So the Williams sisters may both now be out of the tournament, but there's no doubt their presence in Eastbourne has helped the event enormously, and probably given them both extremely useful work-outs ahead of Wimbledon, considering the lengthy lay-offs they've both endured.
In some ways, it's a similar situation to when they last played Eastbourne, in 1998, when they were both contenders for the title, but their defeats in the quarter-finals weren't devastating setbacks. Except that then they were hotly-tipped newcomers, with their futures as global superstars, and all-time greats of the game, by no means certain.
I still like telling anyone who'll listen about Venus's first tournament in Britain - Eastbourne 1997 - when she'd been sporadically playing tournaments for nearly three years, had been tipped as a future Wimbledon champion for even longer, and came through qualifying (having declined a wildcard in order to get more grass court practise) to reach the second round. Many of my friends hadn't heard of Venus Williams, or Anna Kournikova, who was playing Eastbourne's under-21 event that year.
These were the days of the Williams sisters' distinctive hair beads, and watching Venus play was their mother Oracene, and little sis Serena, fifteen years old, yet to make her debut on the Tour, but some predicting she'd be an even better player than her sibling.
One of the great features of an event like Eastbourne is that spectators have a chance to see players near the beginning of their careers. Over the years, numerous little-known youngsters have graced Devonshire Park and gone on to become tennis superstars.
Not all predictions are accurate, of course. But keep your eyes on up-and-coming Bulgarian Grigor Dimitrov. Just turned 20, and tipped as the new Federer by, among others, Roger's former coach Peter Lundgren, Dimitrov's helped maintain interest in a men's draw badly depleted of big - or even medium-sized - names, since the exits of Tsonga, Hewitt, Dolgopolov and Garcia-Lopez. He nearly lost to British wildcard Daniel Evans in the first round, but went on to reach the quarter-finals, where he lost to Janko Tipsarevic. But there's still a chance to see him play tomorrow, weather permitting, when he's due to play the men's doubles final, third on court one, not before 2pm. Dimitrov is partnering singles semi-finalist Andreas Seppi, and they take on Israeli duo Jonathan Erlich and Andy Ram.
If you're reading this, Jan and Lesley, two ladies I was talking to on Thursday (by the way, thank you for the strawberries, ladies!), I must apologise for telling you that the Dimitrov versus Tipsarevic match would follow the Stosur - Zvonareva epic on Centre Court. I later discovered it had been moved to court 4, following the rain-induced delayed start to the day, and the marathon opening matches on Centre.
It looks like Grigor Dimitrov won't get to play on Eastbourne's Centre Court this year, even if he wins the doubles title. But maybe - just maybe - those who saw him play will be able to tell future generations of the all-time great they watched at the beginning of his career.
Friday, 17 June 2011
Sunday, 12 June 2011
Sunshine, Rain, and the "Who's the Greatest?" Debate
Well, after such a promising opening day to the event yesterday, today has been a major frustration. We've been incredibly lucky to avoid major rain interruption for some years now. From memory, I think this is the first time since 1997 that an entire day's play has been washed out. The decision that there would be no chance of play today was announced at 4:50pm, not long before it was confirmed that the highly anticipated Aegon Championships final in London, between Andy Murray and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, would also not be played today. Speculation grows as to whether Tsonga will make the jouney to Eastbourne after all.
Sunday's bad weather was well forecast, and the prediction for Saturday wasn't brilliant. But the first day was almost entirely sunny, albeit with a cold wind (quelle surprise!). There was some high quality tennis on a variety of different courts, as qualifying matches were crammed in. Perhaps the best match on centre court was between Brit Anne Keothavong and France's Alize Cornet. Keothavong overwhelmed higher-ranked Cornet, 8th seed in the qualifying event, but was the only one of five British women to reach the next stage.
All the men who won their first qualifying matches were back later in the day - and that included five Brits. All second round men's ties were also completed, with only Alex Slabinsky left to fly the flag for the UK in the final qualifying round. The biggest tennis names in that final round are Germany's 35 year old former world no.5 Rainer Schuettler, and America's former child prodigy Donald Young.
