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Tuesday, January 15, 2019

AO.2 - Of Bracelets and Buckles

To be a Bracelet or a Swashbuckler can be difficult. Just ask Aleksandra Krunic and Dasha Kasatkina. On Day 2, the former ultimately found a way to live up to her moniker, while the latter was a vision of "buckle" without any of the "swash."

I noted this weekend that Krunic's Sydney doubles title with Katerina Siniakova could be the best thing to happen to the Serb, whose long slide since her maiden tour title at Rosmalen last summer had carried over into 2019 with a pair of qualifying losses in the new season. *Any* success, even if doubles, had to be an opportunity to crowbar some confidence and a little Bracelet-style good luck into her psyche and, in turn, results.

Well, that's just what happened on Day 2 in Melbourne.

Arriving on Tuesday with not only a 0-3 AO main draw record for her career (seven of her nine career slam match wins have come at Flushing Meadows), as well as riding a four-match losing streak going back to last fall *and* a 7-12 slump since winning her first career title, Krunic found herself trailing Zarina Diyas 6-3/5-3 today. The Kazakh served for the win. Krunic got the break, then saw Diyas' game fall apart. Krunic took the 2nd set 7-5, and led 4-1 in the 3rd.

During a long, 12-deuce Diyas service game, Krunic was frustrated early by her inability to quickly secure the break (slamming her racket even while she was in control and just two games from the win) She finally did, though, then finished riding the wave of momentum by serving things out, winning a tenth game in the last eleven to win 3-6/7-5/6-1.

Krunic's last win from a set down came in her most recent win -- a 1st Round upset of Elina Svitolina in Beijing last fall after dropping the opening set at love. Before that you have to go back to her consecutive rallies in the SF (vs. Vandeweghe) and final (vs. Flipkens) in 's-Hertogenbosch while winning her first title.

Go Bracelet!

(It won't do any good to say, "Go Dasha!," though. Not anymore.)

In my recap for Week 2, I said...

"January has never been (Dasha) Kasatkina's bag. For all the offseason training she does, she's yet to hit the ground running to start a season. In four years of opening month pro results, she's gone a combined 8-11 on the Dorothy Tour circuit, with just one QF result (Sydney '17). Rather than see an improvement, her season-opening results have gotten worse. 2r-q2-3r-2r-QF-1r results in 2016-17 have been followed (so far) by 1r-1r-2r-1r-1r the last two seasons, including a loss in Week 1 to #283 Kimberly Birrell (after leading 5-3 in the 3rd) and a 1 & 4 exit at the hands of Aliaksandra Sasnovich this week in Sydney."

Well, add another "look away (please!)" moment to that lengthening list. #10 Kasatkina opened well vs. Timea Bacsinszky, the former slam semifinalist still utilizing her protected ranking after returning from hand surgery (she's #145), winning the first three games of the match. The thing is... she didn't win *any* more. The Swiss veteran ended with an "off-schedule double-bagel," winning 6-3/6-0.

I said before the season that if Bacsinszky's health truly was sound (as it gradually seemed to become over the back-half of '18), she could be this year's *big* comeback story. While it'd be great to give her all the credit for such a dominating win over a Top 10 player -- her first such victory since 2017, and first of any kind at a major since that same year at Wimbledon, before her injury -- the majority of the credit/blame likely falls on the shoulders of the Russian, who completely fell apart. Serving at a 49% clip, winning 16% of her second serves (3/19), serving nine double-faults, committing 24 UE's (to just 6 winners), and winning 35% of return points while essentially embodying that final scoreline.

Kasatkina will likely figure things out and get her game in order soon, but come *next* offseason she's really going to have to think about changing things up. Whatever she's doing in November and December, it's just not translating into results in January. What is it they say about continuing to do the same thing and expecting a difference result?

Yeah, that.

Now, where was I? Oh, yeah... go Bracelet! (Wang Qiang is up next... and she's not playing in China.)



=DAY 2 NOTES=
...while there were quite a few big names on the court on Day 1, even bigger guns were sent into battle on Day 2.

First and foremost...



Yeah, it's safe to say that the #16 seed looked pretty good.

