So the finals of Australian Open will be played by the hot favourite, 1st seed Masarova, who beat in the semifinals 4-6 7-6(5) 6-0 the strong Canadian Andreescu, and the rising star Marta Kostyuk, who defeated 6-1 7-5 the 16th seed Elena Rybakina: in the article I wrote at the beginning of the tournament I predicted that Kostyuk was one of the favourites to gain the title!!
I have seen neither of the semi-finals, so, whilst we are waiting for the big match, I want to come back to Marta and give a bit more colour on her (and her unpredictably funny “crazy” moments), by sharing a few more details on the match she played against Burrage. I must admit that that match, in its craziness, has been real fascinating to see, in its own way. For an overall picture of Marta’s game you can refer to my former article https://www.tennisunderworld.it/2017/01/26/kostyuk-vs-kostyuk/, which can be considered as a first part to this one.
I was curious to see how Marta would have performed against a strong player as Burrage and, to my surprise, even if through ups and downs, Marta managed to control quite easily the situation, grabbing an early break and taking a 3-1 lead. She was in control of the game, disposing of her opponent on one point and making an unforced error on the following point. For sure one can say that Burrage was not allowed to find her rhythm. But on 3-1 Burrage was able to hold: and the crazy moment arrived.
The funny thing is that Marta is an open book: after having seen her playing only once, in the match against Naho Sato, when she sat down on 3-2 waiting to change court, I swear I was able to predict that one of the crazy moment was about to come on: it was clear from the expression on her face and from the fact that she started to breathe too heavily, something she did also when she lost control against Sato. Reasons for such “explosion of craziness” are unknown to me, since after all she was leading and holding the game in her hands: be it as it may, in the following game Marta hit two completely super-violent but meaningless returns which ended in the lower part of the net and one further return missing the court by two meters, losing thus at 30 a game she could have easily won (keep in mind that Burrage couldn’t handle Kostyuk’s shots’ weight: for Marta it was just a matter to hit the ball in the court and do nothing special to win the point). Marta continued to play as such, going down 3-4 and then 3-5. Having made her point, i.e. “I can get everything wrong”, of course she was able to come back to 5-5, easily breaking back Burrage and causing her to make what Slam Tracker qualifies as four forced errors in a row. After this come-back, one would have expected Marta to regain control and win the set, but no: she lost the game, went 5-6 down and managed then to reach the tiebreak. And trust me: nearly every point was won or lost by Kostyuk, through a winner or a non-sense shot, throughout the set (including the last two games). If you check the stats of the first set, they track 30 unforced errors by Kostyuk and 31 by Burrage; winners, 9 by Kostyuk and 15 by Burrage. I don’t agree with the figures: I had the impression throughout the whole set that Burrage suffered Kostyuk’s shot weight, and that what appeared to be unforced by Burrage were instead forced errors. And no chance there were only 9 winners by Kostyuk.
Anyway, tie-break starts and Kostyuk goes down 4-0 without basically playing; then something strange happens: she realises that what she has to do is not try a winner each shot but, instead, rally her opponent: she then started to serve at 130 per hour (normally she serves at 160-170), just to be sure to place first serves in and not to be attacked; and here we are, she wins 4 points and she equalises at 4-4. Of course, on the following point Marta hit again one of those marvellous returns at the bottom of the net and finally manages to lose a set which I think she could have comfortably won by 6-3.
The rest is history; I became annoyed by this huge talent still to be fully tamed, and I changed match, not seeing a set that Kostyuk was able to win, unsurprisingly, 6-1 the second set; then I watched the third set, in which she took a comfortable 3-0 lead, before the outrageous event, i.e. Burrage winning a game, occurred again. Marta went really desperate due to this unexplainable fact and on the following game, of course, she double faulted twice, going 0-30 down. She managed to hold anyway and get a 4-1 lead; then again, of course, Marta allowed Burrage back to 4-4 making an unforced error after another before, finally, somehow, winning against herself 6-4 and qualifying for the quarterfinals. Kostyuk’s stats at the end of the match were: 9 double faults, 40 winners and 57 unforced errors. You can figure out from these numbers, if the above description were not enough, the kind of crazy match I have watched: something which Camila Giorgi could become envious of (leaving aside the fact that Giorgi is 25 and not 14).
As I said, I did not follow Marta’s quarter finals match against Liang; I just kept it in the background whilst I was writing my former article on Kostyuk. I must say that Liang didn’t seem to have many chances from the beginning, since she is half tall than Kostyuk. Anyhow, the audio of the match was sufficient to understand how things were going: surprisingly, I heard only few screams by Marta and no Shakespearean monologues (in Russian), so I knew she was comfortably winning. It seems another Kostyuk played against Liang: stats showed only 3 double faults, 19 winners and 17 unforced errors: much more consistent numbers (it is unlikely that Marta, even if calm and focused, will commit fewer unforced errors, at least until she does not become more experienced: her game is too risky, and I guess the above stats are pretty fine for her). No stats on winners/unforced are available on the semi-finals match Marta played against Rybakina, so I cannot say anything on it.
A few words on the other finalist, Rebeka Masarova form Switzerland. Beside ranking 4th Junior ITF, last year Rebeka amazingly exploited a wild for the WTA Gstaad tournament in which she reached the semies, having lost against that fantastic player who is Viktorjia Golubic. Yet, not only the girl, aging at the time 16, was able to reach the semies, but on her way she managed to beat great players like Jelena Jankovic (in 3 sets) and Annika Beck (in 2 sets). I also took a peek at the match that Masarova played against Hontama, which she won 6-3 6-1.
A few quick notations on her: first, she is a redhead; then she is tall, serves solidly, and she is consistent from the baseline. I noticed two particular features of her game: she is not overwhelmingly powerful, but she is very neat and precise from the baseline, being able to keep the ball deep and to find real good angles. Plus, she is sensible enough not to play big when she does not have to: she does not take unnecessary risks either from the baseline or in her attacking shots. This makes Masarova a player difficult to beat, because she can attack and her opponent cannot expect she will be gifted with many points.
Masarova is, thus, a fully developed and complete player, whilst Kostyuk, being three years younger, is still not (of course). I am curious to see how Marta will perform against this solid, complete girl, who of course is to be indicated as the favourite to win the Australian Open: but if the “reasonable” Kostyuk will show up, at least for most part of the match, the match between the two can become really interesting and who knows what can happen. One last notation: having reached the finals, if my calculations are correct, Rebeka Masarova will rank at least no. 3 of the Junior ITF tour, whilst Marta will rank 7. At 14 year old.
Tommy Hemp
