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Tuesday, January 18, 2022

Seeing 31 From Both Sides of the Net

Sorana Cirstea has already visited penguins and kangaroos this month during her trip Down Under, but they can't be credited for the Romanian's big win today on Cain Arena. No, along with herself, of course, that had a lot to do with Petra Kvitova.



Cirstea's upset of the #20-seeded Czech wasn't exactly a "stunner" (especially since the same thing happened a year ago in Melbourne, albeit in a three-setter in the 2nd Round), though the final scoreline *was* a little eyebrow-raising. Well, unless it was actually *confirming*, I guess, depending on how one saw Kvitova's impending fortunes heading not just into this Australian Open, but the '22 season in general. She's certainly shown a bit of erosion over the past year or so, and had had a difficult time posting *any* wins heading into the season's first slam.

Kvitova opened her season with a loss to #263 Priscilla Hon in Adelaide, then had to save a pair of MP against Arantxa Rus a week later in Sydney. Today's 1st Rounder vs. Cirstea offered no such drama, as the Romanian took a break lead early in the opening set and never looked back. She won six of the final seven games of both the 1st and 2nd sets, winning 6-2/6-2.



Kvitova put up a bit of resistence late, saving two MP and holding for 5-2, then forcing Cirstea to take three more MP (after leading 40/love) before finally putting away MP #5. In all, Kvitova had 39 unforced errors against just seven winners. The Czech called the loss "very painful" after the match, but also noted that she wasn't particularly surprised by it after struggling through the entire month of January, first with some issues of health, and then with troubles on the court, too.

"Yeah, on one hand, I'm not surprised really how everything ended," Kvitova said. "But on the other hand, of course, when I play a match I always want to win."

Both Cirstea and Kvitova are 31, but they appear to be in very different stages of their careers. The Czech has had the far better one, likely one that will land her in Newport one day (though considering the Tennis Hall of Fame's recent track record with inducting modern players, one hesitates to speak too soon). She's won multiple majors, and had what may have been her last best chance to win #3 in Melbourne just three years ago when she lost a three-set final to Naomi Osaka. Kvitova managed to add a title to her career haul in '21, her first in two years, but her struggles with form have been present more often than not as she's slipped from the Top 10 and (once again after this AO) the Top 20.

Cirstea, though, has arguably been playing her best tennis since she turned 30. She's coming off one of her most successful slam seasons ever in '21, going 8-4 (3r-4r-3r-2r) to match her best major year from a dozen seasons earlier (2009, when she was 8-4 and reached her lone slam QF in Paris). Over the past twelve months, Cirstea has won her first tour singles title (Instanbul) since 2008, notched her first Top 10 win (Kvitova at last year's AO) since '17 and finished with her best season-ending ranking (#38) in five years.

31 is a tennis age where things can go either way for a player. For some, "the end" is catching up with them, at some times (such as after a particularly deflating month) more quickly than at others; but for some a sweet gust of success could be enough to reinvigorate a career to the point of reaching goals that a few years earlier may *not* have been attainable after so many seasons of similar attempts.

It's not often that players who both find themselves at the proverbial "fork in the road career" moment face off on the sort of big stage -- like at a major, especially in its early stages -- that can accelerate one's passage down a path in either direction. But this match-up could have been one of them... for a second straight year.

Just as the sport has always seen play out the sort of natural career arc that Kvitova seems to be experiencing, today's tennis is filled with career paths such as that of Cirstea, as well, when "the best" can still conceivably be just around the corner some fourteen years after she made her slam debut in Melbourne in 2008.

Amongst all the other reasons, it's why we watch.




=DAY 2 NOTES=
...well, it's slam time. And that means Alize Cornet is in action. It's been that way in every major since the 2007 Australian Open. Her appearance this year makes it 60 consecutive slam main draws, just two off the all-time women's mark of 62 held by Ai Sugiyama. The Pasty could break the all-time mark at this year's U.S. Open.

Oh, yeah... and the bonus was that Cornet actually posted a win on Tuesday, too. Cornet defeated qualifier Viktoriya Tomova 6-3/6-3, becoming one of the few French women to advance into the 2nd Round at this AO (they went a combined 2-6 in the 1st Rd.).

Of course, I suppose it should also be noted that Cornet's best AO remains her Round of 16 run some thirteen years ago in 2009, and that she *still* has never reached the QF stage at a major. Tied with Sugiyama for eighth all-time with now 63 slam appearances, no woman in the Open era has played in more majors without *ever* making it to the Final 8 at least once.

