Yesterday I didn’t give any update, as the Tournament lost any sense to me and to anyone else: Gracheva has lost against Rivera Corado by 7-6 6-3. My Russian girl was actually leading by 5-3 in the first set and I was fairly confident I would have been able to see her today and deliver her a marriage proposal (also in order to relax Varvara before what would have been her quarter final match against Luxemburgish Molinaro). None of this has happened: to all single girls reading this blog, I have a spare engagement ring which I can’t use no more. Please notify me in case you are interested.
Anyhow, today I took the whole day off to follow the tournament for you, my dear readers, and it was a good idea. I focused mostly on one match, i.e. Danish Clara Tauson (on whom I have already spoken) vs. the first seed Xinyu Wang. The match between the two was basically equal and it should have finished with a draw; but that’s not possible in tennis and the final score was 6-4 7-6(9) in favour of the Danish.
I actually under-evaluated Wang before the tournament: my memories of her after the semifinal she lost against Clara Burel in the Australian Open (it seems the girl has issues in playing against Claras) were not great; today, though, she made me change my mind. The Chinese owns a huge first serve and she aced several times during the match: in the second set she served 3 aces in a single game. She is a pure baseliner owning a very big forehand and backhand and she can hit shots at thousand miles per hour. I see only two limits in her game: first, her backhand is really flat: if the shot hits the court it produces extreme damages but, several times, it lands long or floods in the net; second, Wang always plays the same kind of tennis, grounded on her super power. It’s really difficult to play against her on the basis of “who hits harder” but I think she finds some problems in managing slices and dirty balls: her opponent may gain some free points against her if she plays some trick shots. Anyhow, I found Wang very competitive and she is indeed the girl who was able to hit the ball harder within those I saw. I prefer her to her compatriot Xi Yu Wang, who didn’t play this year, but attended last years’ event.
Let’s move now to Tauson: I recently asked myself if this girl can partly fill the hole left by the departure of many of her peers from the Junior Tour: well, my answer is, yes: I think that Clara is currently the best player within the girls who are effectively playing junior events. First feature I noticed in her game is her serve: the swing is slow and extremely relaxed and she does not even appear to accelerate so much during the motion; but I tell you, the hit is very big: maybe not as big as Wang’s, but Clara is very solid and efficient both with her first and second serve and she is also capable to variate them: sometimes she hits slower looking for external angles, sometimes she just goes for power. Even more, the whole motion of her serve is extremely elegant. From the baseline, Clara plays big but, again, not as big as Wang. Her timing is great as she always seems to be placed for the shot well in advance and, again, the swing of her shots seem to be slow and relaxed, generating though a heavy hit. In my view, compared to Wang, Clara is a more complete player, as she can slice, play some net game and she doesn’t always hit 100% each shot: she is capable of doing many more things than Wang.
The first set between the two was not super fun: both girls played really well but, as they after all own a similar kind of tennis, the points, even if decided by very well executed shots, were a bit all the same one to the other. More, both players were serving very well and never faced any problems in holding until 4-4: at this stage Wang had to save a break point and in the following game (which started to be a tense one) Tauson, after having missed a few shots, was cool blooded enough to save two of them. On 5-4 in favour of the Danish there was the decisive break, through which Tauson secured the first set to herself. Even If I recognised that the level was very high, since I wasn’t having a great fun I left the match and went to see how Molinaro and Cocciaretto were doing. When the matches of the two girls were over, I went back to the central court, just in time to see the Danish extend her lead to 4-2 in the second set. Soon after, Tauson served for the match but she was broken back, not before Wang being forced to save a match point which Tauson basically didn’t play (and it was her own fault, she felt too much pressure). The set ended up at the tiebreak, which was the most beautiful part of the whole match: Wang took an early lead of 4-1 and Tauson seemed to have mentally collapsed. Unexpectedly, instead, the young Danish managed to equalise on 5-5; the two played each following point one better than the other, committing no mistakes but just hitting many beautiful winners. There was even a contested point on 10-9 in favour of Wang, when a backhand from Tauson actually seemed to me (and to Wang too) to have landed long. Finally, it was the Danish who won and I think she deserved to.
In my view, Tauson vs. Wang was the real final of the tournament: in the next matches Touson can be beaten only if she offers some cooperation to her opponents.
Beside the above, I have seen a set and a half of the match between Sinner and Tajima. Sinner was a bit the surprise of the boys’ tournament, as his rank is currently not good; though, up to now, his results during this week have been outstanding. The final score was 4-6 6-1 7-6 in favour of the Japanese: Sinner had a match point and I think he could have won, hadn’t him not felt too much pressure on the match point and during the tie-break: in the final part of the match the speed of his shots (and also of his opponent’s, even if less noticeably) decreased dramatically. Sinner must be proud of his self as, one year ago, he was playing Grades’ 2 quali. The shot I liked more of the Italian is the backhand, which is very harmonious, even if up to now the hit is not as heavy as the one with his forehand. I think, though, that Sinner’s backhand will become a real beauty.
I have seen a few shots of Molinaro, who easily beaten Riviera Corado by 6-2 6-2 and of Cocciaretto, who has beaten Ukrainian Dema by 6-4 6-2. I have also seen the doubles played by Leonard and Stara vs. Prisicariu and Radisic, but that match was not very good.
Girls’ semifinal will be Cocciaretto vs. Molinaro (the match I will privilege) and Tauson vs. Naito. Boys’ will be Baez vs. Tajima and Andreev vs. Diaz Acosta.
