There are no enough praises one can write on Liv Hovde, who for sure has become one of my favourite players. Today she has unexpectedly beaten a 100% trademarked “Ova”, who I knew anything about, before this match. This Ova is 17 year old Lucie HavlickOva, from Czech Republic of course. As known, in the Czech Republic they have more top 10 women tennis players than female citizens, and Havlickova may well be no exception to this rule.
Lucie is indeed a great Ova. She is taller than me standing on a pile of books, and she digs holes in the ground with her forehand, backhand, serve and also when she bounces the ball on the ground before serving. One could immediately notice the different weight between Hovde’s and Havlickova’s ball (and its not that Hovde hits soft) and even more the difference between the serves of the two girls. In the first set Havlickova missed little and Liv Hovde, (a.k.a. the Last Beloved One – in short L.B.O. (oooh… L.B.O.) – couldn’t really bear the superior pace of the Czech. The set went one direction, and it didn’t take long for Ova to grab it by 6-3.
But L.B.O. is resourceful: in particular, she never misses. And she always counterpunch not shorter that half metre from the opponent’s baseline unless the latter hits 4 winners in a row. And you know what, being not so tall, L.B.O. is also very fast and she is willing to fight as a blonde (and a bit more delicate) version of Arantxa Sanchez Vicario. And eventually, after so many “ova”‘s shots coming back to her court, and coming back deep and fast, Havlickova started to miss and L.B.O. took a 3-1 lead. From there to the end of the second sent there has been some of the most exciting tennis I have seen in the last years on the central court, as also the participation of the crowd (who was all supporting the American) demonstrated. L.B.O. tried not to become too defensive, notwithstanding her lower pace, she run, she volleyd and Havlickova missed too much. the Czeck became very nervous as she couldn’t prevail in the rallies as she wanted, and started to miss several easy winners and to double fault. Basically Havlickova mentally crushed. Having lost the second set she immediately lost her serve again. At this point, also L.B.O. messed up with double faults and made a couple of her very few unforced. She was broken but, contrary to her opponent, she immediately regained focus and broke back the game after. The match virtually finished, Hovde took a 5-1 lead and won the set 6-2, winning an immense game, in which she managed to overcome, crushing little by little, a first class player who was older, more powerful, started in grate shape and who should have won the match, but deserved to lose it. Fantastic stuff and very high quality tennis.
Males semifinal. Booooring!!!!
I wanted to look at Tien’s match but he was disappointing: not that he played bad, not at all; but he showed little of the variety that he displayed yesterday. And i think this is why he lost against Vallejo: he played too much from the baseline, letting Vallejo playing in his comfort zone, hitting his forehand against Tiens backhand. I didn’t see all of the match because it became exhausting (also due to the heat); but the set and a half i saw Tien went for the net 0 times (Vallejo did instead, in at least few occasions) and tried just a few drop shot, not even particularly well executed, as most of times the Paraguayan was able to play the ball and win the point. In the long run, Vallejo’s tennis, more suited for the surfice, prevailed. But, despite the loss, i still think that Tien owns more skill and I belive that, without prejudice to the above, also today this was evident. I was supporting the American, because i prefer his game to Vallejo’s. The good news of his loss is that he may come back to give to Bonfiglio another shot! It would be great to have him again.
