It seems that Greta Thunberg’s climate strikes are sorting some effects, as in Milan we are experiencing the coldest and wettest May since 1228. B.C. It has been raining all day long and it seems it will rain non-stop until Tuesday.
As the club where the tournament is usually played, Alberto Bonacossa, owns one indoor court only, and the bubbles have been removed in mid-April, the qualifications’ rounds have been played in three different locations: the only available court in Bonacossa was used and some courts in two other clubs placed at the opposite sides of the town were used.
The above caused two main side effects: as Italians are used to play on clay, bubbles covering clay courts are the first to be removed: thus, since no indoor clay courts are available in Milan in this period, even if the tournament should be played on clay, today the matches were all played on hard courts.
The other side effect has more of a “strategic” nature: most of the matches in the first quali rounds are honestly non-sense, as many girls ranking over 100th spot prefer to play as seeds in the Hungarian Grade 2 held in these days than to play quails in Bonfiglio (having to pay hospitality and possibly failing to qualify). This means that half of the board is occupied by (Italian) weak players, who one day will be happy to say to they grand child that they competed in Bonfiglio, but do not actually offer any resilience to the quali draw seeds. Thus, the most interesting thing to do in the first day of qualifications is to switch from a court to another and to try to spot interesting youngsters. Though, as the tournament was spread in different places, this was not possible and my day was partly ruined.
Anyway, the good news is that I managed to see one of the two Aussie girls I like, Anastasia Berezov. Her opponent was a weak Italian girl and Anastasia won her match by 6-1 6-0; it’s not possible, thus, to write any proper judgement on her on the basis of what I have seen today. I can just state the following: Anastasia is indeed very small, but she is powerful: she hits quite hard both forehand and backhand, and it’s difficult to understand where she gets all that power from. I think that, compared to her match against Tauson, her serve has improved quite a lot, but this must be tested against more challenging opponents. I will check her again tomorrow, for sure.
I have seen Noah Krznaric’s match. It’s the third year in a row I write on this girl, and still I am not sure on how to spell her surname. Noah remains quite a bit of a disappointment: after having dominated in Europe as an under 14, she is still facing troubles and today she has lost by 4-6 4-6. Noah hits powerfully, but still she finds issues in hitting the court (which is an important element in tennis) and she does not move that fast. I must also say that Noah was not so lucky with her draw. Her opponent was Valentina Gaggini, born in 2001; Valentina owns little experience in juniors’, but she can play tennis. She serves well and owns a nice double handed backhand; her forehand is weaker but, still, not bad. Valentina plays a smaller tennis than Noah, but she is faster and more regular than the Croatian, and she can hit winners too. Her victory was well deserved today and she was a pleasure to watch. She was a nice surprise.
I didn’t watch any other match, because I spent the most of the afternoon in trying to help Russian Taisya Pachkaleva to find a court where to practice. Due to the bad weather (and the lack of indoor courts throughout the town), many players couldn’t really practice; anyhow, I succeeded and I was paid off by seeing a nice training session between the top-50 girl and American Chloe Beck: this was good. Even more interestingly, on the court next to the one on which Taisya and Chloe were practicing, I have seen a few shots from – I think – Natsumi Kawaguchi, currently ranking in 16th spot of the Junior ranking. I believe I have never seen a junior girl hitting as hard as Natsumi: not even Swiatek and I was really impressed, also because the Natsumi owns a quite small frame. it seems that Japanese School, after Naito and Sato, is continuing to create new top-notch junior girls.
Lastly, I will avoid to recap today’s result as they are easy to find, but only point to two upsets: I have already mentioned the first one, which was the win of Gaggini against Krznaric. The other was the win by Giulia Martinelli, a young Italian who achieved some results, against Daniella Dimitrova currently ranking in 147th spot, but with a best ranking of 68. This is a prestigious win for Giulia.
As per boys’ event: as usual, I haven’t followed anything.
