Wednesday, April 4, 2007

Stadium (from 11.00hrs)
1. Petrova/Raymond vs. King/Sun
2. Dechy vs. Daniilidou
3. Golovin vs. Castaño
4. Benesova vs. Jankovic
5. V.Williams vs. Schnyder (NB 19.00hrs)
6. Ivanovic vs. Peng

Grandstand (from 11.00hrs)
1. Sprem vs. Li
2. Bammer vs. Razzano
3. Müller vs. Tu
4. A.Bondarenko vs. Shvedova

Court 6 (from 11.00hrs)
1. Santangelo/Srebotnik vs. Dulko/Pennetta
2. Oprandi vs. Stosur
3. Black/Huber vs. Dechy/Kostanic Tosic (NB 14.00hrs; after suitable rest)

Venus v Schnyder the highlight of the day probably.

Ivanovic has looked out of sorts lately so we could see an upset there.

Odd to see Raymond playing with Petrova in the doubles when Stosur is playing at this event as well?

Karolina Sprem having one of her good days takes the 1st set against Li Na 6-3

Sprem wins 6-3, 6-3!

Bit of a setback for Li and for my fantasy tennis team!

Nice to see Venus making a good start, she really needs to win this if she's going to get a top 16 seeding for the FO; which is what I think she should be aiming for, on the overall arc of the clay season.

The Li result is certainly surprising but I suppose the likely combination of fatigue (given her SF and QF placings at IW and Miami) plus adjusting to a new surface was too much to overcome for her.

She might have succumbed to Bammer next anyhow, the Austrian having posted some convincing scorelines in her first two matches already (3 and 1, 1 and 1) which suggest despite her Miami setback that she is still a dangerous factor. Hantuchova, who will have only faced players outside the Top 150 by the time she would ostensibly meet Bammer in the QFs, would do well to take care.

I'm going to guess it will be Jankovic (who had a straightforward win today) and Venus in the bottom half semis, which would be a tantalising rematch of the Wimbledon upset. But Ivanovic and Golovin (perhaps even Schnyder, who took Venus to three sets in each of their two clay encounters last year) may yet have something to say about that.

Venus through 3-6 6-3 6-4 :D :yahoo:

Tough match all round, but i feel Venus needs these kind of tests early on during the clay-court season, it makes her game sharper for the latter rounds. Bad news for Patty- 9-0 now in h2h's :D roflmao

Venus faces meilen Tu next. meilen is a very good player, solid all-round game who seems to be so adaptive on every surface. should be a good match :D

Go venus! :yahoo:

Thursday, April 5, 2007

Stadium (from 11.00hrs)
1. Srebotnik vs. Safina
2. Petrova vs. Zheng
3. Bondarenko vs. Jankovic
4. Tu vs. V.Williams
5. Hantuchova vs. Cibulkova (NB 19.00hrs)
6. Husarova/Shaughnessy vs. Yan/Zheng

Grandstand (from 11.00hrs)
1. Dushevina/Vesnina vs. Medina Garrigues/Ruano Pascual
2. Bammer vs. Sprem
3. Ivanovic vs. Dechy (NB 14.00hrs)
4. Golovin vs. Stosur

Court 6 (NB 14.00hrs)
1. Petrova/Raymond vs. Santangelo/Srebotnik (after suitable rest)

Another pretty dull day at Amelia Island with all 8 R16 matches being played - suffering partly because a weak field and a 56 draw do not go together (Amelia Island is the only Tier II with such a large draw and I can't see that contiuing once the road map reforms are fully introduced) - but these are matches you would expect to see in the 1st round of a standard Tier II.

First up Srebotnik v Safina should be a win for the Russian who has a great record against Srebotnik even if she has been a little inconsistent this year.

Petrova & Jankovic should also ease through to the QF's having looked impressive in their opening matches and having never before lost to their opponents.

Venus struggled a bit against Patty but really should have no problem against Tu though to be fair she has done well to get this far so must be playing well.

I don't know much about Cibulkova but she did take Daniella to three sets in Auckland this year and could cause problems considering this isn't Hantuchova's favourite surface.

On Granstand it will be interesting to see if Sprem can follow up her good form against Li. Bammer is an extremely consistent player & just the kind of opponent who will cause problems for Sprem - chasing down balls and drawing out errors (not exactly difficult when facing Sprem!)

Ivanovic squeezed through her match against Peng while Dechy has looked pretty comfortable so far but Ana has the greater weapons and should be able to take this even if it isn't on her best surface (it's not really Dechy's either) but it would be good to see Dechy continue her recent upswing in form after an injury blighted 2006.

Stosur v Golovin is a repeat of their recent match in Indian Wells where Tati destroyed Sam very comfortably. I'd expect the same result here but probably a bit closer.

:) I will be surprised if Venus were to lose.... But Daniella ..I am not so sure.....

The only interesting match is the bammer sprem...... and rightly said, if bammer decides to work hard it might make for an interesting match up... :( It is a quiet round at this stage......

I really want a Sprem win! :D

I just love this extremely uncompromising game she has. Zero margin for error and when she's on, is a shot-making machine. Though when she's off its terrible beyond the telling of it :wacko:

Bammer though is so consistent, has added much more depth to her groubdstrokes, no longer just a 'pusher', but has a bit more width and angle nowadays too. The main improvement for Bammer though is she's in great shape, a real workhorse in the gym it seems.

Rooting for Bondarenko, Safina and Bammer :yahoo:

I'd like to see Sprem win if she can follow it up and play as well as she did a few years ago - not just here but for a good part of the season.

