But the 6th seed enjoyed an impressive run this summer, winning her second consecutive National Bank Open in Toronto, and playing her way to the final in Cincinnati. Sure enough, the player known as "Ms. Consistency" broke her curse in the flashiest way possible--beating world number 1 Iga Swiatek in the quarterfinals. She then beat Karolina Muchova in the semifinals, and went on to play a close, high-quality final against Aryna Sabalenka.

3. The scrappiest Fighting Italian of them all?: Sara Errani won an Olympic gold medal in women's doubles this summer. She has won five major doubles titles, she reached the singles final of the French Open in 2012, and she was a member of probably the greatest Fed Cup (now Billie Jean King Cup)  team of all time. And now the 37-year-old Italian has added a new trophy to her collection--she and Andrea Vavassori won the mixed doubles title at the 2024 U.S. Open.

2. Single for doubles: Lyudmyla Kichenok was supposed to get married last week, but the wedding had to be postponed because she and partner Alona Ostapenko just couldn't stop winning. The pair, who were the runners-up in Australia this year, won the doubles championship without dropping a set.

1. Tiger burning bright: Approaching the U.S. Open, Aryna Sabalenka looked unbeatable. On the other hand, Jessica Pegula was unbeatable (she didn't drop a set)--until she reached the final. Sabalenka had beaten Pegula in the Cincinnati final just a week before, which added some drama to an already dramatic match. Pegula was impressive and fought hard, but--after an hour and 53 minutes--the world number 2 defeated the world number 6 7-5, 7-5 and claimed her first U.S. Open singles title. Sabalenka already has two Australian Open titles, one of which she won this year, thus giving her a set of tennis bookends that seal her position as the queen of hard courts.

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And just like that--Sabalenka became a U.S. Open champion

Aryna Sabalenka, seeded 2nd at the U.S. Open, was the favorite to win the championship, especially after her emphatic victory last month in Cincinnati. And she didn't disappoint--last year's runner-up went one better yesterday, defeating 6th seed Jessica Pegula 7-5, 7-5 to secure the championship. It was a very good match, worthy of a major final, and up to the end, Pegula tempted the crowd with the probability of a third set, but it wasn't to be. 

It wasn't that Sabalenka didn't have lapses--she did. But her skill as a closer, made possible by her relatively new-found mental strength, got her through in two competitive sets. 

The victory had to be especially sweet, for the Belarusian star has been very close to winning the U.S. Open for several years. In 2021, she was the semifinal victim of giant-killer Leylah Fernandez, and in 2022, she lost again in the semifinals, this time to eventual champion Iga Swiatek. Last year, Sabalenka made it to the final, but lost to Coco Gauff.

The world number 2, known for her candor and her sense of humor, has had her share of demons over the past few years, but she has now corrected her problematic serve and overcome her out-of-control emotions. The result is that the powerful Sabalenka, who also possesses the skills of an elite doubles player, is the unofficial boss of hard court competition, and is, in fact, a major threat on any surface.

Pegula, in some ways, is the anti-Sabalenka. Quiet and steady, with a keen intelligence and a lower-key sense of humor, the 30-year-old New York native is known as Ms. Consistency. Pegula has progressed over the years to become one of the best players on the tour, but she had her own "demon" with which to contend: She had made the quarterfinals of majors six times, but had never gotten to then next level. At the U.S. Open, she was relieved to be part of the final four, and then she was suddenly one of only two women left standing in Flushing Meadows. 

On Friday, we also saw a doubles team lift a U.S. Open trophy. 7th seeds Lyudmyla Kichenok and Alona Ostapenko defeated Kiki Mladenovic and Zhang Shuai 6-4, 6-3. This is Kichenok and Ostapenko's first major title; they were the runners-up at the Australian Open this year. 

In an odd twist, Kichenok was supposed to have gotten married last Wednesday, but the wedding had to be postponed because she and Ostapenko couldn't stop winning.

