A couple of years ago my praising articles have put k.o. Iga Siwatek, who managed to beat herself in the final of Bonfiglio after having dominated for half of the match against Rybakina. The same happened to Diana Shnaider, who couldn’t manage all the praises I had for her, it seems. I have seen only some shots of the girl in the first game (which was endless) and I was really impressed. Diana owns a massive built, she already serves quite solidly and, more importantly, she is really keen in finding long the line solutions both with her forehand and her backhand. Her big frame gives her an advantage, but when I see in 15 points four or five shots that leave the opponent at three metres, I start to think I am watching a future champion. I wanted to check another girl, so I left the court for about 20 minutes; when I came back, Daria was mentally shattered and was losing 5-1; it wasn’t worth to watch any longer than five more minutes. Maybe, if (at least for the time I was there) her coach didn’t yell at her at each mistake, including double faults, she may have had opposed more resilience. Anyhow, everyone has its own coaching methodologies and for sure he was right. In the second set Daria managed to come back in the match, but eventually she lost by 7-5.
I have to watch again Diana for a time longer than 15 minutes, but the first impression satisfied my high expectations on her.
The girl I wanted to watch and for whom I left Shnaiders’ court was Chloe Beck, who I saw training last Saturday. Chloe played very poorly and, had I not seen her training, I would think she was a hopeless player. She was constantly attacked also on her first serve, she kept playing three metres behind the baseline and in a couple of occasions, she didn’t move at all and could not properly find the position even if countering routine balls. The bulk of her strategy was to moonball her opponent, trying to break her rhythm; clearly one can’t rely only on that. The only good shot I saw from her was a prodigious backhand volley. She was a completely different girl from the one I saw training; most probably, I attended the worst match of her career. The final score was 6-1 6-0 in favour of Tikhonova.
Many, many praises to Lisa Pigato: I was envisaging a 2-6 2-6 in favour of Emma Navarro, but Lisa revealed to be a much more difficult opponent for the American. Lisa owns less tennis than Emma, but didn’t allow her opponent to rely on her superior power, by keeping her ball very deep and hitting many winning dropshots, which were all very well played. Pigato mentally is super and she always knows what to do on the court: this is her main feature. Also, she owns a tender hand; her game, which cannot rely on power, is varied and enjoyable to see. I can’t say much on Emma Navarro instead, since the games I saw were all led by Pigato, who managed to dictate most of the rallies even if Emma was hitting much harder than the Italian. In particular, the difference of speed between the serves of the two players was really evident (in favour of the American).
That’s all I managed to see today.
The biggest result of the second round was in my view the win of Fruhvirtova against Charaeva, by 7-5 6-4 Fruhvirtova’s win was not fully unexpected, though; a real upset was, instead, the win of Owensby against Kawaguchi. Up to now, Italian Federica Rossi has been impressive, as she lost overall 6 games in two matches, and the same applies to Robin Montgomery. Carol Monnet too is continuing her march, by convincingly beating Charlotte Chavatipon, following her exploit against Tauson. In the next round, the most interesting match will be Fruhirtova vs. Montgomery. This will most possibly allow me to see one of the two, as I plan to take a day off on Friday and attend the tournament all the day long, but makes it for me impossible to see both of them, as tomorrow I will not go.
As per the boys’ tournament, there were no huge upsets in the second round; though the match between Nava and Alcaraz Garfia met indeed the high expectations everyone had, as the first seed managed to beat the younger Spanish only at the tiebreak of the deciding set. Only 2 of the top 10 seeds remain in the draw (Nava and Forejtek); all the others have lost in the first round.