If this is just her one flash in the pan good run tournament for the year then I don't see the point!

I would like to see Bammer do well though - with all the teenagers coming up it's nice to see an older player fufill her potential especially as we have lost quite a few of the more mature players lately (Davenport, Farina Elia & Frazier retiring, Pierce out of action. Raymond pretty much doubles only these days & Dechy off form)

Good luck to Jankovic, Williams, and Ivanovic :D

Jankovic leading A Bondarenko 6-2 2-0

AI leading Dechy 6-1 1-0 :o Predicted a much harder passage for the Serb.........

i want Jelena to win quickly, so venus can come onto court :lol:

Me too :D

It seems dropping the first set 1-6 against Peng has startled Ivanovic into better form. She won that match and has now dismissed Dechy (who I thought would give the Serb a tougher time given her recent struggles) 1 and 1. Petrova, Safina, Jankovic and Bammer are also through in convincing fashion.

So our quarterfinalists look about as expected, with some decent match-ups for a Tier II. Both Venus and Golovin lead by a 6-2 set, seeming to be on the way to straightforward wins, and Hantuchova would really have to collapse to go out tonight in my opinion. Looks like:

Petrova v Safina
Hantuchova v Bammer
-
Venus v Golovin
Ivanovic v Jankovic

Ana beat Jankovic 7-5, 6-3 to progress to the semis :clap: :wub:

Her results at IW and Miami were really disappointing so this is a much needed boost. She should beat Golovin next round, who's done her a favour by knocking out Venus.

sorry i havent been around much :(

after that 63 63 loss for sprem, was a bit down...

i reckon a bit of fatigue, with SF and QF appearances like Manzikert said.
hopefully Li has used her week to concentrate on the clay surface, and be ready for charleston next week ^^

i think she is quite good at clay surfaces, with two consectutive final appearances in estoril 2005 2006, and SF at berlin last year.

Go Li ;)

glad to see Li is on your fantasy team ^^ me too ^^

Tough luck for Ivanovic, who came up short against Golovin despite successfully forcing a deciding set. In her first win against the Serb in six meetings, Golovin came away with a battling 6-4, 3-6, 6-4 victory. I only saw portions of the match intermittently but these two had some cracking rallies and fierce winners between them.

Only 5 out of 21 break chances converted for Ivanovic tells the story of what could have been (2 out of 9 coming in the third set alone). She played a loose opening service game in the third set, being broken from 40-15, and it was that one break of serve which proved decisive. Each time Golovin threatened to pull away after notching a second break, Ivanovic would get the break back; and she even saved two match points from 40-15 and then had a break point of her own to go 5-all. But to her credit Golovin held her nerve in the end, which hasn't always been her strong point.

The other semifinal was a bit more straightforward. Like she did with Safarova in Paris, Petrova managed to put an upstart in her place with a 7-6(4), 6-1 win over Bammer for a spot in the final. She's now just one win away from defending the title which started her on the road to three in a row last year. But I'm sure the Russian would have liked anyone else in the draw besides Golovin on the other side of the net. The Frenchwoman is a bit of a nemesis for her, leading their H2H 4-1, and won their latest encounter just a few weeks ago in Indian Wells (which ended in a disappointing but perhaps convenient retirement with the Russian trailing 2-6, 0-1). Still, in the only final they've contested, it was Petrova who came out on top with the trophy in another Tier II tourney (Stuttgart) coming in the late phases of the 2006 season--that title officially ended her summer-long slump and was immediately followed by two more final appearances. I'm sure she'd like history to repeat itself in similar fashion.

Tatiana Golovin wins her Maiden title 6-2 6-1 against the top seed Nadia Petrova!

Congrats Tatiana :yahoo: :clap: :yahoo: :clap:

Holy Crap! :o

That match was over before it started :yikes:

I wanted Nadia to win this :(

Poor liam :lol:

well done golovin.

i always have liked golovin, she was always shadowed in french tennis by mauresmo, but i think she has definately had a LONG wait for her first title!!

Tatiana :clap:

still don't understand how shes French though :s roflmao

What the Hell happened here? :angry: Is Golovin that fit french bird that does nothing on court except look cute? Nadia, you need to do better than that to replace Mary in my affections.......

well done golovin.

the scoreline is a bit of surprise though :unsure:

In a word, Petrova panicked. From the outset Golovin demonstrated the steady and relentlessly aggressive play she'd maintained all week, and the Russian just started to go for too much in response, unable to find the lines and too often finding the net instead. She put up a brave fight but the big points all went the Frenchwoman's way in the end.

It's a shame since it wasn't such a bad match as the scoreline suggests (and lasted well past an hour in fact), with plenty of winners off the rackets of both women and nearly each game coming to deuce, but too many excellent rallies came to an abrupt end with an error from Petrova. All credit to Golovin for keeping up the pressure on her opponent to draw the errors, and well done to her on winning her first title on the fourth attempt.

According to the Beeb, she said she lost interest in the match after going a set down. And theres me saying her mental approach is improving :rolleyes:

Heh, I saw those remarks and shook my head. But I think Petrova is overstating the case, since she was still looking frustrated and clearly fighting to get back in it until the last couple of games, but after squandering several break points that would have seen her draw even in the second set, she did pretty much go away mentally.

I'm not certain she would have done so if it were anyone but a 'nemesis' she were facing, though. I'm still expecting to see a strong showing from her at RG, where she's reached the semis on two occasions and was expected to threaten last year before injury intervened. Can't quite see her lifting a Slam trophy though, despite occasionally being cited as the best player on the women's side not to have done so yet.