It seemed a day for players who were once tipped to reach the very top, are yet to achieve that, but when they play well, it's hard to take your eyes off them. Mirjana Lucic, who reached the Wimbledon semi-finals as a 17 year old in 1999, lost in the quarter finals of the Aegon Classic in Birmingham on Friday, but beat Yaroslava Shvedova at Eastbourne on Saturday. Indian superstar Sania Mirza won her opening match in three hard-fought sets. Austrian Tamira Paszek beat the USA's Vania King and is now the first woman through to the third qualifying round - without striking a ball - after her next opponent Greta Arn withdrew. Hungary's Arn beat Russian-born Australian Anastasia Rodionova, who won gold medals in singles and doubles at last year's Commonwealth Games. But Arn had a fall late on in the match, and completed it with a heavily-bandaged knee.
And Melanie Oudin, who wowed her home crowd - and much of the rest of the world - when she reached the US Open quarter finals as a 17 year old in 2009, easily beat China's Xinyun Han. I had the pleasure of speaking to her briefly, and telling her that I like the way she plays tennis, and the fact that her principal idol is the great Justine Henin.
When I referred to Serena Williams as the "Queen of Tennis" in my last post, I should explain that, in my opinion, if everyone had played close to their best, consistently, in the last few years, the rankings would have been a no-brainer: Henin first, Serena second, and Venus third. When Henin shocked the tennis world by retiring as world no. 1 in 2008, she had won seven Grand Slam titles - just one less than Serena (plus Olympic singles Gold, which Serena has yet to win), and the same number as Venus. By the time of Henin's return to the game at the start of 2010, Venus had won another Slam (Wimbledon 2008), and Serena had taken three more. As Henin tried to regain form in what turned out to be all-too-brief a comeback, Serena won a further two Slams, taking her career total so far to 13. Were it not for Henin's absence, the story could have been very different.
But Henin's absence, and difficulties in regaining form on her return, cannot be compared to Monica Seles's absence, and subsequent difficulties, which occured of course due to the most appallingly unnatural of circumstances - that stabbing incident. In Seles's case, her career total Grand Slam titles (9) versus that of her great rival Steffi Graf (22) have to be taken with a massive dollop of salt when assessing each player's greatness.
In the case of Justine and Serena, however, I can't object to Serena being declared the greatest of her generation.
And Venus isn't too bad a player, either.
I finally met her this Saturday. "Venus, it's so great to see you back in Eastbourne," I crawled, but meant it. "I remember when you first came here when you were 17 or 18."
"Thankyou," she smiled. "It's been a while."
Sunday's bad weather was well forecast, and the prediction for Saturday wasn't brilliant. But the first day was almost entirely sunny, albeit with a cold wind (quelle surprise!). There was some high quality tennis on a variety of different courts, as qualifying matches were crammed in. Perhaps the best match on centre court was between Brit Anne Keothavong and France's Alize Cornet. Keothavong overwhelmed higher-ranked Cornet, 8th seed in the qualifying event, but was the only one of five British women to reach the next stage.
All the men who won their first qualifying matches were back later in the day - and that included five Brits. All second round men's ties were also completed, with only Alex Slabinsky left to fly the flag for the UK in the final qualifying round. The biggest tennis names in that final round are Germany's 35 year old former world no.5 Rainer Schuettler, and America's former child prodigy Donald Young.
It seemed a day for players who were once tipped to reach the very top, are yet to achieve that, but when they play well, it's hard to take your eyes off them. Mirjana Lucic, who reached the Wimbledon semi-finals as a 17 year old in 1999, lost in the quarter finals of the Aegon Classic in Birmingham on Friday, but beat Yaroslava Shvedova at Eastbourne on Saturday. Indian superstar Sania Mirza won her opening match in three hard-fought sets. Austrian Tamira Paszek beat the USA's Vania King and is now the first woman through to the third qualifying round - without striking a ball - after her next opponent Greta Arn withdrew. Hungary's Arn beat Russian-born Australian Anastasia Rodionova, who won gold medals in singles and doubles at last year's Commonwealth Games. But Arn had a fall late on in the match, and completed it with a heavily-bandaged knee.
And Melanie Oudin, who wowed her home crowd - and much of the rest of the world - when she reached the US Open quarter finals as a 17 year old in 2009, easily beat China's Xinyun Han. I had the pleasure of speaking to her briefly, and telling her that I like the way she plays tennis, and the fact that her principal idol is the great Justine Henin.
When I referred to Serena Williams as the "Queen of Tennis" in my last post, I should explain that, in my opinion, if everyone had played close to their best, consistently, in the last few years, the rankings would have been a no-brainer: Henin first, Serena second, and Venus third. When Henin shocked the tennis world by retiring as world no. 1 in 2008, she had won seven Grand Slam titles - just one less than Serena (plus Olympic singles Gold, which Serena has yet to win), and the same number as Venus. By the time of Henin's return to the game at the start of 2010, Venus had won another Slam (Wimbledon 2008), and Serena had taken three more. As Henin tried to regain form in what turned out to be all-too-brief a comeback, Serena won a further two Slams, taking her career total so far to 13. Were it not for Henin's absence, the story could have been very different.
