What's Next? ТОП-6 - ТОП-10
Выставил серию Steve Tignor для теннисисток ТОП-6 - ТОП-10
Он рассматривает 3 возможных ситуаций для каждой теннисистки в следующем сезоне - лучший вариант, худший вариант и чего можно ожидать на АО.
What's Next? WTA No. 6, Sara Errani
You can add Errani to the 2012 breakthrough list. The 25-year-old Italian pulled off the biggest rankings jump of all, moving from No. 45 at the end of 2011 all the way to No. 6 at the close of this year. She reached her first Grand Slam final, at the French Open, a Slam semifinal at the U.S. Open, and a quarterfinal at the Australian Open.
At 5'4", Errani was primarily known as a clay-court grinder and retriever before this season, but she showed surprising versatility on hard courts, and had a successful debut at the indoor year-end championships, where she beat Sam Stosur and lost a classic to Agnieszka Radwanska. With her wails of determination, her kitchen-sink tactics, and her deceptively forceful forehand, Errani made life tough for virtually everyone she played in 2012. Everyone, that is, except Yaroslava Shedova at Wimbledon—the Kazakh put a golden set on Errani in the third round there.
Best Case Scenario: While clay remains her home base, Errani should be optimistic about her immediate chances on the slow hard court in Australia in January. She wore her opponents down last year long enough to reach the quarters. By the end of 2012, she was also playing with more aggression; if she can keep improving that part of her game, more Grand Slam semis should follow. Caroline Wozniacki reached No. 1 with little more than defense and grit.
Worst Case Scenario: Wozniacki is both the model and the anti-model for Errani; the Dane was No. 1, but she finished 2012 on the outskirts of the Top 10. The moral for the Italian may be, with such a hard-hitting Top 3, retrieving will only get you so far these days. She won’t take anyone by surprise in 2013, and defending all of her new points is going to a take major effort.
Australian Open Outlook: Errani loves to run, and that’s a help on Plexicushion in the middle of the Aussie summer. Depending on her draw, and how much help she gets with the Top 3, she could make her second straight Slam semi. But a win over Vika, Maria, or Serena, whatever the round, is a long shot.
What's Next? WTA No. 7, Li Na
At the Grand Slams, Li took a step back in 2012; she didn’t win one, as she had the previous season. On the other hand, it appeared, by the end of the year, that she had taken two smaller steps forward: She had improved on her awful second half of 2011 by winning the title in Cincinnati; and in a related development, she had hired a new coach, Carlos Rodriguez, who had guided Justine Henin throughout her Hall of Fame career. Li has always had firepower and athleticism, but she lacked the mental calm and consistency to use those assets effectively on a regular basis. But with Rodriguez, rather than her husband, as her coach, she showed some signs of progress as the year went on. For now, China’s No. 1 remains a notch below the WTA’s top tier, but she’s also one of the players with the ability to knock anyone off when everything is clicking.
Best Case Scenario: Provided Rodriguez is still in her corner, which seemed likely at season’s end, Li may have her best shot at a big win right off the bat, at the Australian Open. She was one set from the title there two years ago, and she likes the slow hard courts Down Under. After that, it’s anyone’s guess how Li will do from month to month or even set to set. She’ll have another shot at Paris, which she won in 2011, and a little more consistency overall could get her into the Top 5.
Worst Case Scenario: At the year-end WTA Championships, we saw some of the old problems—forehand breakdown, mental meltdown, barking at her coaching box—return for short stretches. Will those short stretches turn into long stretches? If they do, will Rodriguez tolerate being on the receiving end of her glare? A break-up there, and a return to being coached by her husband, would be a setback.
Australian Open Outlook: Li, a finalist in Melbourne in 2011, will come in right behind the Top 3 as a sleeper pick to win the whole thing. The courts suit her game, she’s in her part of the world, the season is young, and she should be mentally fresh. With a good draw, she could find herself alongside Vika, Serena, and Maria in the semifinals.
What's Next? WTA No. 8, Petra Kvitova
It seems like a very long time ago, in a tennis galaxy far far away, but as 2012 began, the consensus among WTA observers that Kvitova, who had won Wimbledon and the WTA Championships the year before, was the immediate future of women’s tennis. It didn’t work out that way; instead of ascending to her rightful place at No. 1, the power-hitting Czech failed to reach a Grand Slam final and finished the year at No. 8. What should we think of her future now? At times, her ground strokes, and her game, will be untouchable; at other times, she’ll be barely be able to touch them down in the court. And unless something changes drastically in her tactics and mindset, we won’t know from day to the next which of those Kvitovas we’re going to get.