So did #7 Karolina Pliskova, who did just what she needed to do against fellow Czech Karolina Muchova, taking down the qualifier 6-3/6-2. If she's going to end her career-long major drought, this is just the sort of thing she'd want in the 1st Round after arriving having opened her season with a title run in Brisbane. Now onto what comes next.



After muddling through the first two weeks, bowing out of *two* events early, #18 Garbine Muguruza showed up ready for action today, as well, giving up just five total games to Zheng Saisai.



Meanwhile, #6 Elina Svitolina defeated qualifier Viktorija Golubic 6-1/6-2.

...one two-time AO champ didn't fair as well, though.



2012-13 champ Victoria Azarenka, playing her first match in Melbourne since 2016, battled Laura Siegemund, now seemingly *fully* back from knee surgery. Azarenka turned back a 5-2 1st set TB deficit to steal the opening set by winning the final five points to win 7-5. She led 4-2 in the 2nd, only to see the German turn the tables on *her* this time, winning four straight games to send things to a 3rd. Serving up 4-2, Siegemund fought off three BP and avoided having the set go back on serve, holding for 5-2 then breaking Azarenka to close out the win.



Vika's not through with this AO, though. She's scheduled to fill in for the injured CoCo Vandeweghe as Ash Barty's doubles partner.

...for her part, Venus Williams looked to be on her way to joining Azarenka, left behind in the 1st Round of the women's bracket.

She led 5-2 in the 1st and served for the set vs. #25 Mihaela Buzarnescu, only to be broken at love and then losing the subsequent tie-break. The Romanian vet led the 2nd 5-3, only to see Venus flip the script and win another TB to take things to a 3rd set. Williams pulled ahead early there, leading 4-1. Having increased her aggression (she finished 30/38 at the net), Venus went on to take the set 6-2 to record her 52nd AO match win.



#1 Simona Halep (vs. Kaia Kanepi, the player who knocked her out in the 1st Round at last year's U.S. Open) and #4 Naomi Osaka (vs. Magda Linette) are set to complete under-the-lights matches during Day 2's night session to wrap up the 1st Round of play.

...meanwhile, Hobart singles finalist Anna Karolina Schmiedlova was looking to follow up that result with her first slam MD win since the 2015 U.S. Open. On the other side of the net was '18 AO semifinalist Elise Mertens. Whether AKS might have found a way to succeed in a 3rd set against the Belgian is something that will have to remain a mystery, as while the Slovak had a bright and shining chance to push things to a deciding stanza -- she served at 5-3, then had two SP on Mertens' serve a game later -- it didn't happen. Mertens got the break, the hold and then broke again on her way to sweeping the final five games to win 6-2/7-5.



Mertens has taken some minor flack on Twitter this week for ending her doubles partnership with Demi Schuurs (yeah, they won three titles together last year -- but Demi wins titles with almost anyone, and they were hardly an every-week duo) to focus on her singles, only to then see Schuurs (w/ Bethanie Mattek-Sands) pop up as her & Arna Sabalenka's 1st Round WD opponent at this AO. But the fact is that Mertens played *way* too much in '18 because she regularly took part in both disciplines, and did very well in both, too. There was no smart way she could commit to a partnership that was likely to put her through that sort of year-long grind for a second straight season if she wanted to back up her career year and make a push for the Top 10.

In her four most recent slams, Mertens has posted SF-4r-3r-4r results in singles.

...you know it's the Most Interesting Tour if a 1st Round match in Melbourne pits a Sydney-born former Aussie turned Brit vs. a Zagreb-born former Croat turned Aussie. And that's just what we had in the Tuesday match-up between Johanna Konta and Ajla Tomljanovic.

Konta has had much trouble (and many coaches) while trying to follow up her '17 Wimbledon semifinal run, posting 1r-2r-1r-2r-1r results in the five majors since starring at the AELTC; while Tomljanovic has made a successful comeback from shoulder surgery, but was today still seeking her first AO MD win since 2015 in her adopted country.