But Henin's absence, and difficulties in regaining form on her return, cannot be compared to Monica Seles's absence, and subsequent difficulties, which occured of course due to the most appallingly unnatural of circumstances - that stabbing incident. In Seles's case, her career total Grand Slam titles (9) versus that of her great rival Steffi Graf (22) have to be taken with a massive dollop of salt when assessing each player's greatness.
In the case of Justine and Serena, however, I can't object to Serena being declared the greatest of her generation.
And Venus isn't too bad a player, either.
I finally met her this Saturday. "Venus, it's so great to see you back in Eastbourne," I crawled, but meant it. "I remember when you first came here when you were 17 or 18."
"Thankyou," she smiled. "It's been a while."
Wednesday, 8 June 2011
The Queen of Tennis To Hold Court in Eastbourne
It's that time of the year again.
I'm back in Eastbourne after the French Open, and it's the start of those few weeks of the year in Britain when tennis seems to matter to the man or woman in the street. In this town, in particular, of course, with the tournament beginning this coming weekend. The promotion seems very good this year, in terms of omnipresence, with the giant posters of Tsonga and Ivanovic seemingly everywhere, and the controversially airbrushed pictures depicting Eastbourne as having a sandy beach, rather than the pebbled one it seems many residents are extremely proud of.
The financial benefits to the town are enormous in many different areas. Just last night a taxi driver was telling me that he must make sure to do several shifts next week. And, while tennis isn't necessarily the top topic of conversation with everyone in the town, it's clear that interest is growing. This morning I saw people stopping, doing an about-turn to confirm that they read correctly the headline on the newspaper stand: "SERENA JOINS VENUS AT TENNIS".
Yep, it's something of a coup. Many people thought Serena Williams wasn't likely to make her comeback until later in the summer, but now she's announced that she'll play her first tournament in nearly a year right here on the south coast of England.
If you didn't know, days after winning her 4th Wimbledon title - and 13th Grand Slam - last July, Serena suffered a freak mishap, cutting her foot on broken glass while at a restaurant. She still managed to play an exhibition extravaganza in Belgium, in front of a record crowd for a tennis match, standing in for an injured Justine Henin in what was originally billed "The Best of Belgium". She lost to Kim Clijsters, underwent surgery, and was out of the game for the rest of the year. Earlier this year the world was shocked by the news that the 29 year old had needed emergency surgery for blood clots on her lung. A few weeks ago she posted pictures of herself back on a tennis court, in practise, on her twitter site.
In many people's minds, whatever the rankings say, she's still the queen of tennis. Time will tell whether that crown can be officially restored.
I'm back in Eastbourne after the French Open, and it's the start of those few weeks of the year in Britain when tennis seems to matter to the man or woman in the street. In this town, in particular, of course, with the tournament beginning this coming weekend. The promotion seems very good this year, in terms of omnipresence, with the giant posters of Tsonga and Ivanovic seemingly everywhere, and the controversially airbrushed pictures depicting Eastbourne as having a sandy beach, rather than the pebbled one it seems many residents are extremely proud of.
The financial benefits to the town are enormous in many different areas. Just last night a taxi driver was telling me that he must make sure to do several shifts next week. And, while tennis isn't necessarily the top topic of conversation with everyone in the town, it's clear that interest is growing. This morning I saw people stopping, doing an about-turn to confirm that they read correctly the headline on the newspaper stand: "SERENA JOINS VENUS AT TENNIS".
Yep, it's something of a coup. Many people thought Serena Williams wasn't likely to make her comeback until later in the summer, but now she's announced that she'll play her first tournament in nearly a year right here on the south coast of England.
If you didn't know, days after winning her 4th Wimbledon title - and 13th Grand Slam - last July, Serena suffered a freak mishap, cutting her foot on broken glass while at a restaurant. She still managed to play an exhibition extravaganza in Belgium, in front of a record crowd for a tennis match, standing in for an injured Justine Henin in what was originally billed "The Best of Belgium". She lost to Kim Clijsters, underwent surgery, and was out of the game for the rest of the year. Earlier this year the world was shocked by the news that the 29 year old had needed emergency surgery for blood clots on her lung. A few weeks ago she posted pictures of herself back on a tennis court, in practise, on her twitter site.
