Another Frenchwoman gone--Camille Pin retires

Pierce, Golovin, Mauresmo, Loit. They may not all be officially retired, but they're all gone. Now Camille Pin has announced her retirement, after spending twelve years on the tour. The 28-year-old Pin never won a WTA tournament, though she did win eight titles on the ITF circuit. I always thought that, if she could serve decently, she could have done much better, but that improvement never occurred. Still, Pin had a lot of fight in her, and was fun to watch.

Pin's most famous moment occurred during the 2007 Australian Open, when she came within a hair of defeating Maria Sharapova in the first round.

In her emotional announcement today at Roland Garros, the Frenchwoman said that that various events in her life had caused her to be less motivated to play, and she had always told herself that she would know when the time came to stop. That time has come. "Today, I put an end to my career, but I only see great things in terms of human encounters and emotions experienced."

Pin ends Rus's run in Guangzhu

Camille Pin is one of the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour's enigmas. She is a really good player who can give almost anyone a bad time, but she cannot serve. At all. I sometimes wonder how Pin would have done on the tour if she had even a passable serve. She can be a tough player.

She did well enough today to defeat Arantxa Rus, who has plenty to be proud of, getting to the quarterfinal round of a tour event. Tamira Paszek is out, too, defeated--not surprisingly--by Zheng Jie. Top seed Vera Zvonareva ran over Karin Knapp, and Peng Shuai defeated Jill Craybas.

Pin def. Rus, 6-3, 6-3
Zheng def. Paszek, 6-2, 6-1
Zvonareva def. Knapp, 6-1, 6-0
Peng def. Craybas, 6-4, 6-1

The Zvonareva-Zheng semifinal has the makings of a very fine match.

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.