The ITF Nottingham experience: Day 1

The grass season is finally to kick in. I have been waiting for this moment ever since I moved to London in September. Why? Because it means five weeks of tennis and tennis only for me.

Furthermore, it is my first time watching grass tennis live and there absolutely is something magical about.

The venue in one, rare, rain-free moment

Reaching Nottingham was not bad, or better, once I managed to travel across London it was very fine, but before that I had to face what Londoners call the “morning commute”, or as I call it, the first nightmare of the day.

For the ones who are not familiar with it, at around 7.30am everyone in the city goes out of his homes and starts his trip to whichever place they have to go. 

The natural results are crazy traffic jam and extremely packed trains and tube.

In all these months, I came to accept it, but I think there will be no way I will ever stop hating Vauxhall station in these moments.

But in the end, after the morning tradition of having my name massively badly spelled on my Starbucks’s coffee, I got on my train to Nottingham and the journey finally became pleasant.

Sadly the dark clouds travelling with me were not promising anything good for the day outdoor and even more miserably they kept their promise and it stopped raining for good only about now, 10pm.

My “debut” on grass will be postponed to tomorrow, but my day did not go wasted, because the tournament officials decided to play as many doubles’ matches indoors as possible.

Very pleased by how Sanchez plays

The funniest and most intense match of the day was surely the continuation of Coco Vandeweghe-Olivia Rogowska against Sharon Fichman-Maria Sanchez. The second team was leading one set to none when the match was resumed, but it was clear that the American-Australian duo was not to give up easily.

On 5-4 the New Yorker faced a match point behind her serve, but she was gutsy in saving it with a tricky second serve, that found Sanchez off the balance.

The shadow of the wasted chance bothered the Californian, who was broken for the first time in the set to give Rogowska the chance to serve it out.

The Australian did it with personality and the match went to a deciding super-tie, where Fichman fired up, showing great personality and charisma. The Canadian led her mate into a comeback, which resulted in the final 13-11 for them.

The winning team later on played again, but this time their win over Saisai Zheng and Magda Linette was easier: 6-4 6-4.

From the ATP Challenger, I had the chance to watch the practice and later the doubles’ match of one of the most intriguing American promises: Ryan Harrison.

After the very first few minutes of his training, one can see why he has received so much attention: all the talent is there, but what really impressed me was a much calmer attitude and a great dedication to his training.

Harrison showing courage, also for the clothes wearing in practice

His volleying was by far the part with the biggest need of work, but overall he looked very focused and centred. Unsurprisingly a few hours later I’ve seen him and his partner Kevin King upsetting the third seeds.

I was not the only one watching him, as sitting next to me there was Christina McHale, who was forced to withdraw from the tournament due to an injury occurred while training in Nottingham on Sunday.

She told me that she slipped on the grass doing sprints and fell badly on her wrist. She said the x-rays showed no fracture and she is healing fast, but up to date she has not hold the racked yet.

She told me she is confident she will be ready for Birmingham anyway and she might even do a hitting session tomorrow.

The funniest moment of the day award goes definitely to Fichman, who in the middle of her match against Zheng-Linette was forced to hit four consecutive volleys, but the last one never left her racket as the ball got stuck in the V.

Fichamn looked very determined in both her doubles

She looked around for a second and then commented very loudly “seriously?!”, which provoked a general laugh.

The loudest of the day award goes to Naomi Broady, who in the last 10 minutes of her doubles’ loss to Anne Smith and Jocelyn Rae completely lost her cool and start to shout at the umpire after every single dubious call.

My day ended with a great interview with Fichman and then a massive pizza, which in all honesty was not that great, but I was hungry.