The Aussie took an early lead in the 1st, but Konta impressively rallied to win the set in a TB. After Tomljanovic pushed things to a 3rd, the match had another TB moment at 6-6 in the 3rd. The umpire gamely announced to all that the match would be decided by a first-to-10-win-by-2 tie-break, as everyone got the chance to remember Katie Boulter's brief moment of infamy from yesterday.

Konta took a 2-0 lead, only to see Tomljanovic win four straight points and build her edge to 6-4 (remember, NOT a MP). The Brit then won three straight of her own, and reached MP at 9-7 when she fired a backhand return winner down the line after Tomljanovic had stopped playing thinking her serve had been out. A forehand crosscourt winner ended the 7-6(4)/2-6/7-6(7) match after 2:51 as Konta got her eleventh career AO match win (of twenty-five in her slam career). Konta has never lost in the 1st Round in Melbourne, having reached at least the 2nd Round in all four appearances (which included SF and QF results her first two times out in 2016-17).



...it's now been five years since Genie Bouchard's breakthrough slam semifinal at the AO (which then led to SF-RU results at the *next* two slams, as well). The 24-year old Canadian is a long way from repeating such results, but she's surely trending in the right direction. She kicked off what has been the best major of her career with a quick 6-2/6-1 win over veteran wild card Peng Shuai, improving to 14-5 at the AO.



Unfortunately for her, she gets someone named Serena next. So...

Meanwhile, #17 Madison Keys played her first match since last season, dispatching Aussie wild card Destanee Aiava (the new Olivia Rogowska, as she's been given three consecutive AO WC but has yet to post a win or crack the MD at another major) 6-2/6-2. Even with all her injury issues, Keys has posted RU-QF-SF-3r-SF results in her last five majors, and SF-4r-QF finishes in her last three appearances in Melbourne.

...soon after Kasatkina's defeat, Slovenian Tamara Zidansek (another of those "Name You'll Know..." contenders from last year who put up a few too many good results late in '18 to be considered for 2019's official list) took out the other Russian-born Dasha in the draw, eliminating Aussie Gavrilova in straights sets. The newly-engaged Dasha was a Round of 16 participant in Melbourne in 2016-17.



And, no, the Dashas aren't playing doubles together at this slam.

...at some point, you get the feeling Bianca Andreescu is just going to fail to post in a match, her body unwilling to take on another battle and begging for a week or so off. Today wasn't that day, though.

The 18-year old Canadian has already reached the Auckland final as a qualifier this season, defeating the likes of Caroline Wozniacki and Venus Williams along the way, then immediately followed up by making her way through qualifying (with the help of two retiring opponents, but still) for this AO. Seeking her first career slam MD win, Andreescu faced off with 16-year old Bannerette wild card, Whitney Osuigwe, a former girls slam champ (RG) and junior #1, on Tuesday.

Andreescu managed to find her way to the 2nd Round, but it was far from easy. Up a break in the 1st set, she saw Osuigwe fight back and get back on serve, leading 5-4. But the Canadian picked up her power later, holding for 5-5 and taking a 15/30 lead on Osuigwe's serve a game later. But the younger teenager used a series of good serve to hold, ultimately forcing a TB. Andreescu won it 7-1.

The 2nd set played out with a reversed storyline. Osuigwe had the early break, but was unable to serve out the set. Things went to another TB, with Osuigwe winning it 7-0 as Andreescu physically struggled, bending over between points and having difficult running full out. After taking break lead at 3-2 in the 3rd, Andreescu took one of the series of MTO's she utilized -- as she did in Auckland while battling a lingering hip/back ailment -- during the match. She then held for 4-2, and held the advantage to win 7-6(1)/6-7(0)/6-3.



...later in the early evening, maybe the most immediately ready-to-roll of the *new* group of emerging teens broke new ground in Melbourne.

Dayana Yastremska took a bit of time finding her footing, but once she did she was lights out vs. Samantha Stosur. Stosur led 5-2, only to see the 18-year old Ukrainian proceed to blow past her from there forward, winning five straight games to take the 1st set, then racing to a 5-1 lead in the 2nd. After the Aussie vet held, Yastremska served out her first career slam MD victory. It's Stosur's fourth straight 1st Round exit in Melbourne, where she's gone 4-8 since 2012.



