Today, the hottest and sunniest day ever,– tomorrow will be worse, anyway – , was fully (or better mostly) dedicated to the U.S.A. The main course of the menu consisted in our new hero, Liv Hovde, playing against Diana Shnaider: this is a match that worths a slam final, as Shnaider ranks 5 in the ITF Junior circuit, whilst Hovde ranks 8. Shnaider is 18 year old, Hovde is 16.
First of all, I realised that I have misjudged both players’ serve. Hovde serve is not huge, but it’s very precise. In particular, she is good in finding tight angles, opening thus the court. Shnaider’s serve is big; very big. And the Russian relied a lot on this weapon (and on her forehand) to win the first set and to battle till the end.
Hovde, eventually won in three sets with the score of 4-6 6-4 6-2. She won as she owns more solutions and overall, I think, she is more skilled than her opponent; but it wasn’t easy at all. The American was actually quite unlucky: she had many chances to gain a double break in the first set, and some could-have been winners were instead errors by a matter a matter of inches. But there is a reason, different from bad luck, explaining why Hovde lost the first set: she made the crucial mistake of allowing herself to lose aggressiveness and of playing noticeably shorter. This allowed Shnaider to play her forehand more often, to put her feet in the court and blast the ball, as she can do so well. Thus, the Russian managed to recover from a break down and to win the first set by 6-4.
The same mistake Hovde didn’t do in the second set. She was immediately aggressive again, even when missing; she attempted several times serve and volley, which had seldom success as she couldn’t volley close enough to the net and was thus forced to demi-volley. Hovde managed to put pressure on her opponent in particular thanks to her ability to counterpunch, which allowed the American to remain always stuck to the baseline, whatever happened, whilst her opponent was forced to play most of the match two metres behind. Hovde could counterpunch also some of the biggest forehand of the Russian, and this unbalanced a bit Shnaider, as her boom-boom game secured some less results than expected. Overall, for Schneider it was impossible, if not when helped by a big first serve, to take control of the rallies and she had often to exit from her comfort zone, by relying too much on backhand dropshots, which for sure is not her main weapon. Actually, also in the second set the score could have been more in favour of the American, if a few shots that went out of an inch would have staid in, if some cheeky net deviations would have not occurred or had the American avoided to miss very easy balls (including a volley hit from 1 metre of the net and her opponent’s court full open).
But it’s not only the aggressive attitude which secured Hovde’s win. Liv displayed different abilities, including decent skills at the net, a willingness to go to the net, in order to try (successfully) to preclude Shnaider from defending by slowing down the rhythm, and some good capacity in crafting shots (chops, counter drop shots) in reply to the several backhand dropshots from Shnaider.
Overall, having seen Hovde once more after a great first impression, in a match against a tough opponent, who was more powerful than her, the great impression is still there. I continue to think she is the best player I have seen in Milan since Swiatek’s time. She is less powerful than the Polish, but she is a great striker, and maybe owns a bit more defensive skills and variations. For sure, Hovde suffers no black-outs that were so typical of Iga when she was 16.
Few words on Diana Shnaider: she plays a game I do not like; big serve, very big forehand. Though, I must say she has become more than that: today she was tough especially mentally, and gave Hovde a hard time. I would have expected her to melt if things turned bad for her, which absolutely didn’t happen. She fought as a beast till 1-3 in the third set when, she called for a medical treatment; she had her own chances to win, even if I think she wouldn’t have deserved a victory, overall. All the credit go to her and it’s not a surprise that she has won a 60k if she always play with such intensity.