The interview will be up as soon as possible. Good night and good tennis for tomorrow, with the hope that sun will shine and finally I will see some grass tennis!

the hardworker who dared to dream big: Marion Bartoli wins Wimbledon

A dream that lasted two weeks was the one that just ended with the best possible finale for Marion Bartoli. The 28 year old French woman was playing her 47th Slam of the career and clearly wasn't among the faves when the tournament started despite having been on a Final on the most famous grass of the world once before, in 2007, when en route defeated Justin Henin before falling to the hands of Venus Williams.
Her run that year came as a surprise and despite having shown to be a top player through the years she never reached a slam final again before this week. Marion capitalized a draw that surprisingly fell apart because of upsets and injuries, with her half being deprived of Sharapova (l.t. Larcher de Brito in R2), Azarenka (injured, w/o to Pennetta in 2R), Wozniacki (injured, l.t. Cetkovska in R2) and finally Kvitova, the only Wimbledon champion left when the quarter finals were set, who lost to another dream-runner, Kirsten Flipkens from Belgium.
But if the ranking of the players she defeated en route to this title might make her run seem an easy

one, it was everything buy easy, because some of the players she had to take down are always dangerous on grass courts as it was the case with Italian Camila Giorgi, who recently had also defeated the French woman in Strasbourg. It was impressive, nonetheless, that Marion lost no sets on her way to the title, edging past some tough battles like the one against Sloane Stephens in the QF, when rain and public seemed to be against her as much as her opponent, but through her experience she could stay calm and take home what eventually happened to be the toughest of her battles in the late stages of this tournament, because in the Semifinals she looked like the only player on court. Flipkens was at her first Slam Semi and the big stage reached thanks to the huge upset over Kvitova seemed to block her rather than pump, so that in no time she was sent back to the shower by the powerful and accurate strokes of Marion which led to a 6-1 6-2 final score.
In the Saturday's final she was facing the girl that was then said to be the favourite for the title, German Sabine Lisicki, the first German to reach a slam final since Steffi Graff in 1999. "Bine" made a terrific run to reach the final by defeating last year winner and current world n°1 Serena Williams in the 4th run and last year's finalist Agnieszka Radwanska in a tight semifinal ended 9-7 in the third.
But if bookmakers were giving her the favourite, tennis fans knew that the biggest enemy for a German win was Sabine's own mentality: the German, despite the huge talent and perfect game on grass had never been that far of a slam and often has been proved to be mentally frail whenever it was about seizing a great chance. And the same happened yesterday.
Despite the early break that sent the German 1-0 up, she looked tense on court and immediately Bartoli started to play her aggressive and powerful game that completely crashed Lisicki, like a typhoon does to a raft. The more the match was going on, the most Bartoli looked confident and her shots heavier, while Sabine's serve started to go missing and every service game of hers was in jeopardy. In no time it was 6-1 for the French player.
A toilet break seemed to help the German to find little of her game back as she finally held for the first time in the match for a 1-0 lead in the second set and the very tense and long game that followed was crucial for the final result, because Sabine tried everything to break and re-open the match, but every time she had a chance for a break, Marion could raise her level and save, until after almost 10 minutes she hold and on the burst of confidence go fast up 5-1, while tears and sighs broke on Lisicki's face.
When everything seemed to be lost, 15-40 down on her serve, the German suddenly found the calm of the despair and saved 3 match points before holding and go back on track. Marion the felt little tight and the weight of the wasted chances took their toll in the following service game when with no chance to serve it out she got broken by the German, who kept her momentum going as she hold for 5-4.
Marion was then sent to try serving for the tournament again, but this time she didn't let the chance leak out of her hands and with a terrific ace -only the 2nd of her match- that lifted a small cloud of gypsum from the green grass of the centre court she finally could fall on her knees and let the joy for the first slam of her career flow. With this result Marion will be back in the top 10, as high as 7th, which is her best ranking...what's more, she is the first player with double-handed forehand and backhand to win Wimbledon.

Heading towards the QFs of the most random Wimbledon ever? (part 2 - women)

(24) S. Lisicki vs K. Kanepi
In the top quarter of the draw one already meets a totally unexpected clash because whenever Serena Williams loses it's a surprise, but whenever she does it with such an open draw it's ever more. Serena was indeed given as the sure winner after the fall of Sharapova and Azarenka in the second round and ever before that, considering her record on Grass and the great win in Paris, she was the one to defeat for the title. Her executioner was German Sabine Lisicki, whose form seems to hit every year around this time, since she reached the QF last year too by defeating RG's reigning champion Sharapova before falling by the hands of Kerber -who was taken out by her next opponent just few days ago. This year Lisicki took down again the RG champion, but she seems the favourite to win her clash with Estonian Kanepi, because the two play a very similar game, but probably Sabine has more experience on the surface and Kaia is not known for her brave heart when it comes to seizing chances. 

