Wimbledon day 5

I cannot say yesterday was a very exciting day in the women’s bracket. All matches in round 3 were over after 2 sets and there were hardly any upsets. Well, Nadia Petrova is seeded 12 and lost to the number 17 Henin, but that is hardly shocking. Kim Clijsters won as well and that means Clijsters and Henin will face each other monday. Other Belgian star Yanina Wickmayer lost against Vera Zvonereva. I like Vera and it has been a while since she played good so this was nice. Venus, Jankovic and Bartoli all won as well.

Justine wins on the grass

At the only dutch female tournament on the WTA tour, Justine Henin was the best of the field. The Belgian beat German Andrea Petkovic in an exciting finale. 6-3 3-6 6-4. The tournament in Rosmalen is one of only 4 tournaments on grass and a great preparation for Wimbledon.It is close to the Belgian border so most people watching were Belgians. The Netherlands had to play their second match at the World cup so most people were somewhere else. In Eastbourne Russian qualifier Makarova was the surprising finalist with wins over Pennetta, Petrova, Kuznetsova, Stosur and Azarenka in the final. A sign that on grass anything can happen. Tomorrow Wimbledon starts and I just had a look at the draw. My predictions for the round of 16 will be Serena Williams- Maria Sharapova, Na Li- A Radwanska, Wozniacki- Azarenka, Penetta(Rezai)- Stosur, Clijsters-Henin!!!, Wickmayer-Jankovic, Bartoli-Schiavone, Ivanovic-Venus Williams. I bet many will be wrong because that is the thrill of Wimbledon.

Tennis, Grass Court Season

After a long clay season it is always fun to see how many early upsets there are in the second biggest grass court tournament of the year in Eastbourne. This year is no different. Yesterday and today in the first and second rounds Wozniacki, Petrova Pennetta and Roland Garros champ Schiavone lost. All did great at the clay of Roland Garros but showed playing on grass is something else. Kim Clijsters though, who came back after a few months of injury timeout, proved she is a class above the others just mentioned and beat fellow Belgian Wickmayer(with icy handshake by Wickmayer) and Safarova 6-1 6-1 and 6-1 6-0. Hope this is a good sign for Wimbledon for Kimmie.

Roland Garros day 7

The last 2 french women in the draw lost yesterday. Bartoli against Israel’s Peer and crowd favorite Aravene Rezai could not beat Nadia Petrova. The finished a match that ended the night before 7-7 in the third set, Petrova won yesterday 10-8. The good ‘ole days of Mauresmo, Pierce, Tauziat and Golovin are definitely over.Serena had a tough day against Russian junior champ Pavlyuchenkova losing the second set 6-1. Time for Serena to get an injury time-out and a little pill that made it all better!! She won easy in the third 6-2. If Pavlyuchenkova loses a bit weight she can become dangerous in the future with her pounding ground strokes. Two aussies made it to the last 16, lesbian Sam Stosur and Groth. Jelena Jankovic and fav Daniela Hantuchova also won their third round matches yesterday after hard-fought battles against seeded A.Bondarenko and Wickmayer from Belgium.

Roland Garros day 3

Henin, Sharapova, Hantuchova, Wickmayer and Bartoli were easy winners in their first rounds at Roland Garros. One match certainly was the highlight of the day and not because the level was so high, but it sure was dramatic. Kimiko Date Krumm, the 40-year old veteran from Japan beat last year’s finalist Dinara Safina in three sets. The first set was a quick 5-0 for Safina who on the set 6-3.In the second set Safina lead 2-0, but it went downhill from there. Safina has been seriously injured for the start of the year and came back only weeks ago but hitting so many errors is a shame. She even lead 4-2 in the third eventually losing 6-3 4-6 5-7. In the last game Safina hit 4 unforced errors in a row against a Date who injured herself on her calve and could barely walk. This Date comeback is getting better and better though, she plays so extremely smart. A nice counter-balance to the tons of ball-bashers on tour right now.

U.S and Italy in Fed cup final

The defending champion Italy played with 2 of my favorites Flavia Pennetta and Francesca Schiavone. They beat Czech Republic with Kvitova and Hradecka with 5-0 Italy’s top ladies always play and that is what makes them good, year after year.

From the other 2 semi-final teams you cannot say they had their best players. U.S beat Russia 3-2. The U.S missed the Williams sisters but both Melanie Oudin and Bethanie Mattek Sands won one single and great team Mattek/Huber on the decisive double. Russia had Dementieva who won 2 matches but Makarova and Kudryavtseva proved very weak.

Belgium on their play-off against Estonia with 3-2 and will stay in the world group. Unfortunately both Clijsters and Henin got injured though, Clijsters will likely be out for  6 weeks and might miss Roland Garros. Flipkens and Wickmayer would have probably won it without the 2 stars.