...meanwhile, two players who filled three of the eight slam singles finals spots back in 2010 were *both* in action on Day 2.

The Wimbledon and U.S. Open runner-up that year, Vera Zvonareva, continues to plug away at age 37. She's currently ranked in the Top 100 in both singles and doubles (and is nearly Top 50 in the latter). She lost to #19 Elise Mertens today, 6-4/7-5.

Also on Tuesday, 2010 RG finalist Samantha Stosur, in her final singles tournament, staged a comeback to keep her solo efforts alive for a little while longer, defeating fellow wild card Robin Anderson 6-7(5)/6-3/6-3 to post a 1st Round win in Melbourne for a second consecutive season (after five straight 1st Round losses). Stosur, of course, picked up her fourth career WD major (and 8th overall) at last year's U.S. Open, won the AO version in '19, and played in the MX final in Melbourne a year ago.



By the way, the other five slam final spots in 2010 were filled by Serena Williams (2), Justine Henin, Kim Clijsters and Francesca Schiavone. In case you were trying to recall.

...#7 Iga Swiatek quickly fell behind British qualifier Harriet Dart in the 1st set, but it was only a false alarm. The Pole went on to take the next eleven games to win 6-3/6-0.

#23 Leylah Fernandez wishes that she could have made a similar turnaround, but it never happened. The Canadian in no way resembled the player who set the U.S. Open aflame last summer, and was instead an error-prone entity who ultimately fell by the wayside against Australian wild card Maddison Inglis (#133), who recorded her first career slam MD win with a 6-4/6-2 victory. Fernandez had 30 unforced errors in the 18-game match, compared to just eight winners.



...qualifying star Hailey Baptiste had to fight her way through two tight three-setters just to reach the AO MD, and today she had to stage a comeback to escape the 1st Round.

Against Caroline Garcia, like fellow Pastry Kristina Mladenovic quickly falling out of even faint conversations about the relevent singles players on tour, Baptiste trailed 6-4/5-3. But the 20-year old Bannerette forced a TB, won it, and then raced to a 4-0 lead in the 3rd. She went on to win 4-6/7-6(4)/6-3, handing Garcia her earliest AO loss since 2016.

A week after coming up just short vs. Kvitova (after having had two MP), Arantxa Rus once again just missed out on a big win today. The Waffle took #29 Tamara Zidansek into a 3rd set, saving three MP to force a deciding super-TB. Zidansek jumped out to a 5-0 lead, only to see Rus win seven of eight points to lead 7-6. But Zidansek finally put away MP #4, winning 10-8 as Rus furiously slammed her racket after another victory had slipped through her fingers.

In an all-Kazakh affair, #12 Elena Rybakina *almost* saw her AO go down in flames. Serving down 7-6/6-5, Rybkina staved off a Zarina Diyas MP and held to force a TB. She won it 7-3, then ran away with the 3rd to win 6-7(3)/7-6(3)/6-1.

...a season ago, Ana Konjuh's comeback from 2017 elbow surgery finally found its footing. She notched her first tour-level MD win (Miami) since 2018, played in her first slam in three years and reached her first WTA singles final since 2017. The tour nominated her for Comeback Player of the Year, even while '22 seemed to provide a larger opportunity to post the sort of results that might earn her the honor.

Well, today the Croat took a step in that direction, posting her first slam MD *win* since the '17 Wimbledon, winning a three-set battle with Shelby Rogers, 4-6/6-3/7-5. After failing to put away three MP at 5-4 in a five-deuce game in which Rogers broke serve to level the set, Konjuh came roaring back. She broke the Bannerette at love, then held at love.

Serving for the win, Konjuh had taken a 40/love lead with an ace to reach triple MP. Rogers' inability to get back another Konjuh serve on MP #4 made everything official.



...in the Melbourne WC Open, Diede de Groot and Aniek Van Koot combined to win their first WD title of the season, defeating Jiske Griffioen and Zhu Zhenzhen 6-1/6-4. The win gives de Groot 15 straight doubles wins and a 27-2 record in 2021-22 (she and Van Koot are 24-2 since the start of '21).

The singles final is set, as well, as de Groot extended her singles run to 38 matches with a 2 & love win over KG Montjane in the semis. She'll face Yui Kamiji for the 42nd time in their head-to-head series after the world #2 escape vs. Van Koot with a 2-6/7-6/7-6 win. De Groot has won 24 of her last 28 match-ups with Kamiji, but her last singles defeat came against her in last year's tournament final.

