A couple of days ago, when I wrote about the very entertaining match between two great shot-makers--Agnieszka Radwanska and Sorana Cirstea--I said that the fun would continue because Radwanska's next opponent would be admirable shot-maker Maria Kirilenko. But there were two of us for whom the fun definitely did not continue. Neither Tennis Channel nor Tennis TV showed even a moment of the match, so I couldn't watch it, and I'm sure it was no fun for Radwanska, either, because she was beaten 6-1, 4-6, 7-5. (If any of you watched the match, feel free to give us a report.)
The two possibly up-and-coming Spaniards--Lara Arruabarrena-Vecino and Garbine Muguruza--were defeated by Maria Sharapova and Angelique Kerber, respectively. Petra Kvitova beat Klara Zakopalova in straight sets, Caroline Wozniacki beat an extremely error-prone (and not very aggressive--she looked like a not-so-great version of Wozniacki) Nadia Petrova, and top seed Victoria Azarenka, fighting foot pain, defeated Urszula Radwanska (a bad day for the Radwanskas).
Mona Barthel took the first set against Sam Stosur, and then faded away, which gave Stosur a 4-6, 6-2, 6-3 victory. And Sara Errani beat Marion Bartoli in straight sets.
Bartoli fooled most of us, if not all of us. She has been openly expressing her admiration for Amelie Mauresmo, fist-pumping (and that's some fist pump) in Mauresmo's direction in matches, and hinting that she was going to hire the French Fed Cup captain to be her coach. Instead, Bartoli has hired Jana Novotna to coach her, which means that--for the first time in her life--someone other than her father, Walter, is in charge.
Here is the quarterfinal draw:
(1) Victoria Azarenka vs. (8) Caroline Wozniacki
(4) Angelique Kerber vs. (7) Samantha Stosur
(5) Petra Kvitova vs. (13) Maria Kirilenko
(6) Sara Errani vs. (2) Maria Sharapova
In doubles, the teams of Ekaterina Makarova/Elena Vesnina and Kimiko Date-Krumm/Casey Dellacqua advanced to the semifinals.
Who do we have to yell at for TennisTV to cover the same number of WTA matches as ATP matches anyway? Or at least, to show the matches worth watching? I'd have rather seen Kiri/A-Rad, Stosur/Barthel, and Stephens/U-Rad over all but maybe a couple of the matches they did show... gripe gripe gripe!
ReplyDeleteSuper happy for Bartoli, this seems like a really positive development for her.
It seems to me (and I could certainly be wrong), Brian, that the Tennis TV coverage of ATP ober WTA is more extreme in Indian Wells than it has ever been in the past. I hope this isn't a trend.
ReplyDeleteReaders who subscribe to Tennis TV: Email them and complain. It's bad enough that they stopped offering separate packages, but now...?
I like Tennis TV's coverage more than TC's and ESPN's. So give us more WTA!
The most entertaining matches I watched for the last 7 days were the women's doubles upset of the no 1 and no 2 seeds.
ReplyDeleteAnother good match was Sam Stosur escaped by defeating Peng in 3 sets. Her high kick- to -the left serve and big forehand saved her.
The Kirilenko Radwanska match was somewhat interesting as Kirilenko has been playing particularly well lately.
I have not yet seen a good men's singles and doubles match either in person or on TV.
At Indian Wells, courts featuring women's doubles appeared to be very well attended. (to be fair, Bryan & Bryan's matches played to overflow side stadiums)
Tennis Channel is better than nothing but tend to broadcast boring singles matches with big names in the main stadium early rounds.
At about 10:15 am, I saw Kirilenko practicing at stadium 3 where her match with Radwanska was to take place later in the afternoon. A guy behind me, a Radwanska fan, wished loudly that Kirilenko would lose.
ReplyDeleteHe suffered through two men's singles matches in hot sun until 4:15 pm before the women's match began. Such is the attraction of women's game to average tennis fans.
Hmmm, imagine if Novotna had played with Bartoli's outward confidence during HER career. Might be a good combination now, too.
ReplyDeleteI didn't get to see those doubles matches, nor was I able to see the Kirilenko-Rad match, which really annoyed me. I haven't seen any really great ATP matches at IW yet, either.
ReplyDeleteTodd, I'm quite curious about this Novotna/Bartoli development. No one ever knows how good a coach a good player will be, but there's something so totally unexpected about this pairing that I'm looking forward to seeing what happens.
Yes, Jana could have used some wild woman fist-pumping techniques!