In many people's minds, whatever the rankings say, she's still the queen of tennis. Time will tell whether that crown can be officially restored.
Saturday, 4 June 2011
Li Na, The Chinese Confounder
I remember watching Li Na on Court One during Eastbourne 2008, an early round match against Nadia Petrova. I didn't know her game very well, and was wondering how, a couple of years earlier, she'd become the first ever Chinese player to reach a Grand Slam quarter final (Wimbledon 2006), and break the world's top 20. After she lost the first set and wasn't making much impact in the second, I texted a colleague to say, "I'm still wondering."
But she hung in there against a dominant Petrova, somehow eeking out the second set on a tie-break. She lost the final set, however, and my impression was of a solid and gritty but relatively unspectacular player.
Today I must eat my words as, at 29 years old, she celebrates becoming the first Asian winner of a Grand Slam singles title.
Her game has been gathering momentum for some time, of course. A couple of months after Eastbourne 2008, she beat Venus Williams in the quarter finals of the Beijing Olympics. And Venus didn't play particularly badly, Li was dominant and aggressive. Winning a medal for her country - at home - proved a step too far, however, as she lost to Dinara Safina in the semi finals, and then to Vera Zvonereva in the Bronze Medal Match. With Elena Dementieva beating Safina to take Gold in the final, it was a clean sweep for the Russians.
There had been a lot of talk, in the few years before the Beijing Olympics, of China being on the verge of making the kind of breakthrough in tennis, particularly on the women's side, comparable to Russia in the mid '00s. It still doesn't look very likely that there can be the sheer number of dominant players in the immediate future when you consider that Li (first Chinese player to reach the top ten, and now top five) and Zheng Jie (semi-finalist at both Wimbledon 2008 and Australian Open 2010) are the only ones from this new generation to have so far made top level impacts in singles. Also, the games of these top contenders can look easy to overpower when compared to the taller, more physically intimidating presences of most of the modern Russians.
But Li Na and Zheng Jie, despite being of smaller stature, can pack mighty punches. And, having gradually developed her game and confidence, Li has, incredibly, looked like the power player in the women's game this last fortnight. She beat hot title contenders Petra Kvitova and Victoria Azarenka in the fourth round and the quarters, before overwhelming Maria Sharapova - a player who has a far better serve and less of the matchplay frailties of many of her fellow Russians - in the semis. Li Na's ability to take the ball early, find the right angles at the right time, and an increasingly confident volley, have swept all before her. And, as she said herself, clay has always been her least best surface!
Defending champion Francesca Schiavone also confounded expectations by reaching the final. She could have won, but didn't manage to produce enough of her best tennis to overcome the formidable challenge Li posed today. I can't help feeling a bit disappointed that 30 year old Schiavone is one of the very few players able to provide old-fashioned flair and compete with modern power in the wake of Henin's departure.
But I can't help but be happy for Li Na. And the fact that such a big part of the world as Asia now has a Grand Slam champion has to be a good thing.
But she hung in there against a dominant Petrova, somehow eeking out the second set on a tie-break. She lost the final set, however, and my impression was of a solid and gritty but relatively unspectacular player.
Today I must eat my words as, at 29 years old, she celebrates becoming the first Asian winner of a Grand Slam singles title.
Her game has been gathering momentum for some time, of course. A couple of months after Eastbourne 2008, she beat Venus Williams in the quarter finals of the Beijing Olympics. And Venus didn't play particularly badly, Li was dominant and aggressive. Winning a medal for her country - at home - proved a step too far, however, as she lost to Dinara Safina in the semi finals, and then to Vera Zvonereva in the Bronze Medal Match. With Elena Dementieva beating Safina to take Gold in the final, it was a clean sweep for the Russians.
There had been a lot of talk, in the few years before the Beijing Olympics, of China being on the verge of making the kind of breakthrough in tennis, particularly on the women's side, comparable to Russia in the mid '00s. It still doesn't look very likely that there can be the sheer number of dominant players in the immediate future when you consider that Li (first Chinese player to reach the top ten, and now top five) and Zheng Jie (semi-finalist at both Wimbledon 2008 and Australian Open 2010) are the only ones from this new generation to have so far made top level impacts in singles. Also, the games of these top contenders can look easy to overpower when compared to the taller, more physically intimidating presences of most of the modern Russians.