Of course, I say Yastremska is the "most" ready because she slightly older than 17-year old qualifier Iga Swiatek, and because she's the only one with a tour title (for now). Swiatek, too, got her first career MD slam win on Day 2, defeating Ana Bogdan in three sets. Down a break at 3-2 in the 3rd, Swiatek took a medical timeout to have her leg wrapped. Bogdan held for 4-2, but then the Polish teenager swept the final four games, breaking the Romanian on her second MP to get the win.

...Russian Margarita Gasparyan, who made stunning late season progress last year after returning from multiple knee surgeries, defeated qualifier Zhu Lin in three sets. It's her first slam MD win since the 2016 Australian Open, where she reached the Round of 16 in her Melbourne debut. She'd injure her knee later that year and have surgery following Wimbledon, then taking nearly two years to finally get healthy enough for a full-time return to the tour.




...LIKE ON DAY 2: A leftover from Day 1...



...LIKE ON DAY 2: Ditto.



...Hmmmm... ON DAY 2: Night 1, really.

Are Fila's outfits for this slam *supposed* to make the players look like candy stripers? Especially the pink version, seen below on Ash Barty and Irina-Camelia Begu:





See?


...LIKE ON DAY 2: I see what you're doing there, Australian Open social media people.



...NOTION ON DAY 2: A petition drive should be started to get Sveta a guest role on "Killing Eve."



...UPDATE ON DAY 2:




...DISLIKE ON DAY 2: I'm more than a little bit tired of the continuing false narrative on ESPN (mostly from Chris Evert) about Halep's big "letdown" after winning Roland Garros last year. Yes, that win was the highlight of her season, but she *did* at least reach the 3rd Round at Wimbledon, then came to North America and won the Rogers Cup and came within a MP in the Cincinnati final of becoming the first woman to ever win those two BIG tour events in back-to-back weeks. She lost in the 1st Round of the U.S. Open, but her body was breaking down by that point and the back injury ended her season.

I wouldn't term that a "letdown," but I think Evert has for many months been latched onto Halep's post-RG comments about her "only goal" left unfulfilled in tennis being to win Olympic Gold for Romania, and she just won't let it go.



On we go. The 2011 Australian Open...


==NEWS & NOTES==
Kim Clijsters wins her first Australian Open title. It's her fourth straight win in a slam final after starting her career 0-4 in major finals. 3-0 in slam title matches since her '09 comeback from a two-year retirement, her Melbourne win is her final major crown. She retired for good after the '12 U.S. Open, and entered the Hall of Fame in 2017.

===============================================
China's Li Na is the first grand slam singles final from Asia, reaching her maiden championship match after staging a comeback from 6-3/4-2 down vs. Caroline Wozniacki in the semifinals. She became the first Asian major winner at Roland Garros later that spring, and finally won the AO title in 2014 in her third Melbourne final appearance. Li recently topped the first ever fan balloting for the 2019 Hall of Fame class.
===============================================
A year after winning her fifth AO title, Serena Williams missed the '11 tournament after being out since the previous June after stepping on shards of glass in that infamous German nightclub incident
===============================================
The 2011 Australian Open proved to be the final major for former #1's Justine Henin and Dinara Safina. The Belgian, who'd injured her elbow at Wimbledon in '10 and was never able to adequately recover, lost in the 3rd Round to Svetlana Kuznetsova; while the Russian lost 6-0/6-0 to Clijsters in the 1st Round. Henin retired on January 26, and entered the Tennis Hall of Fame in 2016. Safina played deeper into the '11 season, then disappeared from the WTA tour for good, though her retirement didn't become "official" until 2014.
===============================================
Wheelchair legend Esther Vergeer wins her seventeenth career singles major, and eighth AO crown. She also claimed the doubles. Vergeer's 6-0/6-0 win in the final over Aussie Daniela di Toro extended her singles winning streak to a mindboggling 404 matches. It would eventually reach 470.
===============================================
Belgian An-Sophie Mestach sweeps the girls singles and doubles titles, defeating Puerto Rico's Monica Puig in the final. Mestach became the junior #1 with the result.