(4) A. Radwanska vs (6) Li Na

The only match one could espect when the draw came out, is the only one that seemed more unlikely for both players to reach that far, because the Polish came to Wimbledon without the same positive results of the last year and Li Na had quite a few tricky opponents on her way too. Last year's champion needed all her talent to edge past American big hitter Keys and then to come back from a set down against grass-specialist Pironkova, while Li Na needed a huge focus to defeat in three sets Romanian Halep, who came to the match with two tournaments won in a row and then she edged 8-6 in the 3rd set against Czech Zakopalova. Nonetheless, Li Na found her whole game and security to easily thunder past Italian Roberta Vinci and head to this match with the best hopes to finally go beyond the QF of Wimbledon, something she had never done before. My guess is that if Radwanska passes this test, she's going to win the whole thing, but Li Na won't surrender easily.


(17) S. Stephens vs (15) M. Bartoli

In the section of the draw where Maria Sharapova was given as the biggest fave to reach this far and Caroline Wozniacki as the second fave, no-one of the two could go further than the second round as the first was shocked by Portugues Larcher de Brito and the second defeated by Petra Cetkovska, but most of all by a nasty ankle injury happened in the very first games of this match. It wasn't much of a surprise the fell of the second highest seed of this section, as Sara Errani (5th seed) was routined by youngster Monica Puig, whose game and power were too much for the Italian clay-courter. In the end Stephens could take advantage of the lack of real contenders left and despite playing quite below her best level, she could go through quite a few potential good matches, mostly because of her mental strenght, opposed to the fear of winning that hit both Cetkovska and Puig, when they were called to close their matches.

On the other side of the net there's 2007 finalist Marion Bartoli, whose experience on the surface is surely big, but her form was given dire as she retired from Eastbourn last week and her results this year were quite below her talent. Yet, she's a great fighter and could get this far by defeating en route a few tricky grass specialists like Giorgi and McHale. If the French can play the whole match on a good level for her standards, she can be quite safe for a place in the semifinals, but the young American seems never to fear taking chances, so don't count her off.


(8) P. Kvitova vs (20) K. Flipkens

In the section towered by world number 2 and Australian Open champion Victoria Azarenka, it was Belgian late-comer Kirsten Flipkens to get the chance to reach her first slam Quarter Final of her career. Her story seems the one of a movie, as only last year around this time, she was playing ITFs because injuries and losses were keeping her away from the best 200 of the world. "Flipper" with her deadly slice and fighting attitude won her place in the QF by facing no seeds en route, thanks to the walkover of the world n°2 given to Italian Flavia Pennetta, who later defeated Alize Cornet to reach her 3rd Wimbledon 4th round. The Italian wasn't the favourite in her clash with Flipkens, mostly because they had faced in RG round 1, when the Italian was defeated after a very long battle. On grass things didn't change much, with the Italian being the best player on court until she served twice for the first set. From that moment on Pennetta looked tense and couldn't express her best game, while the Belgian started to believe in herself more and the match went all the way on her favor.

Her opponent will be the former champion Petra Kvitova, who seems to be far from the form that gave her the title few years ago, she struggled to win her first round against Vandeweghe and then she was saved by a rain break against Ekaterina Makarova. Yet, her game seemed to click against Suarez Navarro in the 4th round and she probably is the fave against Flipkens and even if case of an upset, it is more likely to be Petra's fault, as her game is always down to all or nothing.