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Friday, September 6, 2024

Down to two

Aryna Sabalenka, seeded 2nd at the U.S. Open, came to the tournament having just won the Cincinnati Open, and her exemplary performance there locked down her place as the favorite in Flushing Meadows, and sure enough, she's now in the final. Last night, Sabalenka faced a very in-form Emma Navarro, who had reached the semifinals without dropping a set. And while no one who loses probably wants to hear that she "has plenty to be proud of," Navarro does. 

Sabalenka is a hard court terror, though Navarro has beaten her on a big hard court--in the fourth round in Indian Wells. And in their U.S. Open semifinal, the 13th seed didn't make it easy for the Belarusian star. Navarro can hang with the best in long rallies, and she did what she could to engage Sabalenka in such rallies. She also served well, and in the second set, she created a tiebreak situation, but Sabalenka took care of that, too, allowing Navarro to win only two points. 

Sabalenka's 6-3, 7-6(2) victory places her in the U.S. Open final for the second year in a row; last year, she lost to Coco Gauff in three sets. 

The second semifinal match was a dramatic story of superb shot-making, exhaustion, and determination. Jessica Pegula owned the "determination" part of that story, and it was enough, along with what was eventually a commanding performance, to get her to the U.S. Open final. 

The first set was the Karolina Muchova Show, and what a show it was. If we thought that our heads might spin, just watching it, we can imagine how Pegula must have felt. Muchova, using her outrageous bag of tricks and her superb athleticism, took that set 6-1. It was reasonable to think that Pegula wasn't going to allow herself to get kicked around like that in the second set (she later said that the first set embarrassed her), and sure enough, she was able to win that set 6-4. 

The third set promised to be very exciting. It began with Pegula's taking a 2-0 lead, then saving a break point to go up 3-0. Muchova began to sweat profusely, and soon struggled to keep up with the pace. The Czech player hadn't played many matches when she arrived in New York--she'd spent half the year undergoing wrist surgery and going through recovery and rehab--she wasn't exactly match-tough. But there was another, probably more important, factor--Muchova contracted some type of stomach flu in New York.

Nevertheless, the Czech star showed flashes of brilliance in the third set, but they were flashes only, and when she most needed to hit with accuracy, she couldn't. Pegula, whose nickname is Ms. Consistency, remained in control, and defeated Muchova 1-6, 6-4, 6-2.

Both players' U.S. Open stories are impressive. Muchova, hardly playing at all in 2024, still managed to defend her 2023 semifinal points. And Pegula--after reaching six major quarterfinals--finally broke through to reach a semifinal, and now, a final.

Let's return to Cincinnati for a moment. Sabalenka's opponent in that final was Jessica Pegula, whom she defeated 6-3, 7-5. The drama continues.

Paths to the final:

JESSICA PEGULA (6)
round 1--def. Shelby Rogers
round 2--def. Sofia Kenin
round 3--def. Jessica Bouzas Maneiro
round of 16--def. Diana Shnaider (18)
quarterfinals--def. Iga Swiatek (1)
semifinals--def. Karolina Muchova

ARYNA SABALENA (2)
round 1--def. Priscilla Hon
round 2--def. Lucia Bronzetti
round 3--def. Ekaterina Alexandrova (29)
round of 16--def. Elise Mertens (33)
quarterfinals--def. Zheng Qinwen (7)
semifinals--def. Emma Navarro (13)

We have mixed doubles champions--Sara Errani and Andrea Vavassori, the third seeds, defeated Taylor Townsend and Donald Young 7-6(0), 7-5 in the final. Errani, who won a gold medal (with Jasmine Paolini) in women's doubles at the Olympic Games, is a five-time major champion in women's doubles. 

There is no wheelchair competition at the U.S. Open this year because the Paralympic Games are taking place at the same time. In wheelchair tennis, there was plenty of drama at the Games. Top seeds Diede de Groot and Aniek van Koot lost the gold medal doubles match to Yui Kamiji and Manami Tanaka, who defeated them 4-6, 7-6(3), 10-8. This was the first time that a non-Dutch team has won a gold medal. Guo Luoyao and Wang Ziying won the bronze medal.

