Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Intrigue and Errors

We have a really intriguing women's semi final lined up - Venus vs Kimmie. A year after Kimmie lined up against Venus's sister Serena in that fateful match, we are getting the closest thing to a repeat possible. Intriguing.

Now, I think Kimmie is going to take this and take it relatively easily. But if she plays as error-strewntastically as she did today and Venus plays tight, then it could be very interesting indeed.

Let's talk about the two quarter finals for a sec. Frankie Schiavone was right when she said she lost her match more than Venus won it. Normally, I'd be all 'come on guys, this is unfair', but Frankie imploded spectacularly in this match. She is capable of so much more and this was very disappointing. Nonetheless, it's got Venus through to her first semi in about a hundred years in New York, and given the dearth of men on the dudes' side in this draw, the US should be glad.

And then there was Sammy. Oh, Sammy.

Clijsters played some error-strewn stuff today, and Sammy had her chances. She could have won the match today if she had just taken them. But her inability to hold serve... well...

But no one expected her to hang this tight to Kim. And no one really expected her to make quarters here. She played to her seed, and that is something. Well done, Sammy.

And the men. Oh the men.

Rafa got through relatively painlessly, and Youzhny with only a scrape or so, but Stan Wawrinka and Fernando Verdasco must both be totally exhausted after their respective epics. I don't want to say that we'll have Youzhny and Rafa in the semis for sure... but I kind of do, because I just don't know how these guys are going to bear up.

But awesome performances from both - Stan for toughing out that fifth set against a non-partisan crowd and FeVer for roaring back from two sets to love down. This is the best performance from both this year, and both have a lot to be pleased about. And if one of them is a surprise semi finalist... I won't complain!

1 comment:

Overhead Spin said...

Uhm, seems like you are drinking from the same teapot as Fran. She said in her presser that Venus does not like to see her name in the other side of the draw. Uhm, the h2h is there for a reason. She has never beaten Venus, never and this year was the first time she even got a set. Yeah, she needs to keep thinking that Venus hates to see her name because she is just trembling in her Nikes. Yeah Fran, we are shaking in our boots. Too funny.