The great show was not the girls’ final, nor the boys’ one, which I have missed in part; but this time it was not entirely my fault: a few lines under i will explain you why.
Starting from the girls’ final, it was worse than expected: Alexa Noel was just too much for Nada Nahimana, actually. Alexa had more pace than Nada with her forehand and her sliced backhand gave the girl from Burundi a lot of problems. 6-2 happened in short time and only in the initial two games there was a bit of fight between the two. Nahimana’s high trajectories were too slow and short for Noel, who didn’t find any troubles in moving around the ball and hit rockets with her forehands. When Nahimana tried to hit more flat and be more offensive, her pace was not enough to break down Noel’s defence; to the contrary, with her forehand the American could always return double speed and find better angles, and with her sliced backhand, which she could hit always in comfortable situations, she often put Nahimana into troubles, as many times Noel’s ball didn’t virtually bounce. Only a few times Noel had to hit her backhand from above her shoulders; sometimes she could lower the ball effectively, sometimes her slice resulted too high and short, but even in those few occasions Nahimana missed the following attack.
At the end of the first set Nahimana asked for a coaching and, surprisingly, Noel did too. Nahimana tried new strategies, such as to slow down rythm by moonballing Noel; but this caused not problem at all to the American, also because most of times Nahimana balls were too short and Noel could attack them quite easily. Nahimana also tried a few times to attack Noel’s backhand, and she got some points as such; though it was extremely difficult for her to find a ball suitable to attack. The score was 4-1 in favour of the American when, surprisingly enough, Noel called again Mandlikova for a coaching and had a quick chat with her: both of them looked very relaxed, of course. Suddenly, Noel got completelly distracted; she missed more, she lowered intensity and depth of her shots, she started to hit chops with her forehand for no apparent reasons, and started to moonball back, too short; in 20 minutes the score was 4-4, thanks also to various double faults of Noel. Though, as soon as the American got her concentration back and won the first point of the following game, she took again control and closed easily the set by 6-4.
Nahimana has tried any strategy she could; though, she hadn’t enough shots to counter a Noel who was today, except for 20 minutes during the second set, very solid and consistent (and classy, as usual). This was the worst final I have seen in the last editions, since the gap between the players was too evident. To tell the trough, the girl from Burundi is a great success of the ITF support program, is a lovely and sportsmanlike girl (more than Noel, to be fair, who should stop shouting also at the opponent’s most blatant mistakes and be more respectful, overall), she is better than most of Italian juniors but, still, she was not adequate, at least today; maybe this happened also due to pressure, but honestly, the girl seemed to lack of any solution since game three.
When the final ended, I went out for a coffee and I saw, just a few minutes later… Elli Mandlik rallying with a sparring under the careful watch of the Mother (bow) and then …the Mother (bow) returning Elli’s serves. Well, she didn’t really return serves, she mostly tried to hit the ball to the other side; but to see Hana Mandlikova wearing flip-flops with a racket in her hand, sort of hitting balls in Bonacossa club was very emotional (little tear). As per Elli: it has been as it was when i saw her for the first time: wonderful. I’ve seen many girls training, maybe 50, but I have never seen someone hitting as good as Elli. She hit both shots, the backhand even more, with her arms fully streched, everything is so fluid and gracefull it’s just poetry. And she hits rockets. Real rockets. I wonder why this girl hasn’t won more in her junior career, but she still has a few chances. And I wonder why only now she has won a 15k. I say it: I preferred watching training Elli Mandlik than Iga Swiatek, which for me means a lot.
After the training was over, I went to see the boys’ final, but the score was already 6-3 3-1 in favour of Forejtek. The set ended soon after with the score of 6-4, with Tirante who went two breaks down, got one back, but was too faulty to catch up. Forejtek plays much more flat than the Argentinian; but his backhand is more stable and he was not impressed at all with Tirante topspins, most of times. From the little I’ve seen, Forejtek seemed to me very solid (even if he lost concentration, hit a few dodgy dropshots and was broken, but he immediately regrouped).
Schoolkate and Sweeny have won males doubles against Kalender and Tirante; Kawaguchi and Nagy have easily disposed of Nahimana and Park.
That’s all for this year; 358 days to go to the next Bonfiglio: I hope it will be better than this year’s which, to some extent and for noone’s fault, has been a bit disappointing to me: but i will tell you more about my overall impressions on the 60th edition of Trofeo Bonfiglio in the “wrapping up” piece which will come out tomorrow.
