Okay, it’s getting late, I’m fried, Mauresmo just lost and I feel obliged to go to her presser – so I will.
A few things to contemplate, as I wait for Mauresmo, and watch Peer give Hingis all she can handle while Justine Henin-Hardenne goes Mike Tyson on Anastasia Myskina, who may be the coolest looking woman player of all time, even with red clay all over her stomach and legs, clumps of hair lying on the clay, blood trickling down her nose, not to mention that cotton-candy pink outfit.
What does she do in her spare time, work at Denny’s?
Anyway, Champagne Kimmy is through (she crushed Hantuchova) and it looks like the big quarterfinal match-ups will be Nicole Vaidisova against Venus Williams and Martina Hingis vs. Kim Clijsters. I fear for the Firekitten and the Sister from Another Planet.
Vaidisova played great today and Champagne Kimmy is doing her usual fly-under-the-radar routine; if it’s not injuries, then it’s dissatisfaction with the way she is playing, or something or other about the surface not being just right for her game. You know the routine. Whatever gets you through the night, Kimmy. We understand.
As for Mauresmo, I’m off the bandwagon. I decided I Australia that I was going to give her the benefit of the doubt. Keep my big mouth shut. Play the True Believer when it comes to her chances in Paris – as Martina Navratilova said on the television the other day, “it just feels like it might be her time.”
Well, Vaidisova a terrific match, no doubt about it. But there wasn’t a whole lot of intensity or fire raging on Mauresmo’s side of the net, and her explanation afterwards was dispassionate, a little too philosophical for my taste:
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It’s true, my shots were not so powerful, or long enough. I just played with a little less intensity. I expected her to make a few more errors, like she did when we played in Australia.
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So it seems that Mauresmo‘s way of dealing with the pressure of being a favorite in Paris remains the same: pretend the pressure doesn’t exist, pretend Roland Garros is just another tournament. And this approach has gotten her the same result as in the past: a lackluster performance, a slow fade. Not a shocking loss to a qualifier, but an anodyne one to a good – and in this case rapidly maturing – player.
It seems to me that the older Mauresmo gets, the better she is on hard and fast courts, and the less capable and confident she is on clay. Just once, though, I’d like to see her try a different approach – come in with a fire in her belly, embrace the challenge, take a flyer, come what may, and leave it all out there on the gritty, granular, blood and sweat and tear absorbing clay.
Suddenly, I’m really liking Svetlana Kuznetsova’s chances; she has Safina in order to get at Venus or Vaidisova. Remember, the Kuze had match points against the woman who went on to win the tournament for two years running (Justine Henin-Hardenne last year, Myskina the year before). What would a fortune-teller say?
Tomorrow, Dirty Boy Rafa gets to roll around on the clay with the forgotten man of tennis, Lleyton Hewitt. Okay, Charlie Bricker has some serious intel on this one: Li’l Lleyton is one of three players who’s 3-0 against Rafael Nadal, career. Can you name the other two?
Night all!