Monday, June 8, 2015

The French Open:as it happened(Part 1)

                  Another French Open came to an end today with many great matches.Let's see what happened in the second Grand Slam of the year. The world no1 Serena Williams came out victorious after many tough matches. But,let's start from the beginning. The first day was hiding a disappointing surprise for me,after the loss of my favorite player Aga Radwanska by Annika Beck,who reached the 3rd round with a scoreline of 6-2 3-6 6-1. In general, Aga has had a bad year and she was not a favorite to reach even the 4rth round,however I hope she will bounce back. Personally, I think that the partnership with Martina Navratilova didn't work at all and it really messed up her game. I think that she has to forget all about her training with Martina and to find the tracks of her old game again leaving the aggressive side that,correctly enough,Martina wanted to introduce to her. I hope I will find the time to make a post all about Aga and her drop this year,we will see!!!Another upset showed Eugenie Bouchard ,last years semifinalist and no6 seed to oust the tournament after her defeat by France's Kiki Mladenovic with an emphatic 6-4 6-4. For me, the loss of the Canadian wasn't even an upset. She has been losing and losing this year. I believe that Bouchard even last year she was inconsistent and except for her results in the Grand Slams and the final in Wuhan she didn't make something else. She is an aggressive player but there are kinda of a lot players that have the same playing style as Genie and this year she has not been able to enable it to everybody. Also, I think that the sudden fame and the changes on the expectancies of the crowd have played their role. In the 2nd round we saw one of the biggest favorites for lifting the crown,the no 3 seed and last years finalist Simona Halep,leaving Paris. The dream girl of the late '90's Mirjana Lucic-Baroni who is back now and she is playing some nice tennis did the same as in the last years Us Open beating the Romanian 7-5 6-1.I really thought that Halep could lift her maiden Grand Slam title,but when I saw her 1st match and then learnt that she was playing Lucic I saw my predictions start losing ground. And that happened...It was not the best clay court season for Simona and I don't what was the problem.Maybe her tries for becoming more and more aggressive led to some mistakes,most notable the 60 unforced errors in her semifinal match with Suarez Navarro in Rome.The next seed to see the door of exit was Caroline Wozniacki world no5 and former world no1. That was a surprise for me. She played a nice first round against an inspired Karin Knapp wh had just won the tittle in Nuremberg. I didn't see her match because I was sure she will pass but Julia Goerges surprised her with her aggressive play and won 6-4 7-6. I don't really know what went wrong for Caro,who had her best clay court season so far. As the 3rd round kicked off we had first of all the blockbuster of Serena and Vicka but I will leave it for the part 3.Also,Carla Suarez Navarro and Andrea Petkovic lost as long as Angelique Kerber who had 2 titles on clay this year. However,I think that all of this 3 players had tough opponents. The 1st encountered Flavia Penneta who is always capable of everything,Petkovic not only had injury problems but she had the 2012 finalist Sara Errani and Kerber had a blockbuster with hard-hitting rising star Garbine Muguruza.So,like that we reached the 4rth round,here the ultimate favorite before the tournament Maria Sharapova,world no2 and former champion felt victim to the inspired Lucie Safarova who went all the way to the final. Masha was battling with a cold which prevented her from playing her best game and the Czech was perfect beating the Russian 7-6 6-4. Also, for me the top competitor for Serena Williams, Petra Kvitova world no4 was ousted by Timea Bacsinzsky after a weird match with a scoreline of 2-6 6-0 6-3. Petra didn't play well throughout the tournamnt and she had trouble complying to the slow court of Paris.Those are the most noticeable matches of the 1st week. In the part 2 I will anayze the road of the 2 finalists and in general the 2nd week

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