Week 20 - WTA Premier ($2.369M) Rome, Italy - Clay

murray_2k9 · Challenger qualifying

RE: Week 20 - WTA Premier ($2.369M) Rome, Italy - Clay

Bob in Spain · Tennis legend

OK. Bear with me on this one. The relevance will become apparent as you read on. Sorry to bore you with the rest.

On our recent trip to Madrid, two of the ladies in our group decided they needed a break from watching the tennis and headed for the shops. Linda and Jacqui are a couple of rather scatty (their word, not mine) 40+ chatterboxes who will talk with anyone.

Now, in the Madrid complex was a small concourse of temporary kiosk style shops, mostly selling tennis wear and equipment. No surprise there. So these two ladies are in this shop discussing which skirt would fit and which colour would suit them when a 3rd voice jumps in and says "I think that would look really good on you". They turn round to say "do you really think so" only to stand there open mouthed as the mystery voice turned out to be Venus Williams. They did a double take, looked around, but sure enough, it was just them, Venus and one shop assistant.

They described the next 2 or three minutes as just like 3 "girlies" going shopping together as they chatted away about tennis gear and fashion. Needless to say the tranquillity didn't last and there were soon 3 security guards at the door of the shop and a mob of baying photographers trying to get in. However, the three of them just went on shopping for a couple of minutes before Venus asked THEM for a photo, to which they agreed.

I walked past that shop several times over the three days I was in Madrid and Venus was in there regularly, marketing her brand of tennis clothing. In all of my three days there, never once did I see her anywhere near a practice court.

So my prediction is - Laura to win against an under-prepared and distracted Venus who is more interested in Brand Williams than winning tennis matches.

murray_2k9 · Challenger qualifying

Haha thats quite a story. Venus is a fantastic person off court, I imagine she is using the clay court season to visit some European capitals for PR reasons and try to regain some fitness in time for the grass.

That said, Venus only pulled out of Madrid last minute so perhaps she was unable to practise and decided to make use of her time elsewhere. Who knows. They really are as predictable as they come the Williams Sisters.

kundalini · Specialist Reporter + Intermediate Club Player

Laura 2nd on Centrale. At a guess 1.30pm start (our time)

tony_orient · ATP qualifying

Logic dictates that although Venus is favourite tomorrow Laura has a decent chance... on the other hand having watched so many Wimbledons dominated by the Williams sisters it's hard to imagine either of them ever losing to a British girl.

korriban · Challenger level

Extremely windy - so obviously Laura will adjust and give more margin of error on her groundstrokes..

Err. No! Apparently not *0-1

*2-1 Laura. Awful conditions for both. Venus looks VERY rusty at the moment.

-- Edited by korriban on Monday 13th of May 2013 01:15:48 PM

kundalini · Specialist Reporter + Intermediate Club Player

Good win. Difficult to judge the performance given the windy conditions. First serve percentage 58% which is up on her average for this year, scored well with body serves, saved 10 out of 12 bps faced. 8 dfs in 27 second serves is very poor but she was trying to be aggressive much of the time. Venus didn't destroy Laura's 2nd serve to the extent that Ana Ivanovic had in the 2nd and 3rd sets but Laura won just 37% behind her 2nd serve.

Very few rallies, Venus' heavy blows dominating. Deep groundstrokes won Laura plenty of points. First set was all about the bps. Laura had break points in 3 games, breaking 3 times. Venus had 11 break points in 3 games but managed just the one break. Laura ahead 15-6 on unreturned serves in the opening set. The wind may have died down a bit in the second set. Robson seemed to play better. Venus rather patchy, some super shots, quite a few horrible errors. Was strange that Venus aimed so many second serves at Laura's backhand when it appeared far more reliable than her forehand return. Laura still missing too many 2nd serve returns.

Laura's defence was impressive, nice use of the squash shot during one rally. She is making a big effort to force her opponent to hit one more shot. Backhand crosscourt is looking good. A bit careless on backhand down the line sometimes. As Bob suggested, Venus seemed rusty, to put it mildly. Her df count only marginally better than Laura's (6 v 8) and her first serve percentage 53%.

-- Edited by kundalini on Monday 13th of May 2013 03:14:26 PM

korriban · Challenger level

Is there a more confusing top 50 player than Alize Cornet (except maybe our Laura)? Either brilliant or awful, often in the same match. She's looking like going down in straight sets to a very average Italian girl - grrrr.

Sticking to the French theme, I'm absolutely delighted to see that Caroline Garcia won the $100k event at Cagnes-sur-Mer last week (an event where she was on the receiving end of a quite outrageous Brat-a-thon from Yulia Puntintseva last year), and should be at or close to a career high in the very low 100s this week. Very much the forgotten "superstar of the future", having not kicked on from an extraordinary effort against Sharapova at RG 2 years ago (where Andy famously tweeted he was watching a future women's #1 player). I'd love it if she had a great run at RG and hope and believe she'll be top 50 by year end. Great player to watch - very entertaining.

Back to Blighty, really looking forward to Laura's match - I'm picking her to win. Good luck!

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

I'm picking Laura to win too.

Venus is one of my all-time favourites, a class lady, but I think that Laura has the edge at the moment.

NB Alize Cornet leaves me cold. It sounds mean, I've nothing tangible against her, but I don;t really like her tennis and she often has a sulky, 'poor little me' look about her. The french have a big gap of women of about her age (it's a shame Tatiana Golovin quit) and I think that means she's under a lot of pressure to be the 'star' player of her generation.

On the contrary, Caroline Garcia is great, a real little firebrand, who's a joy to watch. I didn't realise that Andy had tweeted that - interesting . . .

Back to the issue in hand, go Laura !