Bold Prediction for the final:
Radwanska def. Bartoli 7-5 6-2

Heading towards the QFs of the most random WImbledon ever? (part 1 - men)

Wimbledon, or as they call them-selves "The Championships", the whitest, the most prestigious and the most traditional of the Slams, probably the most famouse. For sure this year, the strangest. When we are still a few rounds away from the finals it seems like the only expected things are surprises: in a strangely dry edition of the British slam, it passed no day without a huge upset happening in the both women and men draws. Let's just think that out of the top 8 seeds in the women's draw only 3 are left, with the higher being Agnieska Radwanska, world number 4 and yet to win her first slam, while the other two girls who survived their seeding are former RG's champion Li Na and former Wimbledon's champion Petra Kvitova.
On the men's draw things look a little less surprising in terms of numbers, with 5 top 8 in the quarters, but the lack of Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal surely does surprise more than any other number, since the two combined one 8 out of the last nine editions of this slam.
But let's see what happened in each quarter of the draw:

(1) N. Djokovic vs (7) T. Berdyck

In this quarter everything went as expected, as Djokovic reached this far without dropping a set, despite having faces a bunch of grass-courter like Tommy Haas in the previous round. The Serb looks like the favourite for the title now, mostly because his form seems to be there and he is the only Wimbledon champion left in the draw. The Czech will surely be a nice test of his chances though, because Tomas knows how to play on those courts -he's been a finalist here few years ago- and he reached this point handling perfectly a few dangerous players like the South African Anderson and the young promise Tomic, who had took down to seeds en route: Quarrey and Gasquet.
My guess is Djokovic in four sets, with the first two sets running on the edge.

(4) D. Ferrer vs (8) J.M. Del Potro
Here's another quarter where seeding was respected, likely to be with a giggle from the organizers,

who were strongly criticized when they decided to give the Spaniard the 4th seed which Rafael Nadal should have been given according to the ranking. Apparently they were right after all, because David, despite struggling with a few opponents, he could make his way up to this far, whilst Nadal didn't. It would be quite a surprise though, if he would run away from this match with a win, because his Argentinian opponent has a game that suits the surface best and despite rumors had him out of his 4th round against Italian Andreas Seppi because of a knee injury, he is still in and hasn't dropped a set yet. Ferrer on the other hand never closed in straights and it looks unlikely that his griding would bother Juan Martin on the fast grass.

L. Kubot vs (24) J. Janowicz
The Polish quarter, the clash that writes a new page for the country, since it never happened that a Polish player hit the semifinals of the Championships and so, whoever goes through this match, the record will change. The clash of the underdogs was made possible by the unexpected defeats and retirements of all the seeds: for sure the most surprising one came when Sergej Stckhovskij in the

second round put an end of Federer's record of consecutive QF in slams, but it wasn't the only one, since earlier in the first round Rafael Nadal and Stanislas Wawrinka were stunned by Darcis and Hewitt. In the end it was Kubot to take advantage of the draw and the retirement of the "killer" of Nadal in the second round, so that he could capitalize his suitable game for grass by defeating lower names and after a huge effort reaching his first Slam Quarterfinal, by defeating Mannarino in 5 sets. Lucasz surely is the underdog in his clash with compatriot Janowicz, but Jerzy didn't have an easy way either, because yesterday it needed all his talent to win the 5th set against Austrian veteran Melzer and this marathon may take its toll tomorrow. My guess is still a win for Janowicz in three.

(2) A. Murray vs F. Verdasco
Half a surprise in this section of the draw, where as espected, world n°2 and Olympic gold medallist Andy Murray sailed in full control through all his opponents without dropping a set, though in all truth, he hasn't faced any particular treat a part from Youzhny in the 4th round, but the Russian fell apart after the 2nd set's tiebreak. On the other side of the net in this QF there will be the Spanish

veteran Fernando Verdasco, at his best result at Wimbledon. The Spaniard capitalized a draw the fell apart thanks to thewalkover of Marin Cilic (10th seed), and the retirement of French hope Tsonga during his 2nd round clash with Ernest Gulbis. Murray should face much problems in this Quarterfinal, nor in the Semis, sure the whole country is cheering for him to finally win the home slam.

Bold Prediction for the final:
Murray def. Djokovic 6-4 3-6 7-5 7-5