But Li Na and Zheng Jie, despite being of smaller stature, can pack mighty punches. And, having gradually developed her game and confidence, Li has, incredibly, looked like the power player in the women's game this last fortnight. She beat hot title contenders Petra Kvitova and Victoria Azarenka in the fourth round and the quarters, before overwhelming Maria Sharapova - a player who has a far better serve and less of the matchplay frailties of many of her fellow Russians - in the semis. Li Na's ability to take the ball early, find the right angles at the right time, and an increasingly confident volley, have swept all before her. And, as she said herself, clay has always been her least best surface!
Defending champion Francesca Schiavone also confounded expectations by reaching the final. She could have won, but didn't manage to produce enough of her best tennis to overcome the formidable challenge Li posed today. I can't help feeling a bit disappointed that 30 year old Schiavone is one of the very few players able to provide old-fashioned flair and compete with modern power in the wake of Henin's departure.
But I can't help but be happy for Li Na. And the fact that such a big part of the world as Asia now has a Grand Slam champion has to be a good thing.
Tuesday, 31 May 2011
Two Hundred Miles from Eastbourne
Bonjour from Paris!
I feel privileged to be attending the second week of the greatest clay court tournament in the world, in one of the world's greatest cities. The weather provided a pleasing welcome yesterday evening when, an hour or so after cold and rain in Rouen, I was greeted by warm sunshine as I headed into Port d'Auteuil.
Having been offered a full press accreditation pass for either myself or my colleague to take up, to be brutally honest, I drew the short straw! So I made do with a visitor ground pass, while my colleague had access to Philippe Chatrier and Suzanne Lenglen Courts. But you make the best of things. I'd been on Centre and Lenglen before anyway, and for the first time I tasted the Court One experience.
And there was an added bonus of a match previously scheduled for Suzanne Lenglen Court. Maria "Maria, you're hot!" Kirilenko (I'm just remembering the chants from some local boys when she played Eastbourne a couple of years ago) took on the rising German star Andrea Petkovic. Like her slightly more hotly-tipped - but lower-seeded - compatriot Julia Georges, Petkovic is entered for this year's Eastbourne event.
And she'd already progressed further than Georges at Roland Garros by reaching the 4th round. Stuttgart champion Georges's loss to Marion Bartoli in the 3rd round was one of many shocks in the women's event so far. Even though Bartoli is ranked higher (11th to 17th), clay is certainly her least best surface.
Maria Kirilenko - an excellent doubles player who's scaled the world's top 20 and is seeded 25 - received some loud support in the less than half-full but atmospheric mini-stadium of Court One. One man was particularly vociferous, and led some of the crowd in noisy chants and songs. I was sitting very near to him at one point. I'm sorry, but I had to move. I love that kind of passion from fans and players, but I was virtually next to him, and it was ear-bleeding.
I was surprised by the mixture of seats on Court One - conventional "bucket-style" chairs at the lower levels, and benches on the top rows. You probably wouldn't want to sit on the benches all day, but they added to the more open-air, less formal atmosphere of a smaller show court.
Kirilenko and 15th seed Petkovic were very evenly matched, both being hard-hitting grunters with superbly powerful shots off both wings, enough tactical know-how, but not exactly the flair of a Henin, Mauresmo, Schiavone or even Radwanska.
It's a sign of the times that this style of play, once unique when pioneered by the revolutionary, individual Monica Seles, is now so common-place in the women's game that there are literally hundreds of women who play like this. Kirilenko and Petkovic do it better than most, but last night they looked very much like players a little below the top level. Sharapova, on Centre Court, was doing it so much better.
Still, it was an entertaining, competitive match, and the more likely winner took it in three. Petkovic performed her trademark dance at the end after sealing it 6-2, 2-6, 6-4. She was receiving vociferous support of her own by the end. No doubt some of it from German fans understandably excited by the best period in their national women's game since the days of Steffi Graf and Anke Huber, and Petkovic's delight was infectious.
Court One is a monumental sight from the outside, with all the singles champions' names engraved on individual slabs at the top. We're talking over a hundred slabs, of course. It circles from H Briggs in 1891 through to Nadal and Schiavone in 2010, with around ten to twenty slabs spare for engraving the forthcoming champions, before the circle is complete. I wonder if the organisers have considered what to do then?
