Week 10/11 - WTA Premier Mandatory ($4.5M) - Indian Wells CA, USA - hard

Vamos08 · Intermediate Club Player

RE: Week 10/11 - WTA Premier Mandatory ($4.5M) - Indian Wells CA, USA - hard

Maza1987 · Challenger level

is it over yet?

Vamos08 · Intermediate Club Player

Maza1987 wrote:

is it over yet?

It is now. 0-6 2-6

Don't really know what to make of that.

steven · Tennis legend

The other big upset on Friday was Dulko beating Henin, and Gisela got only one game today (against Radwanska), so these things happen.

Hopefully the next time she beats a top 10 player, it won't seem like quite such a big deal and she won't be emotionally exhausted (which I assume is what the problem must be) for her next match.

It backs up the comments on the "how high can her ranking go" thread about not getting too excited too quickly.

Tim · Intermediate Club Player

Who knows ... just hope she isn't injured. perhaps just fatigued mentally & physically after her last match, or perhaps just one of those match-ups that really doesn't suit her style of game

Peter too · Tennis legend

I could go off Molik, first she wrecks Emily W-S's plans by beating her three times in Australia and now she knocks Elena out of this tournament.

indiana · Tennis legend

In a bit of a shock at the scoreline I just had a look at Molik's activity this year.

I knew she was probably very underranked but when you look at that activity and consider her matches before playing Bally here , I'd say that's putting it mildly. She's been playing in much more esteeemed company this year than in her early comeback tournaments when she was so annoying EWS, and been doing pretty well.

She had played 13 matches this year, the lowest ranked opponent she's actually played is WR 106 with all but that match being against top 100 players.

She had won 7 matches and lost 6, 4 - 4 in matches against top 60 players, with her highest ranked win in Dubai against the then WR 20 Jie Zheng, the "other" Australian Open Chinese semi-finalist ( 6 - 3 4 - 6 6 - 2 )

I would say, going into the match, although not picking up nearly as many ranking points as Bally this year, on this year's results it was probably close to a 50-50 match.

On the day, of course, the scoreline is nothing like 50-50, but as folk have said, who knows how much of a part mental & physical exhaustion played or poor match up or Bally just having one of these days.

The Li Na result was tremendous, but she had already been a bit up and down in this tournament with the Boserup and Glatch wins on the face it being much more of a struggle than we'd expect.

Not really bad to lose to Molik, but more just very bad scoreline for whatever reason.

Still, been a really great start to the year for Bally. Onward !

-- Edited by indiana on Monday 15th of March 2010 12:37:46 AM

Madeline · Admin:Moderator + Tennis Legend

Oh dear. But having come through qualifying, Elena had already played a lot of matches.

DavidC · Tennis legend

I'm not surprised Bally lost given the week she has had, but the scoreline seemed rather worrying, raising fears of an injury. I'm relieved to note from a post-match interview that that doesn't seem to be the case:

"I'm gutted that I couldn't produce the performance I wanted to today," Baltacha said. "I thought Molik played a very smart game and she caused me a lot of problems. She's more experienced than I am at being in that position and it showed."

indiana · Tennis legend

Good to hear apparently no real problems other than err got smashed !

As I said, forget rankings ( to an extent for both, but particulaly for Molik ), if you just looked at results this year I'd say it pointed to a pretty 50 - 50 match.

Add, as Bally indicates, Molik's past experiences at the later stages of big tournaments such as this and it probably in retrospect did really edge Molik as favourite.

Still would never have thought to extent of 6 - 0 6 - 2 ( and 55 points to 26 so not a scoreline that in any way misled ! ).

But hopefully there will be more big wins and big days for Bally and she will learn to cope better with both.

-- Edited by indiana on Monday 15th of March 2010 12:03:30 AM

RedCabbage · Club Coach

No complaints. A big tournament for Bally which has taken her career a step forward. Women's tennis is conquerable at the moment - and if Bally has ambitions of being one of the big fish she's going the right way about it. Every win at this level will give her a bit more belief and I get the feeling that belief is all Bally really needs.

indiana · Tennis legend

I see Jie Zheng beat Molik 6 - 3 4 - 6 7 - 6 ( 1 ) to avenge a recent defeat against Molik in Dubai.

Don't know quite how high Bally is going to rise in the rankings, hopefully top 50 anyway, but fully expect Molik to soon be back much much higher than she is now.

philwrig · Hall of fame

I see that Sarah Borwell is going to be playing for NY Buzz in the world team tennis championships during the summer. One of her team mates will be a certain Martina Hingis.

indiana · Tennis legend

Interesting. Martina's 2 years drugs ban will now be over and although she said she wouldn't return again to serious competion, I wonder.....

She's only 29 after all.

Danjn · Lower Club Player

Sarah's made it to the WTA homepage as the Keep-up Champ in Indian Wells!! lol smile

http://www.sonyericssonwtatour.com/video/20100319/sarah-borwell-keep-up-champ_2256670_1999553