Saturday, December 19, 2009

Praising Peers

So I sooooooooo was not fair to Sally Peers. I thought she was going to get pulverised by Casey Dellacqua, but at the beginning of the match it was Peers doing the pulverising. When I checked in with the score, Peers was leading 5-0 in the first set. Against Dellacqua, that is something - even for top players.

Peers ended up winning the first set but fading badly in the second two - nevertheless, even with the fade, I am very impressed. I've never had extraordinarily amounts of cred for her before, but I've changed my mind on her now. I'll be keeping an eye on her, that's for sure.

Dellacqua is through, however, and she'll face Rogowska in the final. Rogowska is resurgent for sure after her slow start, but I still don't think she's going to come through Dellacqua. Good on Casey - it's been a hard road back for her, and I'm glad. And if Olivia wins too, good on her. We're going to have a strong wildcard contender in the ladies no matter who wins.

In the blokes, we're having Lindahl and Tomic facing off. (Side note - what happened to Colin Ebelthite, who won here last year? He wasn't even in the draw, as far as I saw). It's no secret that I'm pulling for Tomic here - I think he'll get carded in anyway, but it'd be good for him to really fight for it, really earn it, as it were. The matchplay will make him all tough and stuff and the feeling that he earned it will be really good, I think.

I'll be interested to see what Lindahl brings to the court. Every time I've seen him he's been spectacularly unimpressive, but he must be doing something right...

1 comment:

Overhead Spin said...

Hello, first of all I have been enjoying your blog for awhile now. Not sure if I have posted anything but I have to say that I have been enjoying the AO wildcard playoff. I wrote in during the live stream (all the way from Jamaica) and congratulated Tennis Australia for doing this. It is always nice when tennis fans can really see the young talent that is coming up through the ranks. I wish other Federations would do the same. On that note, I watched most of the Lindahl match last night and he reminds me so much of Hewitt. A human backboard. He really does not have much of a game, but he has mental cojones. He was not afraid of trying new things and when he was in trouble he came up with some huge serves, huge groundies and was not afraid of the net. I have to confess that I was pulling for Peers last night. I really like her. She seems so focused on what she was doing. What stood out for me as well was the utter silence in which the players competed. I think the only time I heard a grunt was actually from Molik (never knew she grunted). You could hear the exhalations while the players competed, but no screeching or racquet smashing or anything like that. Good job Tennis Australia. I hope I get to see both matches on live stream tonight (Saturday) and I will be pulling for Olivia for the women and Lindahl for the guys.