But that was just the beginning of the drama. From time to time, de Groot's serve abandons her, and it happened in the gold medal singles match. The top seed and defending champion won the first set against 2nd seed Yui Kamiji, but then could not get control of her serve. She repeatedly double-faulted, and--after years of chasing Diede the Great--Kamiji finally caught the prize, defeating de Groot 3-6, 6-3, 6-4. This is also the first time that a non-Dutch player has won a gold medal in singles at the Games. van Koot won the bronze medal, defeating Ziyang in straight sets.

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Thursday, September 5, 2024

"Defending your points" never looked so good

Karolina Muchova, the Czech Republic's extraordinarily talented player whose body has betrayed her throughout her career, was healthy last summer, and during that period, she reached the final of the French Open and the semifinals of the U.S. Open. But then her chronic wrist problem returned, and she underwent surgery. Consequently, Muchova wasn't around much in 2024. She returned to the tour in June, and had to withdraw from her first event because of concerns about her wrist. 

But here she is, in September, once again reaching the semifinals in Flushing Meadows. Muchova smoothly defeated Beatriz Haddad Maia 6-1, 6-4 in yesterday's quarterfinals, and even though fans got only two sets, they were--as always--sets worth watching, for Muchova's dancer-like athleticism is often a thing to behold. Muchova, apparently ill, had to leave the court a couple of times, but--as she assured everyone after the match--she isn't injured. Oh--and she hasn't dropped a set.

Yesterday's other quarterfinal was an upset waiting to happen. Last year, Alona Ostapenko, who has never lost to world number 1 Iga Swiatek, was asked how she continues to win their matches. She replied quickly: "I don't give her any time." Ostapenko is an exceptionally hard and fast hitter, but--in the hard hitting department--Jessica Pegula is no slouch. And yesterday, Swiatek looked as though she didn't know what (metaphorically) hit her, though Pegula wasn't playing any differently than she usually does.

One of the commentators pointed out that--while it's usually her sports psychologist calling out things to Swiatek during big matches--this time, it was her coach, who generally tends to remain silent. I don't know what he was telling her, but the hits (literally) kept coming, and Swiatek, instead of making adjustments, just continued to look lost. Pegula defeated her 6-2-6-4, and--in doing so--broke her "can't get past the quarterfinals in a major" curse.

On Tuesday, when the other two quarterfinals were played, Emma Navarro faced a suddenly shaky Paula Badosa, who has looked so good this summer, winning the title in Washington and reaching the semifinals in Cincinnati. It was the first time that Badosa--whose career has been seriously hampered by chronic back problems--had ever played on Arthur Ashe Stadium, and she just couldn't handle it. And if you're not feeling emotionally stable on the court, it probably doesn't help that someone like the unflappable Navarro is on the other side of the net. Navarro defeated Badosa 6-2, 7-5.

The other Tuesday quarterfinal may have surprised some fans--not the result, but the scoreline. 2nd seed and Cincinnati champion Aryna Sabalenka defeated Olympic gold medal winner Zheng Qinwen 6-1, 6-2. Last year, she defeated Zheng 6-1, 6-4 in the same round. And, of course, earlier this year, Sabalenka defeated Zheng in the Australian Open final, also in straight sets. 

In doubles, the unseeded team of Kiki Mladenovic and Zhang Shuai upset 3rd seeds Katerina Siniakova and Taylor Townsend 7-5, 4-6, 6-3 in an exciting semifinal match. Mladenovic and Zhang had already taken out the second seeds--Hsieh Su-wei and Elise Mertens--in the first round. I found this match especially interesting because--back in the day--the team of "Mladenovic and Anybody" could win just about any match, and these days--the team of "Siniakova and Anybody" can do the same. It was fun to watch them compete against each other.

In the other semifinal, 7th seeds Alona Ostapenko and Lyudmyla Kichenok defeated 10th seeds Chan Hao-Ching and Veronika Kudermetova 6-1, 6-2.

In mixed doubles, the unseeded team of Taylor Townsend and Donald Young will play 3rd seeds Sara Errani and Andrea Vavassori for the championship.

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