Best Case Scenario: Kvitova’s strongest backers spoke too soon at the end of 2012. But there was a reason for our enthusiasm. When she’s clicking, she can take over a match against anyone other than Serena Williams. Having hoisted the Wimbledon winner’s plate, she knows that she can, and should, win Grand Slams. Those expectations haven’t gone away, which means no one would be surprised to see her do it again, most likely at the Australian Open or back on Centre Court.
Worst Case Scenario: Going strictly by the numbers, Kvitova is not trending well. She finished 2011 at No. 2, seemingly with a ticket for the top spot; she finished 2012 at No. 8. Worse for her is that the WTA’s immediate future really did appear to announce itself last season; it consisted of Victoria Azarenka, Serena, and Maria Sharapova, but not her. She’ll be the underdog against any of those three in 2013.
Australian Open Outlook: Two years ago, Kvitova looked ready to make a breakthrough in Melbourne. Then she took a nosedive against Vera Zvonareva in the quarters. Last year she looked ready to the do the same thing. Then she was out-smarted by Sharapova in the semifinals. The sky is the limit for Kvitova on the slow hard courts Down Under, but getting there, one match at a time, for two weeks, will always be a rollercoaster ride for her.
What's Next? WTA No. 9, Sam Stosur
Like the two women right in front of her in the rankings, Li Na and Petra Kvitova, Stosur followed a major-breakthrough 2011 with a season that was equal parts successful and disappointing. Like those two women, she showed that winning big, in her case at the ’11 U.S. Open, didn’t mean her game had changed and all of her problems were solved. The 28-year-old Aussie with the powerful serve and the powerful nerves was just as dangerous, and just as frustrating as ever. Deep runs at important events, including the semis and quarters at the French and U.S. Opens, respectively, were balanced against first-round losses at the Australian Open and the Olympics, and a second-round exit at Wimbledon. By now, we know what we’re going to get from Sam—anything at anytime.
Best Case Scenario: OK, so Stosur will never be reliable in pressure matches, and she won’t have her best each week. But she can still dictate rallies with her serve and her forehand. Which means that, unlike some of her more consistent and defensive peers, she can hit with the Top 3. And, maybe, possibly, beat them when it matters.
Worst Case Scenario: As I said, she can hit with Vika, Serena, and Maria, and she has recorded wins over each of them. But not many—she’s 6-27 against them lifetime. If they’re all healthy and in form in 2013, that will be a major three-person roadblock at most events for Stosur.
Australian Open Outlook: It looks, based on the past, pretty grim. Stosur has admitted in the past that she wilts under the pressure of playing in front of sports-mad home fans. It showed last year when she went out in the first round to Sorana Cirstea. That said, with the right mindset and draw, she should be able to do damage on the courts in Melbourne.
What's Next? WTA No. 10, Caroline Wozniacki
Wozniacki, who has never won a Grand Slam title, was always a precarious No. 1. In 2012, after two years at the top, she finally fell off the cliff, finishing at the other end of the Top 10 and losing in the first round at Wimbledon and the U.S. Open. Was her laser focus lost because of outside interests, namely her relationship with golfer Rory McIlroy? Or was coaching confusion to blame, as she hired and fired Thomas Johansson in less than a year? Whatever it was, Wozniacki was uncharacteristically inconsistent from week to week, and despite vowing to solve her aggression problems, ended the season where she began it: Behind the baseline. One ray of hope: After bottoming out at the Open, Caro won her first two tournaments of the year in the fall.
Best Case Scenario: As those two late-season wins attest, whatever her troubles, Wozniacki keeps plugging away. She may never have the weapons, and she may always be too cautious to try to develop them, but she’s has yet to lose her gritty spirit and belief that got her to the top in the first place. She could build on those titles, she had a rare win over Serena last year, and she still plays Maria and Vika tough.
Worst Case Scenario: Has Wozniacki found her real level? Now that a new top class has asserted itself, she might be the women’s equivalent of Lleyton Hewitt, who snuck to No. 1 in the two-year transition period between the Sampras and Federer generations. Hewitt, a weaponless grinder like Wozniacki, would soon drop out of the Top 10 and never return.
Australian Open Outlook: There are bitter memories here. Two years ago, Wozniacki, the top seed, had a match point against Li Na to reach the final but eventually lost in three. She hasn’t been that close to a major final since. The relatively slow surface in Melbourne doesn’t hurt Caro, exactly, but it doesn’t help speed up her shots as much as it does some other, more powerful players’.