Australian Open day 7

My final 4 predictions can already go in the garbage after today, a good example that the Women’s Tour is much more surprising than the men’s side. One match ended by retirement though by Safina who injured her leg against Maria Kirilenko. Jie Zheng beat Alona Bondarenko and can make her second slam semi-final after reaching it at Wimbledon in 2008. The other 2 round 4 matches were way more interesting. The Belgian battle between Justine Henin and Yanina Wickmayer was on a very high level. The first set was for Henin with 7-6 after Wickmayer had setpoints. Second set was easily won by Wickmayer who played fantastic and made very few errors. Last set Henin played unbelievable though winning it 6-3. She is such a little fighter! Petrova beat the 3rd seat Kuznetsova 6-3 3-6 6-1. This is the first time since the spring of 2006 when she was unbeatable on the green and red clay that she won 2 matches against top players in a row. She was a big favorite for Roland Garros, but lost very early and since then she has been a head-case. Hopefully she can keep it together now for a change and win a deserved slam title. Kuznetsova made a lot of errors though so she handed it to Petrova.

Australian Open day 6

Day 5 was full of intense and interesting matches, but day 6 was definitely less interesting. Serena won very easy against  Suarez Navarro( wh0 beat Venus here last year) and Venus won with a bit more trouble with 6-1 7-6 against Aussie’s Casey Dellaqua. Other easy win were for Zvonareva, Azarenka and Wozniacki and the last 16 are now known.

Serena- Samantha Stosur

Zvonareva-Azarenka

Na Li- Caroline Wozniacki

Venus- Fran Schiavone(one of my favs)

Henin-Wickmayer

Petrova-Kuznetsova

Bondarenko-Zheng

Kirilenko-Safina

It is hard to make the final 4 prediction because even in the last 16 many matches could be very close but I will try anyway

Serena, Wozniacki, Kuznetsova and Safina

US Open, Kim-back continues after severe drama

Let’s start with the semi-final match itself between Serena Williams and Kim Clijsters, because no-one seems to talk about that. It was a great match on a very high level where Kim made sure Serena never got into her groove by playing aggressive herself and hitting the balls very deep. The match had some fantastic rallies and the longer they lasted the more likely that Kim came out on top. Now onto the drama. After Serena lost the first set she smacked her racket and got her first warning. At 6-5 for Kim in the second Serena got a foot fault which gave Kim the match point. If the foot fault was fair people are still discussing, but Serena showed her true self by yelling at the lines person” I swear to God, I will take this ball and push it down your throat”. And after that she said she was gonna kill the woman. Serena got her second warning and lost the point and the match. Not very Jehovah’s Witness-like don’t you think. Serena is just a sore loser and trailer trash. Because of this Kim never got the perfect ending to one of the best matches of her career, something she really deserved. But Kim stayed classy as usual and did not trash Serena afterwards. 

Kim will play the final of the US open against Danish teen Caroline Wozniacki, who played a solid match against Yanina Wickmayer and made sure the make very little errors. That was enough yesterday night to make it to her very first slam final.I think though that if she wants to beat Kim she has to do a little more. Kim is the favorite after beating both Williams-sisters in her first slam after a 2 year pregnancy absence, but Wozniacki’ error-less game is not something to think light about. How fantastic would it be if Kim took the trophy home??!! Both Denmark and Belgium will sure be proud of their ladies!

Serena Williams

US Open day 10, Leave the zit alone and give me a kiss

Rafael Nadal had a male fan come real close to him after his match. He took of his shirt an a guy approached him with a camera and tried to give him a kiss. The man was arrested and removed from the premises. Kinda weird a thing like this can happen, what was security doing. We don;t want another Monica Seles incident. Nadal thought it was all cool, he said the man was a fan, told him he loved him and just wanted a kiss.No problem. Well, if Rafa is so easy about it, here I come.

Kim Clijsters had a funny video on her youtube blog explaining what the large wound under her eye was. Me and apparently many people with me had been wondering about it and Kim decided to tell the slightly embarrassing truth. She had a large zit there, tried to burn it away with some product and instead burned her good skin with it as well. Could totally be something that I would do, in fact I tried it once with lemon acid and it wasn’t pretty. What I love about Kim is that she is so normal and honest.

There was also real tennis yesterday at the US open. Two more girls made it to the semi-finals. First there was Belgian teen Yanina Wickmayer who beat Katerina Bondarenko in straight sets 7-5 6-4. At least the Belgian girl was going for her shots so a deserved winner. Who would have thought at the beginning of the year that Belgium would have two semi-finalists again at this year’s open??? Wickmayer is surely talented but her route to the semi final was a fairly easy one. The only seeded player she beat was the number 19 Razzano in the first round. Her opponent in the semi’s will be Danish super talent Caroline Wozniacki who made an end to the dream run of Melanie Oudin. Oudin played not nearly as good as in her rounds before, probably tired, and Wozniacki does not make nearly as many errors as the Russian Army Oudin beat before. An easy 6-2 6-2 as a result. Wozniacki should make her first grand slam final on Friday.