by Pete Bodo
We haven't even reached the mid-point of the Australian Open yet, but one major theme has emerged and may prove to be the dominant one by the end of next week. Peel away the straightforward themes—the Rafa Slam, Wozniacki's search for validation of her no. 1 ranking, Novak Djokovic's new attitude—and you come up with a passle of resurrection motifs, both minor and major. In fact, three of the four women who contested yesterday's marquee WTA matches (all of them multiple Grand Slam champions) were striving to resurrect better selves.
We're talking about Justine Henin, Svetlana Kuznetsova and Maria Sharapova—all of whom are engaged in efforts and driven by motivations intrinsically different from those of players like the happy-go-lucky Wozniacki, upward-arcing Vera Zvonareva or Grand Slam wannabes like Victoria Azarenka, Li Na and Sam Stosur. And much different from queen-bee Kim Clijsters, who tackled the reaffirmation issue back in 2009 and has had relatively smooth, almost lazy sailing ever since, loving life and putting on a good show until it's time to mollify the critics by winning another U.S. Open.
On the men's side, bodies are also rising. We have the cases of Mardy Fish, Xavier Malisse and Stan Wawrinka. Maybe even Marcos Baghdatis. You have to assign some of the credit for this sudden urge for competitive rehab to Fish, who woke up a little over a year ago and, closing on the dreaded age of 30, decided that he'd squandered a lot of his potential by merely going through the motions of a career. He transformed himself into a lean and mean combatant, as his results in 2010 showed. Malisse had a similar eureka moment. He crossed to the far side of 30 last July and must not have liked what he saw on the other side.
And there's Wawrinka, who recently abandoned his wife and infant daughter because, reckoning that he has just five years left to make the most of his career, he'd better travel light. I'm not going to judge "The Manislaus," because sometimes there's more than meets the eye in these situations, but at 25 Wawrinka still has time to create results that can't be qualified by his age or physical condition. Wawrinka looked sharp in his straight-sets beatdown of Gael Monfils yesterday, and Andy Roddick is going to have his hands full when he meets the Manislaus.
But let's get back to those three WTA icons whose decisions or histories have helped make the women's game simultaneously more baffling and more intriguing. Henin has struggled since she returned in 2010 from an aborted retirement of about a year-and-a-half. She's struggled to play her pretty, stinging, free-swinging game with the requisite confidence and focus, and she's grappled with injury, missing the entire second half of last year with a bum elbow. Kuznetsova, her opponent yesterday, also appeared to retire, albeit informally. She continued to travel the tour and hit balls, but by the end of last year the 2009 French Open champ's ranking had fallen to a low not hit since 2003, No. 27.
Kuznetsova showed up in Australia slimmed down, bright-eyed and seemingly ready to reassert herself as a Grand Slam contender. She's shaped less like a bowling pin than a bowling ball, especially when she's neglected herself and the training mandate. But she's let the world know that she's lost so much excess baggage that tailors in Melbourne have had to take in her tennis togs at the seams, lest they fall off while she's running. She won that third-round clash with Henin, and in straight sets no less.
This was Kuznetsova's first win over Henin in six Grand Slam meetings, and you have to wonder just how deeply that will cut into Henin's relish for the game—her attitude since returning in 2010 has never been entirely convincing. More important, Kuznetsova has now declared herself a player again, and when it comes to Grand Slam experience, especially big match experience, the only woman in the draw who can challenge her is Sharapova—Kuznetsova's potential semifinal opponent.
But even Kuznetsova's resurrection statement was overshadowed by Sharapova's performance against Julia Goerges (pronounced, "gorgeous"), a nimble, mentally tough, poised German girl of 22 with a big forehand and serve (the women posted an identical average first-serve speed of 166 kmh). Sharapova clocked an early break, but played poorly (she hit just four winners in the set, while Goerges had a dozen) the rest of the way to lose it, 6-4.
Worse yet, those service yips that have haunted her recently were in evidence; when she hit three double-faults in the first game of the second set, it appeared that she might crumble. But Sharapova held fast, and began to find her range. At one point, ESPN's Cliff Drysdale remarked, 'Say what you will about Sharapova, but she is a fighter—of that there is no question."
Well, no. But strip her of court sense, boil away the timing, sour the mood, misdirect the putative winners and all of a sudden someone who is just a fighter can look awfully foolish, standing there glowering as she chunks one ball after another, the compressed fist and pursed lips looking more comical than threatening. But Sharapova survived the general meltdown and began to find the confidence and range without which even a great fighter is just another tomato can. She worked through her serving issues and actually seemed to raise her game in direct response to the way Goerges often raised her own. Sharapova closed out the 6-4 second set with an ace that also drew her dead even with Goerges in the winners department; to that point each woman had 20.
Goerges' game went over a cliff at the start of the third set; Sharapova jumped to a 4-0 lead, but instead of fizzling out, the match re-ignited. Playing like a cornered cougar, Goerges began smacking winners left and right, and Sharapova responded in kind. Together, the women hurtled toward the conclusion at breakneck speed, but that second "insurance" break Goerges had presented to Sharapova was too much to overcome. At 5-4, Sharapova started with a double-fault but ended with an ace—a neat microcosm of all that had come before. As Sharapova said, "The most important thing is that I fought really well today and I found a way to play better."
If you want a different take, you might consider that the important thing is that Sharapova, but for a few alarming breakdowns at relatively unimportant times, served well. She had 11 double-faults, true, but the seven aces were more determinative. And she edged out Goerges in the winners department, 35 to 32, while making fewer unforced errors (29 to 32). Sharapova's first-serve percentage was merely decent, at 58 percent, but that still accounted to plenty of points for her, given her 70 percent winning percentage when she put the first ball in play.
Sharapova has a tough row to hoe over the next few rounds, with Andrea Petkovic next, possibly followed by either Ni La or Victoria Azarenka. Even without Venus Williams in contention anymore, this is a surprisingly tough quarter of the draw, given that the only Grand Slam champion in it is Sharapova.
A week ago, it was hard to envision Sharapova mounting a serious challenge for the title. Now she appears to have as good a chance as anyone—including that of other redemption seeker, Kuznetsova. They could meet in the semis. This resurrection thing appears to be a regular trend.