was it the enormity
of the stage where she was? or was it the huge pressure of making history? or
did she underestimate her opponent? these are the questions hovering behind
serena williams' surprising loss to roberta vinci in the semifinals of this
year's US open.
serena's riding high
this year, ripe to match steffi graf's calendar grand slam in 1988 and equalling
graf's 22 slams. she of course won this year's first 3 slams – defeating maria
sharapova in melbourne, lucie safarova in 3 sets in paris and garbine muguruza
in london. she's on 33-match winning streak in slams from last year's US open. she
also has won titles in miami and cincinnati this year. she now has won a total
of 53 matches and only lost 2 this year (to petra kvitova in madrid and belinda
bencic in toronto). in this year's US open, her first round opponent retired,
beat kiki bertens in straight sets in the second round, lost the first set but
won comfortably against bethanie mattek-sands in the third round, won easily
against madison keys in the fourth round and outgunned her sister venus in 3
sets in the quarterfinals.
but against robertavinci in the semis, she seemed flat and not her usual self. she of course won
the first set, 6-2, roaring back to take 5 games to close it out. in the
second, vinci found her groove, breaking serena's serve for the first time and
eventually gutting and winning her first set against serena, 6-4. in the
deciding set, serena went ahead, 2-0, but vinci broke back and held at 2-2. the
32-year old from taranto, italy would go on to break serena for an advantage at
4-3 after a fantastic rally and hold to 5-3. serena won the next game, 4-5, and
got vinci to serve it out… which she did, dashing the younger williams' hopes
of sweeping the 4 majors in the same calendar year. serena produced 16 aces and
50 winners but committed 40 unforced errors. vinci forced serena to commit more
than 20 forced errors.
prior to US open
2015, roberta vinci has never been beyond the quarters of any slam. in fact,
she lost in the first round of a slam, 23 times. in her 4 previous matches against
serena, vinci did not win more than 4 games. but in the semifinal match, vinci
was the steadier player, dictating points and not committing a lot of mistakes.
she simply refused to commit errors, gamely faced serena and smiled a lot even
when serena's serves and winners go past her. even when she loses to flavia
pennetta in the finals, she will forever be etched in the history of most
stunning upsets.
no calendar slam for
serena and tennisdom this year. while williams said that she did not think of
the grand slam and records, she of course had her sights on it. after all,
she's playing well and dominating the circuit and nobody has ever came close to
challenge that. not even sharapova, simona halep or kvitova. she's head and
shoulders above the competition and winning the calendar grand slam will truly
cement her place in the history as the greatest player ever. had she won the
title, she would tie graf's 22 slams and would have ended the debate on who's
really the greatest. but it was not to be. certainly, there was a huge pressure
on her. everybody expected her to win, including vinci. vinci played well to win
the match of her life but serena's been in these kinds of situation many times before
and pulled through, even snatching wins when she really was down and not
playing well. as rennae stubbs said, she's one of the greatest competitors ever
and hates losing.
so what really swamped
serena's chances of completing the slam? it was the combination of immense
pressure, looking way ahead and most probably, not taking vinci seriously. in her
career, serena always had problems with lowly, unflashy players who seemed to
not have any power to bang away with her. think of emilie loit, alina jidkova,
tiantian sun and monica niculescu. she lost to unknown and lower-ranked players
such as garbine muguruza, alize cornet, jana cepelova and virginie razzano. with
roberta vinci, she seemed to be telling herself that "you cannot lose to
this player" or "you're so much better than her", thought of
which confounded her as the match went on, vinci not folding back and
continuing to play well, win her service games and breaking serena's serve once
more. serena's frustration resulted to her becoming tentative, slower to react
and seemingly not anticipating well. errors came rushing in and in no time, she
was out of the tournament. as many pundits say, that's sport for you. even the
greatest champions get perplexed and run out of ways to pull off a win
sometimes, especially when you take your challenger too lightly.
i'm a fan of serena
williams. she's one of the greatest players ever to play the sport. she's
brought in great difference and with her talent, skills and personality, put
tennis at a higher level as a whole. she probably would equal graf's 22 slams
next year or even margaret court's 24 in the next few years. but the calendar
grand slam is not hers. i would like to see another player achieve that… a more
gracious and sportswoman who would not use steely stares to intimidate opponents
and only let her racket do the talking.
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