The two finalists' semifinal opponents would go on to have better pro careers. Bouchard reached the Top 5 and played in two slam finals (including the AO) in 2014, while Caroline Garcia would reach the Top 10 in 2017. Puig's career highlight has been her remarkable Gold medal run at the 2016 Olympics, a performance that very well may be *the* best of the decade. Mestach would reach only #98 on the WTA tour, winning zero titles before retiring in September '18. She played just one slam MD singles match (AO '15) in her career.

Mestach claimed the doubles with the Netherlands' Demi Schuurs, who reached the doubles Top 10 in 2018. Mestach never rose above #64, winning two WTA doubles titles.
===============================================

Francesca Schiavone defeated Svetlana Kuznetsova in the 4th Round, winning a 16-14 3rd set in a match that set the Open era women's slam record by lasting 4:44. In the three-hour final set, Schiavone saved six MP before finally winning on a third of her own. In the end, the Italian was suffering from a groin injury, while the Russian was bedeviled by blisters.
===============================================
This happened when Aga Radwanska played Kimiko Date-Krumm in the 1st Round, giving birth to a gif that will outlast us all.

===============================================


==QUOTES==
* - Li Na cements her quotable legacy with tales of calling out her husband Jiang Shan (later "Dennis," as in tennis) for him thinking that tennis is "easy" and snoring too much, saying her mom doesn't come watch her matches because "she has her own life," and noting that she keeps her focus by thinking about the prize money she can win

* - Caroline Wozniacki, having fun during a press conference, provides both the answers and questions, and weaves a tale (later revealed to be quite tall) about a kangaroo scratching her leg. (Sparking, by the way, Backspin's "Caro's roo" metaphor about her missing slam title... until 2018, anyway.)

Sometimes it just works out that way.













View this post on Instagram

?????? 2019 @australianopen #TeamAngie

A post shared by Angelique Kerber (@angie.kerber) on







Hmmm, I sense a bit of a "Hillary vibe" here... first, when Sharapova doesn't play well *enough* people run around like their hair is on fire and try to shove her through the retirement door, then when she plays great she's asked stupid questions like that which seem designed to be a centerpiece for a "Maria has no friends on tour" story rehash.

Okay, end of unscheduled rant.






*ALL-TIME AO MATCH WINS*
82 - Serena Williams#
60 - Margaret Court
56 - Lindsay Davenport
55 - Maria Sharapova#
52 - Martina Hingis
52 - Venus Williams#
47 - Steffi Graf
46 - Martina Navratilova
43 - Monica Seles
43 - Kim Clijsters
--
#-active




TOP QUALIFIER: Astra Sharma/AUS
TOP EARLY ROUND (1r-2r): xx
TOP MIDDLE-ROUND (3r-QF): xx
TOP LATE ROUND (SF-F): xx
TOP QUALIFYING MATCH: Q3 - Astra Sharma/AUS def. #25 Irina Khromacheva 5-7/7-6(7)/7-6(10) (saved 3 MP, makes slam debut)
TOP EARLY RD. MATCH (1r-2r): xx
TOP MIDDLE-RD. MATCH (3r-QF): xx
TOP LATE RD. MATCH (SF-F/Jr./Doub.): xx
=============================
FIRST VICTORY: Rebecca Peterson/SWE (def. Cirstea/ROU)
FIRST SEED OUT: #14 Julia Goerges/GER (1st Rd. - lost to D.Collins/USA)
UPSET QUEENS: xx
REVELATION LADIES: xx
NATION OF POOR SOULS: xx
LAST QUALIFIER STANDING: 1st Rd. wins: Andreescu, Haddad Maia, Sharma, Swiatek, Vikhlyantseva
LAST WILD CARD STANDING: 1st Rd. wins: Birrell, Hives
LAST AUSSIE STANDING: 1st Rd. wins: Barty, Birrell, Hives, Sharma
Ms. OPPORTUNITY: xx
IT (??): xx
COMEBACK PLAYER: xx
CRASH & BURN: xx
ZOMBIE QUEEN: xx
KIMIKO VETERAN CUP: xx
LADY OF THE EVENING: xx
DOUBLES STAR: xx
JUNIOR BREAKOUT: xx




All for Day 2. More tomorrow.
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