My polish is definitely improving and, finally, I found a way to exploit this further skill of mine. The heading should mean (hopefully) “a baby-pig for Maja Chwalinska”, being the mentioned baby-pig the famous “porceddu” that is eaten in Sardegna: all this to say that mighty Maja Chwalinka is currently playing a 25k in Santa Margherita di Pula, where she qualified for the second round of the main draw having beaten, in the decisive qualification round, Italian Martina Caregaro by 7-6 7-6, and Jelena Simic in the first round of the tournament (6-1 6-0 was the result). I decided that, from now on, whenever I speak of something related to S.M. Pula, the relevant article will be titled “Porceddu [whatever]” (and if, eventually, you eat one of those, you may understand the rationale of such decision).
Maja is a veeery interesting and peculiar player: she was born in 2001, currently ranks 70 on the junior tour and shows a best ranking of 44. She has achieved her best result in doubles, winning the junior fed cup and being a finalist in the Australian Open; she also won the grade 1 immediately preceding the Australian Slam, the AGL Traralgon. All the above results were achieved pairing with our friend BerghemIga Swiatek. In singles, Maja has not obtained outstanding results up to now: she achieved her best by reaching the quarter finals in the Orange Bowl last year; she also reached a quarter-final in a grade 1 and a semi-final in a grade two: why a piece on Maja, then, since indeed one can find peers of her who achieved more? I’ll tell you in a second.
I have seen Maja training in Milan, but I was mostly focusing on Swiatek and I didn’t really took note of her; plus, whilst she trains, only a bit of what she can do appears; though, recently, a Polish friend of mine has revealed to me that Marion Bartoli compared Chwalinska to Martina Hingis: that made my interest raise, of course, and I immediately did some research on Maja, for your delight, readers.
I watched two matches and a half played by Maja: one that she lost in three set against Gabriela Pantuckova in 2016, half match against Italian Grymalska and the full streaming of the match she just played in S.M. Pula against Caregaro. From what I saw, I am not sure that the comparison with Hingis is fully deserved; in particular, I doubt that Maja will become 1st in the world by next year. But, indeed, this girl plays a kind of tennis which is unique, a tennis that we have forgotten: Maja is just extraordinarily gifted.
Chwalinska is a tiny, tiny player, about 5.2 feet tall, so indeed she is not a powerful hitter; though, she owns a spectacular feel, really top notch. All the peculiarities of this young tiny girls derive from the above. She moves super-fast: she is in continuous motion to find always a good position on the ball, by reaching it with fast and little steps, as by the books; she is very agile and thus owns noticeable defensive skills, not disdaining to lift the ball when in troubles and being able always to keep depth in her shots; but not only: thanks to her coordination, it is not rare to see Maja hitting a winner even if playing a shot when fully stretched and fully out of position, also by playing along the line.
But the most fan part of her game is the offensive one. First, Maja is an absolute master of drop-shots: she just she hits countless of them both with her forehand and backhand and from whatever position she finds herself in: sometimes she hits them even when standing 2 metres behind the baseline!! Her drop-shots are always super-precise: or they fall just over the net or they hit the top of it; the second occurrence is extremely rare if she hits reasonably close to the net, of course it can happen more often if she hits behind the baseline (but, still, she misses much less often than one could expect!). In basically 3 matches I have watched, I have never ever seen Maja hitting what I call a lob- dropshot, i.e. those drops landing way too long and allowing the opponent to recover and close the points easily: if she misses, she misses short and it’s always a question of inches. More, relying Maja a lot on slices, her dropshots are very well disguised. After I saw how Maja plays drop-shots, I must admit that my definition of “holy-hand”, which I attributed to Juvan-the-Beloved-One, is currently under reconsideration.
That’s not all, though. Maja goes for the net quite often even if not really-really often. Not sure her dad is Stefan Edberg, but quite possibly her mum is Roberta Vinci: her technique in volleying is superb and to see Maja hit even an easy volley is a pleasure for eyes, which are nowadays used to those crap full-swing shots that most players hit even when standing at one metre from the net. Maja too hits full swings-volleys, but only from the service-line, (and that’s pretty fine of course), not if she is more advanced. And you know what she also does? Sneak attacks!! Yes!! Sometimes she charges even after a real high topspin, without her opponent realising it! It seems this girl came straight from the mid-80s!!
Those are the most prominent aspects of her game, related mostly to her divine hand, but there is even more: also from the baseline Maja is very interesting to watch, especially because of her variations: she hits a top-spinned double-handed backhand but she relies quite often on slice, which she hits long and low, so that the shot, most of times, is not a purely defensive one; she hits the sliced backhand with a “one and a half hand” (guess you understand what I mean) but, nonetheless, the execution is cute to see. Maja is also crazy for chops: in her matches against Grimalska and Pantuckova she hit dozens of those; whilst in the match against Caregaro only a few (and she also hit fewer sliced backhands): not sure if this was a tactical decision or if, growing up, she is starting to play a bit less naively: ok, chops are cute, but sometimes really she exaggerated. Anyhow, who cares: long life to chops. And to Maja.
Not only slices and chops: Maja variates also her tops, passing from normally spinned shots to, especially with her forehand, highly spinned and short crosscourt shots (against the opponent backhand: Maja is lefty) which force the opponent to open abysses on her forehand’s side: these highly spinned shots are not only effective, but also beautiful to see, since they draw a perfectly arched trajectory, as you could find in Pisa’s baptistery’s cupola/ceilings: this is why Maja is also known as “Diotisalvi” – which, indeed, especially in this case, is not only a name but a plead too[1]. And, guess what: sometimes… she charges the net following those perfect architectures, through sneak attacks!!
Guys, I stop here but, please, trust me: watch on youtube at least the first 4 games of the match Maja played against Pantuckova: you can find all her repertoire there; plus, Pantuckova is an elegant player who is charming to watch; the mix of these two girls is really good to see. Instead, don’t look at the match Maja played against Caregaro; that match was not Maja’s best and it was very bad one of her opponent: it was quite boring.
Hurrah, for Diotisalvi Chwalinska: players around as such make, in my view, girl’s tennis so much more interesting then males’: if, as I do, you enjoy a delicate, intelligent, classy and a bit naïve tennis, Maja is the girl to watch.
[1] Diotisalvi, beside being the name of the architect of Pisa’s Baptistery, is a word which in Italian means “God save you”
