Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Camille Pin presents another entertaining show
How frustrating is it to watch Camille Pin, the slight French player who is a wonderful athlete but who has the weakest serve in women's tennis? Pretty frustrating. Pin, a counter-puncher from way back, always rises to the occasion at a Grand Slam tournament (she came within a hair of taking Maria Sharapova out of the Australian Open in the first round last year, and that was after being down 0-5 in the third set), and her Australian Open second round match against an error-prone, lackluster Venus Williams was no exception. Pin gave it her best--weak serve and all--but in the end, Williams prevailed, 7-5, 6-4. The match featured fourteen service breaks.
I continue to wonder why no one has corrected Camille's complete lack of shoulder turn on her serve. There's no coiling/uncoiling in her motion, no kinetic chain. She could *easily* get another 15 mph on her serve with even a small turn back/rotate fwd motion. It's actually saddening to wonder how much this simple correction might have cost her over the course of her career...
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