If you don't know, the French Championships, as they then were, were only open to French residents until the 1920s. So it was quite a surprise for me to discover that Mr H Briggs (I've still to trace his full first name) was British. The sole non-French champion before Kornelia Bouman of the Netherlands took the women's crown in 1927, was however a resident of France. Only one British man has won the title since - Fred Perry in 1935. Could Andy Murray change all that this weekend?
The first six slabs have just one name on them - women didn't compete until 1897. The first female champion was F Masson. In my research, I've found her named, sometimes "Francoise" and sometimes "Adine Masson". Whichever she preferred, she won the Championships for the first three years, and took the title a further twice. Hope that helps for trivia anoraks like me.
There is, of course, also plenty of opportunity to share in the atmosphere of the crowd around the Place des Mousquetaires, between Court Philippe-Chatrier and Court One, watching the big court action on the gigantic screen. It's comparable to Wimbledon's "Henman Hill" (or is it "Murray Mound"? Take your pick.)
Today saw Andy Murray complete his match against Serbia's Viktor Troicki, which was stopped at two sets all due to bad light yesterday evening. A true comeback win - two sets to love down and trailing 2-5 in the final set, he played more aggressively at key moments to seal the decider 7-5.
Gael Monfils saw his impressive run end with a straight sets loss to an under the radar Roger Federer. I've been used to seeing Jo-Wilfried Tsonga's adverts for Kinder Bueno on mainstream French TV each time I've visited France in the last few months. Now, I regularly see Monfils in a milk or orange juice or something advert (sorry to the brand, I clearly haven't seen it enough times to remember it yet). Both men are extremely marketable and exhilarating for French tennis. They're both Grand Slam title contenders, but still always a very outside bet.
The images of Tsonga and Ana Ivanovic have been plastered all over Eastbourne in the last few weeks. They both have charisma and considerable tennis talent. The biggest "names" entered into the tournament are Venus Williams and Lleyton Hewitt. But perhaps organisers feel that, as they've both been out injured for some time - as well as being nearer to the "dirty thirty" age mark - that Tsonga and Ivanovic are safer bets. They both have extra time to prepare for grass, having lost in the 3rd and 1st round respectively, at Roland Garros.
Also today, Francesca Schiavone scored a win for flair with a 1-6, 7-5, 7-5 triumph over an impressive Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova (another Eastbourne 2011 entrant). And Marion Bartoli - who brings to mind more of the spirit and game of Monica Seles - delighted her home crowd by beating two-time Grand Slam champion Svetlana Kuznetsova.
So it's Schiavone versus Bartoli in the semi finals. Both Eastbourne regulars, entered again for this year's event, and a guarantee, in my opinion, of an interesting player in the French Open final.
I feel privileged to be attending the second week of the greatest clay court tournament in the world, in one of the world's greatest cities. The weather provided a pleasing welcome yesterday evening when, an hour or so after cold and rain in Rouen, I was greeted by warm sunshine as I headed into Port d'Auteuil.
Having been offered a full press accreditation pass for either myself or my colleague to take up, to be brutally honest, I drew the short straw! So I made do with a visitor ground pass, while my colleague had access to Philippe Chatrier and Suzanne Lenglen Courts. But you make the best of things. I'd been on Centre and Lenglen before anyway, and for the first time I tasted the Court One experience.
And there was an added bonus of a match previously scheduled for Suzanne Lenglen Court. Maria "Maria, you're hot!" Kirilenko (I'm just remembering the chants from some local boys when she played Eastbourne a couple of years ago) took on the rising German star Andrea Petkovic. Like her slightly more hotly-tipped - but lower-seeded - compatriot Julia Georges, Petkovic is entered for this year's Eastbourne event.
And she'd already progressed further than Georges at Roland Garros by reaching the 4th round. Stuttgart champion Georges's loss to Marion Bartoli in the 3rd round was one of many shocks in the women's event so far. Even though Bartoli is ranked higher (11th to 17th), clay is certainly her least best surface.
Maria Kirilenko - an excellent doubles player who's scaled the world's top 20 and is seeded 25 - received some loud support in the less than half-full but atmospheric mini-stadium of Court One. One man was particularly vociferous, and led some of the crowd in noisy chants and songs. I was sitting very near to him at one point. I'm sorry, but I had to move. I love that kind of passion from fans and players, but I was virtually next to him, and it was ear-bleeding.
I was surprised by the mixture of seats on Court One - conventional "bucket-style" chairs at the lower levels, and benches on the top rows. You probably wouldn't want to sit on the benches all day, but they added to the more open-air, less formal atmosphere of a smaller show court.
