If you play as well as Lucie Safarova did against Vera Zvonareva in the third round of the Australian Open Saturday and lose in straight sets you can count yourself a little unlucky. But playing well and hitting great sweeping forehand winners out of your opponent's reach as Safarova did frequently during the course of her 6-3, 7-6 defeat is no longer enough against the world No. 2 who is becoming a seriously difficult person to beat in Grand Slam tennis.
Zvonareva has been in the finals of the last two Slams, at Wimbledon and the U.S. Open and was a semifinalist in Melbourne last year. She says she is learning which shots to hit at which moments but it was her defensive capabilities that got her through a thrilling tiebreak that saw her left-handed opponent reach set point twice and save match points before finally succumbing by eleven points to nine.
After allowing herself to be dominated in the first set, Safarova started to hit the ball harder at the start of the second. Once she had unlocked that forehand, Zvonareva found herself having to dig balls out of the far extremities of the court, frequently throwing up moon balls just to stay in the rally.
The last five games of the second set went against serve and Safarova found herself at set point at 6-5 in the breaker. But after another long rally, she netted a backhand. A point later the Russian was at match point but Safarova unleashed a magnificent cross-court forehand which clipped the line. A smash from the Czech saved another match point and then Safarova got herself to set point for the second time. A thirty-one stroke rally developed, pushing both players to their limits in the 88-degree heat. But again, Safarova could not grab the reward her standard of tennis deserved when she was forced into error by a penetrating Russian return.
It was a matter of inches after that; Safarova doubting that a Zvonareva shot had clipped the line and the No 2 seed wrapping it up with a lob that landed smack on the baseline. A tough one to lose but Safarova can take heart from a performance like this.
When Zvonareva was asked about the tiebreak, the 26-year-old replied, "Well, I think I'm a different player than before. I'm more experienced, more mature. It's not only about tiebreaks. It's about the whole game. I think I know myself better and it helps me during the key points. I have all the shots in my game. I can go cross court, down the line, short, deep. You name it. I can do it all. But once the ball comes, you have to choose the option in your head and you're OK, which one do I choose? Maybe I choose not the best ones for this opponent. 'Why?', I ask myself. So now I put my head into it and don't let myself make all those choices. Even though I like to mix it up, I am just trying to stick to the plan.”
There is a lot going on in Vera's head. She stepped forward as an off-court leader on the WTA tour during the Tour Finals in Doha three years ago when she was named as a "Promoter of Gender Equality” as part of the WTA's partnership with UNESCO. She supports a foundation aiming to increase understanding of Rett Syndrome, a neurological disorder, because a close friend was afflicted by it. And when she is not hitting tennis balls, she is studying for an International Relations and Economics degree at Moscow University. Upon retirement, it is possible she will go into the diplomatic service. One way or another, the current world No. 2 has plenty to offer and, in the broadest sense, plenty to play for.
An all-Asian battle went the way of China's Shuai Peng out on Court Three when she fought off cramps in her foot to beat Ayumi Morita of Japan 6-1, 3-6, 6-3. Peng hobbled back to the baseline while serving for the match at 40-0, lost the next point but then managed to finish the job with a forehand winner. By winning, Peng has overtaken Zheng Jie as the second ranked Chinese player in the world behind Ni La who is also through to the fourth round.
Stosur out
At the start of the night session there was a big disappointment for the capacity 15,000 at Rod Laver Arena when No 5 seed Sam Stosur – Australia’s only realistic hope of winning a title here this year – was outhit by the rising Czech player Petra Kvitova 7-6, 6-3.
Stosur seemed slightly bemused afterward and it was easy to see why. She had started out playing at her best level, hitting solid ground strokes and serving well and then suddenly found herself being blasted out of it by the sheer ferocity of the Czech’s left-handed ground strokes.
“I actually thought I played really – especially in the first set,” Stosur said. “Then all of a sudden it was gone and I was a set down. I think it was a point here and a point there and she got the ones that really mattered. It’s a tough loss but I did everything I could.”
And it just wasn’t good enough. Kvitova is big and strong and packs a wallop off the ground. What she needs now is consistency. She roared through to the semifinals at Wimbledon last year before losing to Serena Williams and then proceeded to lose in the first round in her next five tournaments. But she is still only 20 and on the evidence of her performances here at Melbourne Park, she can be a danger to anybody.
Birthday bashed
Having dropped four games in her first two matches, Kim Clijsters was made to work just a little harder in the heat of Rod Laver Arena by the French player, Alize Cornet, who was trying to celebrate her 21st birthday. It was a tough way to do it but Cornet pushed the No. 3 seed to 7-6, 6-3 before going off to find one of Melbourne's great restaurants for a birthday dinner.
Cornet was once ranked No. 11 in the world but a series of injuries sapped her confidence and she is now down in the eighties. There were signs, however, of the form that once took her to the final of the Italian Open as she broke back in the first set to take it to the tie break.
"It was a bit impressive, playing on Rod Laver Arena for the first time," she admitted afterwards. "I was stressed at first and I could have played way better. But I tried to fight. It's difficult against Kim. She takes the ball very early and plays fast close to the lines. But she wasn't volleying so well today and I tried to take advantage of that."
But the task was beyond her and Clijsters, despite never reaching her best, goes through to a fourth round meeting with Russia's Ekaterina Makarova who scored an upset victory by 6-2, 3-6, 8-6 over the 13th seed, Nadia Petrova.
