Dear foreign readers, I like Cocciaretto!!

A.k.a., Coociareeedo, as she is usually called by empires. But don’t tell N.B.O. I like her, please, otherwise I’ll face troubles.
Apologies if I am writing a second article on the same Italian player in a short timeframe – even if the first article was more focused on Cori Gauff than on Elisabetta, to be fair -; I usually focus on the strongest players or on rising stars, who in both cases, most of the times, happen not to be Italian, and I am not sure Elisabetta yet fits in any of the two categories. Though, in this part of the season in which I am scouting new players as most of the girls I used to follow left the junior tour, Elisabetta is indeed the most interesting one (which does not mean the strongest) I have seen. Paolo is keeping close eyes on her so, whatever happens, this will be the first and last article of mine focused on Elisabetta, at least for a good while (we don’t want to turn this magazine in a fan club after two matches won).
As I was hoping, I managed to see a more “normal” match of Elisabetta, after the one she played against Gauff, i.e. the match against Gabriella da Silva Fick in the second round of the Junior Australian Open. As per Gabriella, whom I never heard of before, she did not play on the junior tour in 2017 as she focused on the Pro Tour. She currently ranks 850th position in WTA rankings. To be fair, she seemed to me a less dangerous opponent than Gauff: Gabriella serves very well but, at least against Elisabetta, she was quite faulty and inconsistent from the baseline. Anyway,in the first round the Aussie girl dismissed Radisic very easily and one week ago she took a set off from Gauff: she is, thus, able indeed to play good tennis, possibly better than what she showed yesterday.
The first feature of Elisabetta which positively impressed me was her mental toughness. She started the match quite terribly, being immediately broken, and she made 3 double faults in her first service game. As she served for the second time being under 0-2, she went in troubles again, as she was 15-30 down: she was honestly playing bad tennis in the early stages of the match, missing a lot from the baseline. However, Elisabetta solved this quite uncomfortable situation by hitting a winning serve and, immediately after, an ace; she managed thus to hold her serve and keep the set open. This was coolness indeed, taking also into account that, as far as I know, this is only the second Slam that Elisabetta is playing and I guess she may feel a bit of pressure.
Soon after, she proved again her temper: on 3-3 she won a quite long game which, for me, was the turning point of the match, by hitting further three aces (be aware: as I will clarify, the girl is not exactly Serena Williams). From thereon, Elisabetta never lost control of the struggle, as she was dominating in most of the rallies from the baseline. Having won the first set by 6-4, the second set went quite straightforward for her: the final score was 6-2.
The first positive feature I noticed of Elisabetta’s game was her defensive skills. As it is usual for Italian girls, she is small, I guess not much taller than 1.60; this may not be an advantage in itself indeed, but it allows her to be very fast and coordinated. Even in complicated situations she is often able to commute a defence into an attack, as  most of the times she finds great timing also on the run. From both wings Elisabetta often manages to keep depth in her shots when countering attacks and also to find very good angles. A couple of times she was under great pressure and managed to counter unexpectedly well on the forehand diagonal, not allowing Da Silva to gain advantages even if she was forcing a lot; Elisabetta ended up by winning the points, as she caused her opponent to overhit. More, when defending, she is able to find impressive anticipations, even when she seems to be late on the ball.
Coociareeedo is not only defence: she owns a fairly spinned and, I would say, “normally good” forehand and a very peculiar backhand, which she hits extremely flat. The noticeable aspects of her backhand are that, notwithstanding the risky trajectory, she very seldom misses it, she is able to counter extremely violently also big shots by her opponent (without hitting the ball five metres long, of course) and she is naturally able to jump on the ball. As I noticed in her match against Gauff, Elisabetta is capable, with both fundamentals, to place her shots wherever she wants and to find tight angles: she thus can hit winners even without striking the ball at tremendous speed (I mean, in light of her small frame she does not hit soft, but of course there are much bigger hitters out there); this, added to her defensive skills, makes her game interesting and fun to watch, as it is full of unexpected solutions. Again, I found her first serve not to be bad at all; when needed she can reach a quite good speed (168 km/h was the fastest speed registered) and, again, she serves neatly; this is why she has made quite a few aces in this match. Much more problematic was her second serve: the lift didn’t always show up and she double-faulted several times, once by hitting the ball close to the baseline. Further, at least sometimes, she hit second serves too softly, allowing her opponent easy winners.
During the second set Elisabetta also appeared a couple of times at the net: two high volleys of her were not great, as she left her opponent chances for decently easy passing shots (which were  missed). Low volleys were instead played safely and confidently.
Beside the bad matches that anyone can have, the only limitation I can find in this girl is the other side of her strength: i.e. her small frame. She is not as light as N.B.O. or Chwalinska, and she is able to play as a pure baseliner; though she may end up suffering bigger hitters than herself as, be sure of this, her defensive skills will not work as good as they did yesterday against the Potapovas. In this sense, I think she needs to develop a bit more variations, improve her slice and maybe play a bit more vertical, just to be able to develop different strategies when she will not be able to exclusively rely on her baseline game.
The second and most immediate problem Elisabetta must face is this piece itself, since when I write a “portrait” of a player, she immediately loses the following match. Ask Iga Swiatek for confirmations. If only a chain reaction could be set up, this risk would be reduced immensely….