Kirilenko and 15th seed Petkovic were very evenly matched, both being hard-hitting grunters with superbly powerful shots off both wings, enough tactical know-how, but not exactly the flair of a Henin, Mauresmo, Schiavone or even Radwanska.
It's a sign of the times that this style of play, once unique when pioneered by the revolutionary, individual Monica Seles, is now so common-place in the women's game that there are literally hundreds of women who play like this. Kirilenko and Petkovic do it better than most, but last night they looked very much like players a little below the top level. Sharapova, on Centre Court, was doing it so much better.
Still, it was an entertaining, competitive match, and the more likely winner took it in three. Petkovic performed her trademark dance at the end after sealing it 6-2, 2-6, 6-4. She was receiving vociferous support of her own by the end. No doubt some of it from German fans understandably excited by the best period in their national women's game since the days of Steffi Graf and Anke Huber, and Petkovic's delight was infectious.
Court One is a monumental sight from the outside, with all the singles champions' names engraved on individual slabs at the top. We're talking over a hundred slabs, of course. It circles from H Briggs in 1891 through to Nadal and Schiavone in 2010, with around ten to twenty slabs spare for engraving the forthcoming champions, before the circle is complete. I wonder if the organisers have considered what to do then?
If you don't know, the French Championships, as they then were, were only open to French residents until the 1920s. So it was quite a surprise for me to discover that Mr H Briggs (I've still to trace his full first name) was British. The sole non-French champion before Kornelia Bouman of the Netherlands took the women's crown in 1927, was however a resident of France. Only one British man has won the title since - Fred Perry in 1935. Could Andy Murray change all that this weekend?
The first six slabs have just one name on them - women didn't compete until 1897. The first female champion was F Masson. In my research, I've found her named, sometimes "Francoise" and sometimes "Adine Masson". Whichever she preferred, she won the Championships for the first three years, and took the title a further twice. Hope that helps for trivia anoraks like me.
There is, of course, also plenty of opportunity to share in the atmosphere of the crowd around the Place des Mousquetaires, between Court Philippe-Chatrier and Court One, watching the big court action on the gigantic screen. It's comparable to Wimbledon's "Henman Hill" (or is it "Murray Mound"? Take your pick.)
Today saw Andy Murray complete his match against Serbia's Viktor Troicki, which was stopped at two sets all due to bad light yesterday evening. A true comeback win - two sets to love down and trailing 2-5 in the final set, he played more aggressively at key moments to seal the decider 7-5.
Gael Monfils saw his impressive run end with a straight sets loss to an under the radar Roger Federer. I've been used to seeing Jo-Wilfried Tsonga's adverts for Kinder Bueno on mainstream French TV each time I've visited France in the last few months. Now, I regularly see Monfils in a milk or orange juice or something advert (sorry to the brand, I clearly haven't seen it enough times to remember it yet). Both men are extremely marketable and exhilarating for French tennis. They're both Grand Slam title contenders, but still always a very outside bet.
The images of Tsonga and Ana Ivanovic have been plastered all over Eastbourne in the last few weeks. They both have charisma and considerable tennis talent. The biggest "names" entered into the tournament are Venus Williams and Lleyton Hewitt. But perhaps organisers feel that, as they've both been out injured for some time - as well as being nearer to the "dirty thirty" age mark - that Tsonga and Ivanovic are safer bets. They both have extra time to prepare for grass, having lost in the 3rd and 1st round respectively, at Roland Garros.
Also today, Francesca Schiavone scored a win for flair with a 1-6, 7-5, 7-5 triumph over an impressive Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova (another Eastbourne 2011 entrant). And Marion Bartoli - who brings to mind more of the spirit and game of Monica Seles - delighted her home crowd by beating two-time Grand Slam champion Svetlana Kuznetsova.
So it's Schiavone versus Bartoli in the semi finals. Both Eastbourne regulars, entered again for this year's event, and a guarantee, in my opinion, of an interesting player in the French Open final.
Thursday, 27 January 2011
Henin Heartbreak
I couldn't believe it when, as I started to read a report on Justine Henin's emotional "End of Career" address on her website, the record that began playing on my radio was Johnny Cash's version of Hurt. This stunning track is often featured on TV soundtracks when reflecting highly charged sports moments, where you presume the original themes of Trent Reznor's song - self-harm and addiction - aren't meant to be taken too literally.