...on Night 2, #2 Aryna Sabalenka will try to put her early '22 tailspin (0-2, 39 DF) into reverse against Storm Sanders on Laver, while a battle of U.S. Open champs features Sloane Stephens (2017) and #17 Emma Raducanu (2021) as the Brit tries (this time in an indirect way) to outlast Fernandez at a second straight slam.





...I DON'T KNOW WHETHER TO LAUGH OR SOB (HEAD IN HAND) ON DAY 2:



Hmmm... laugh *now* (hahahahaha), but be prepared to run my head into a wall this spring.

Maybe he can stage "Covid Follies: Part Deux" in Serbia instead?

The (even more?) sickening thing is that all this has only elevated his stature back home and probably assures that he'll one day become the nation's president. (And if and when that ever happens, just as was the case this time around, the people in Australia shouldn't give two craps what the president of Serbia thinks about a-n-y-t-h-i-n-g.)


...VOGUEING ON DAY 2:




..CORNET HAS SAID A LOT OF GOOD THINGS (see #WhereIsPengShuai?) OVER THE YEARS... ON DAY 2:

But sometimes when you admit to not knowing enough about a subject to judge maybe you should just avoid the urge to comment and just say nothing about it at all. Just a thought. (One might have thought that "LOL" and her *last* trip Down Under would have served as good lessons, but...)











I prefer the more "poppy" version of Whitney Houston over the one who sang all the ballads...







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*2022 GRAND SLAM DEBUTS (w/ 1r result)*
-AUSTRALIAN OPEN (9)-
=AUTOMATIC ENTRY=
Anna Bondar, HUN (L)
Jaqueline Cristian, ROU (W)
Panna Udvardy, HUN (L)

=WC=
Robin Anderson, USA (L)

=Q=
Emina Bektas, USA (L)
Lucia Bronzetti, ITA (W)
Arianne Hartono, NED (L)
Jang Su-jeong, KOR
Zheng Qinwen, CHN (W)






TOP QUALIFIER: Hailey Baptiste/USA
TOP EARLY ROUND (1r-2r): xx
TOP MIDDLE-ROUND (3r-QF): xx
TOP LATE ROUND (SF-F): xx
TOP QUALIFYING MATCH: Q2 - #8 Kamilla Rakhimova/RUS def. Victoria Jimenez Kasintseva/AND 6-7(5)/7-6(8)/6-4 (VJK wins 1st from triple SP down; Rakhimova saves 2 MP in 2nd, winning 10-8 TB; 3:17)
TOP EARLY RD. MATCH (1r-2r): xx
TOP MIDDLE-RD. MATCH (3r-QF): xx
TOP LATE RD. MATCH (SF-F/WC/Doub.): xx
=============================
FIRST VICTORY: #30 Camila Giorgi/ITA (def. Potapova/RUS)
FIRST SEED OUT: #18 Coco Gauff/USA (1r lost to Wang Qiang)
FIRST SLAM MD WINS: 1r wins: Lucia Bronzetti/ITA, Jaqueline Cristian/ROU, Maddison Inglis/AUS< Nuria Parrizas Diaz/ESP, Gabriela Ruse/ROU, Wang Xiyu/CHN, Maryna Zanevska/BEL, Zheng Qinwen/CHN
UPSET QUEENS: xx
REVELATION LADIES: xx
NATION OF POOR SOULS: xx
LAST QUALIFIER STANDING: 1r wins: Baptiste, Bronzetti, Trevisan, Q.Zheng
LAST WILD CARD STANDING: 1r wins: Inglis, Stosur, Wang Xiyu
LAST AUSSIE STANDING: 1r wins: Barty, Inglis, Stosur
Ms. OPPORTUNITY: xx
IT (TBD): xx
COMEBACK PLAYER: xx
CRASH & BURN: Nominees: #11 Kenin (2r/1r exits since '20 AO title); #23 Fernandez (1r loss to #133 WC Ingliss; first slam after U.S. Open final)
ZOMBIE QUEEN OF MELBOURNE: Nominee: #12 Rybakina (1r- saved MP in 2nd set vs. Diyas); Baptiste (1r- down 6-4/5-3 vs. Garcia)
KIMIKO VETERAN CUP: xx
LADY OF THE EVENING: Nominee: Barty
"G'DAY/GOOD ON YA, MATE" AWARD: xx
DOUBLES STAR: xx
JUNIOR BREAKOUT: xx





All for Day 2. More tomorrow.
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