Wednesday, May 5, 2010

The Slightly More Cheerful Story of Ana Ivanovic

Whoa, whoa, whoa. I feel like I want to write exactly the same post as I did yesterday, only even more so.

So now not only has Ana Ivanovic had a win, she's had a win over a top ten player...?

Surely not.

I am, of course, hesitant to place any faith in this win because a) only a tennis moron would put any money on Ana to do anything, and I like to think I am not one of those, and b) Vika is obviously injured. But injured or not, it cannot be overstated what a massive win this is for Ana.

The reason why a win, any win, is good for Ana is not because she's been losing a lot - which she has - but because her opponents haven't been beating her. She hasn't given them the chance - she's been too busy beating herself. If she can stand on the other side of a net from Victoria Azarenka and not self-destruct, this is a massive, massive moment.

Like I said, not placing any faith in Ana nor expecting this to be the start of something. But this win will have to do wonders for her self-confidence. Maybe she's going to go on and take a bunch more losses. But if that happens, I hope she actually gets beaten rather than losing. That would be a positive step.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Most surprisingly to me occured the way how well Anna served almost during the entire match. I thought that was key to her 'new emerging' ability to construct her points. That gave her such much needed confidence, and it helped her massively to play some 'sane' tennis. She got it all once: the angles, variety, the serve and enough power, particularly on her forehand.

I don't care if I like her or not but Anna's far more talented than Azarenka, who can hit & push the ball flat & hard but hardly being able to vary her game when neccessary. Also Azarenka got a few very embarrassing defeats under her belt, recently.

To me it seems Ana Ivanovic's work with Heinz Günthardt pays out dividens right now and she's returned on that stoney way back to former quality.