I love Johnny Cash, particularly his later work. Coldplay, on the other hand, I like and respect but am not a passionate fan (similar to my feelings regarding Pete Sampras, I suppose). Yet a few years ago, a friend of mine, who was a Taekwondo champion before suffering a horrendous injury, told me what the song The Hardest Part meant to her: it reminded her of not being able to participate in the sport she loved. I wondered why, until I realised that, like a lot of songs, it was one I'd heard for years, but hadn't paid much attention to until I'd been heavily directed towards it. When I heard the lyrics, "And the hardest part/ Was letting go/ Not taking part", I understood.
What song could be more appropriate to such a situation as Justine Henin being forced out of tennis with an elbow injury? So you can probably guess what song was played, on BBC Radio 2, just a couple of hours after the Johnny Cash moment - at the end of a very bad day, not just for Henin fans like me but, I believe, the women's game, tennis, and sport as a whole? It's one of Coldplay's lesser-played records. I doubt its relevance to the day was recognised by the radio programmers here in the UK, where Henin's retirement heralded a mention in the sports bulletins, and zero attention in the general news. Synchronicity? As Melbourne's "housewife superstar" Dame Edna Everage might say: "Spoooky!"
I love Johnny Cash, particularly his later work. Coldplay, on the other hand, I like and respect but am not a passionate fan (similar to my feelings regarding Pete Sampras, I suppose). Yet a few years ago, a friend of mine, who was a Taekwondo champion before suffering a horrendous injury, told me what the song The Hardest Part meant to her: it reminded her of not being able to participate in the sport she loved. I wondered why, until I realised that, like a lot of songs, it was one I'd heard for years, but hadn't paid much attention to until I'd been heavily directed towards it. When I heard the lyrics, "And the hardest part/ Was letting go/ Not taking part", I understood.
What song could be more appropriate to such a situation as Justine Henin being forced out of tennis with an elbow injury? So you can probably guess what song was played, on BBC Radio 2, just a couple of hours after the Johnny Cash moment - at the end of a very bad day, not just for Henin fans like me but, I believe, the women's game, tennis, and sport as a whole? It's one of Coldplay's lesser-played records. I doubt its relevance to the day was recognised by the radio programmers here in the UK, where Henin's retirement heralded a mention in the sports bulletins, and zero attention in the general news. Synchronicity? As Melbourne's "housewife superstar" Dame Edna Everage might say: "Spoooky!"
Sunday, 24 October 2010
Tickets On Sale NOW
Well, I'm not the only person to be taken by surprise by this: Tickets for the 2011 Aegon International are ALREADY on sale! The 2010 event saw the move to a centralised box office - which was by no means universally popular, shall we say? - and the distribution of tickets wasn't announced until around three months before the tournament.
I received my first free text alerts regarding the 2011 event on Friday (hopefully I'll be involved in sending them out again, come the event), from eastbournetennis.com and eastbournetennis.net. More info on ticket availability is now on the aforementioned websites.
If you're in the Eastbourne area, there's still a couple of hours left to buy your tickets on site this afternoon (open till 5pm at the International Tennis Centre, Centre Court Building, Devonshire Park). The ONLY other dates you'll be able to buy tickets ON SITE before Saturday 11th June next year, according to the letter sent out by tournament director Gavin Fletcher, will be next weekend (Saturday 30th and Sunday 31st October, 10am - 5pm, both days). The other options, of course, are online or by telephone. There's a slight reduction (generally around £1 for a daily ticket, £5 for a weekly one) if you purchase before 4th January 2011.
I know there've been problems submitting comments to these blogspot pages, but if you are able to submit comments or experiences regarding buying tickets, they will of course be very welcome.
I received my first free text alerts regarding the 2011 event on Friday (hopefully I'll be involved in sending them out again, come the event), from eastbournetennis.com and eastbournetennis.net. More info on ticket availability is now on the aforementioned websites.
If you're in the Eastbourne area, there's still a couple of hours left to buy your tickets on site this afternoon (open till 5pm at the International Tennis Centre, Centre Court Building, Devonshire Park). The ONLY other dates you'll be able to buy tickets ON SITE before Saturday 11th June next year, according to the letter sent out by tournament director Gavin Fletcher, will be next weekend (Saturday 30th and Sunday 31st October, 10am - 5pm, both days). The other options, of course, are online or by telephone. There's a slight reduction (generally around £1 for a daily ticket, £5 for a weekly one) if you purchase before 4th January 2011.
I know there've been problems submitting comments to these blogspot pages, but if you are able to submit comments or experiences regarding buying tickets, they will of course be very welcome.
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