Seyboth Wild – taken from itf.com
Eventually, I preferred a boys’ match to a girls’ one! I found the boys’ final quite entertaining, whilst the girls’ was in my view highly disappointing. Here below you can find short considerations on the two matches.
Boys: the boys’ final was played between the Brasilian Seyboth Wild and the Italian Lorenzo Musetti (thanks to whom this website has obtained many views during the last days). Notwistanding he was not a seeded player himself, Musetti was lucky enough to reach the final without having faced any seed; yet, of course, he has beaten throughout the tournament good players, such as the American Kingsley and the French Cazaux. Wild, to reach the final, has beaten one seeded player, i.e the first seed Tseng, in the semifinal.
Wild represents all the reasons why I usually don’t watch males’ tennis: he is super-athletic, super powerful, constantly serves at 200 kms/h and wins each point through serve and forehand combnations. Wild is much more powerful than his opponent Musetti, also because he is two years older than the Italian. The gap between the two was evident during the first set, as Wild won it by 6-1 in 18 (!) minutes. Though, during the second and the third sets, in my view Musetti has demonstrated to own a better tennis than his opponent, even if eventually he lost. Musetti hits a wonderful one handed backhnd and a bit weird but very effective forehand: with both shots he is able to variate the trajectories, find different solutions and craft each shot neatly, finding very tight angles. Musetti’s variations, and expecially the ability of the Italian to hit higher trajectories and to variate the rythim of the rallies, literally made Weild go bonkers: after virtually having lost no point on his serve during the first serve, the Brasilian was broken 3 times in a row, so that he lost the second set by 6-2 and was broken early in the third set. Though, on 1-2 it was Musetti’s turn to become foolish as, on a break point in favour of his opponent, he played a completelly unnecessary forehand chop which bounced out: a less risky flat attacking shot would have been much more appropriate in the context. The match thus swiftly turned again, as Wild regained his confidence and his serve, and eventually won by 6-2.
Wild won because of his more power and experience, but I would be surprised if the Brasilian achieves better results in his career than the Italian, as the latter owns a much more tender hand and more variety of solutions. Though, in order to secure a good career, Musetti must somehow learn to hit a first serve, which currently is a non existent shot: today he hit high and slow lifts against his opponent backhand and, to a certain extent, this strategy has paid off: though, Musetti will not be able to pursue a career if he constantly serves slower than 160 km/h: of course he has all the time to improve such shot as he is only 16.
Girls: the girls’ final was played between Clara Burel and Xiyu Wang. I was expecting this match to be quite interesting because of the different styles of the two players: Wang is more powerful whilst Burel is faster and more classy. Wang was quite faulty during the whole match; though it was Burel who has disappointed me most: beside a few maveillous shots in which she displayed all her talent, such as a cross-court forehand drop shot which convinced me to marry her and a passing shot on the run with her forehand, Burel hit quite short during all the match, allowing Wang to play the game in which she is more confident: in most of the rallies the Chinese was able to enter in the court and put all her weight on the ball, overpowering her little-framed opponent. Burel should have instead tried to keep the trajectories longer and force her opponent to move more as, being so tall, Wang is not particularly fast nor coordinated. Wang played most of the match close to the baseline while Burel played three metres behind it: notwistanding the above, the first set ended with a tie-break (Wang gained a 5-3 lead but Burel equalised and took immediately after a 6-5 lead, if I correctly remember), mostly because Wang was indeed in control of the rallies but, several times, she was not able to convert such advantage as she incurred in many unforced errors.
In the tie-break Burel played the two best poinst of the match: one was the passing shot on the run mentioned above and the other was a nice winning lob, hit after having displayed some huge defences. Though, having taken a 3-2 lead, the French girl lost all the following points, conceding to Wang the first set. The rest of the match much easier for the Chinese as, after each player hold her serves in the initial games, she found an early break, took a 4-2 lead and won the second set by 6-2.
This match in my view was boring: I found Xiyu Wang to be less competitive than her compatriot Xin Yu Wang: not only their name are very similar, but also the style of their game is. The difference between the two is that Xiyu serves with material less effectiveness, especially on the second serve, and she is much more keen to unforced errors from the baseline. Moreover, being very tall, she is not graceful nor pleasant to watch. As per Burel, I like her but today – except for a few point – her game was anonymous and she deserved to lose the match: Wang didn’t play well, but she tried to attack and control the rallies. Burel, even if in my view owns more talent than the Chinese, played even worse. The result was a pretty bad final.
