In just a mere two days, the thoughts that there was no real depth in women’s tennis have been annihilated faster than Maria Sharapova and now, Ana Ivanovic here.
All those years of cupcake first week talk, where the usual quote was “now the real tournament starts for the women” seem now about as antiquated as Bill Simmons tennis brain (if there is any left that is).
For those wishing that people would simply shut up about the women’s game not being as strong in numbers as the men’s game in terms of depth, hope maybe currently unfolding in front of our eyes.
Of course, the emphatic example of this sudden, legitimate aggrandizing of the power throughout the women’s field will only be compete if Venus or Serena Williams somehow become part of the upset bug-a-boo this fortnight like they have been a number of times in the past. Or if Jelena Jankovic finally realizes that this is the time to actually serve and play offensive tennis worth the mantle of a Grand Slam champion.
She certainly won’t shed a tear for Ivanovic of course, whose days at number one for the moment could be transient to say it in a benevolent way. Instead of propelling to higher heights after swimming with the sharks of Natalie Dechy two days ago, the recent French Open champion did the opposite in 6-1, 6-4 beating 131st ranked wild card Jie Zheng delivered to her.
If Sharapova was tentative and terrible against Alla Kudryavtseva’s, Ivanovic was ghastly and gloomy in her own shocking departure.
In a performance that was just as bad as some her displays in 2005 and 2006 while she was maturing, Ivanovic let the expectations get to her in the worst possible fashion, in the worst way. Over the last few years, Vera Zvonareva and Anna Chakvetadze, who has had a pleasant revival during the first week, had public moments of crying that they were criticized heavily for. Denunciation sadly may have to be given to this three time Grand Slam finalist as well for exhibiting conspicuous sullenness at such an unnecessary time.
Still well in the match at 1-6, 2-3 during the changeover, Ivanovic turned the water works on for the world to see how vulnerable she was. It was a stunning moment that you wouldn’t expect from her after all that she has been through in tennis the last 13 months. Despite going off the boil after the first two games of her French Open final last year against Justine Henin, she never showed signs of disconsolation. When Venus Williams outclassed her last year at Wimbledon and frustrated her to no end at the US Open, there was no water works shown. And even against Sharapova at this year’s Australian Open final, when she had her chances at 5-4, two points away for taking that first set, there was nothing from her façade containing extreme depressed emotion after being defeated.
But all of that was before she ascended to the apex of the sport. She had proven all year long that she was the best player, and she was thought by many to be ready to at least give it her best try and seize her new found elite status. There would have been no shame and questioning of her credentials to be a force if she had lost a thriller to Serena or Venus later in the tournament. And even with this lost, there sill may be some that will she say she just had “a bad day”, like Sharapova.
However, just like the American Russian, the questioning of whether Ivanovic can really handle the pressure when she’s the one with her name next to the number one slot or atop the odds makers table will be justifiably brought up. Just like those stunning tears.
The one who helped produced those tears, Zheng, is another captivating story in her own right. The Chinese world class doubles player looked like every much bit a premiere soloist in many facets, overcoming her debilitations from injuries last year and the devastating earthquake in her town less than two months ago. One of the future representatives for her country at its Olympic Games in Beijing, Zheng drove Ivanovic crazy with her counterpunching and combination of speed, shot selection, patience and aggressive. Her compact backhand, just like Kudryavtseva’s one against Sharapova, was slow or fast, short or deep. And maybe the key reason to this latest stunning result was the way Zheng served, or the way Ivanovic returned those deliveries.
“I liked the grass,” said a delighted Zheng after the biggest win of her singles career. “I stay low (and) it’s tough for her because the courts no jump too high.”
Quite frankly, it was the horrendous of the horrendous in the game of Ivanovic today. More so than even her own serve, which showed up about 12 games too late today in itself. She converted only one of seven break point chances against Zheng, but even more painful to watch was her lack of anything threatening to her opponent’s serve as the match progressed to its conclusion. She was jammed too easily by Zheng’s moving first serve, and whenever she got a look at a second offer that most of the times was slower than some groundstrokes, the WTA’s top ranked player choked it away with either a stroke into the net or the most telling point of this match: an overly aggressive second serve forehand return well wide that gave Zheng two match points.
And after falling to emulate her survival or receive lady luck again in her epic against Dechy, Ivanovic is the latest example of the diminishing days of talent only bestowed to the top five or 10 players in the women’s game, with a few underachieving ones mired in the mediocre 30’s, 40’s, and 50’s in the rankings. Her mulligan will be painful, and it will give her and her camp more time to analyze about her altered mindset since winning in Paris some 19 days yonder.
“It’s tough, you know,” said a more composed Ivanovic in the press room than she was on Court one. “But I think she played well today, (and) it was a tough match for me.”
Though the increase of dangerous talents in the women’s game still has some ways to go in order to compete with the men’s quality in numbers (picture Sveltana Kuznetsova with her talent ranked as low as say, Marat Safin or someone in the women’s game winning a Grand Slam like Goran Ivanisevic did in improbable fashion with a wild card in 2001), only the most critical skeptic could call these upsets just bizarre flukes.
Suddenly, Kuznetsova and Jankovic, who has been talked about so little at the AELTC this year to the level that you didn’t think her and Jaime Murray mixed double partnership made the papers go crazy , have a legit shot at being number one now at the end of this tournament.
As the depth grows, so does the disarray in women’s tennis. Seems a new topic has arisen where people can tell others possibly to shut up about.
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