Week 7 - ITF ($25K) - Altenkirchen, Germany - Carpet

emma · Strong Club Player

RE: Week 7 - ITF ($25K) - Altenkirchen, Germany - Carpet

emma · Strong Club Player

very well done to Naomi - a good win.

PaulM · Tennis legend

Naomi is broken in the opening game, then misses a break back point when she fluffs a backhand smash into the net after setting up the point beautifully.

Actually playing nice stuff so far

*1-3

PaulM · Tennis legend

Jeezo. A moonball from Maria on break point down lands about a foot inside the lines in the backhand corner and is called out. She, understandably, goes mad.

*3-3

-- Edited by PaulM on Friday 20th of February 2015 01:06:50 PM

PaulM · Tennis legend

Naomi races out to 0-40 but nets a soft backhand return off a weak second serve, Maria saves the next one well, but she gets the third one after a nicely constructed rally. Hitting the ball very cleanly the past few games.

*5-3

PaulM · Tennis legend

0-15 (nets a volley on the stretch)
0-30 (serves and volleys and dumps the volley into the net)
15-30 (Maria nets the second serve return)
15-40 (loses control on the backhand and it sails well wide)
30-40 (serve and volley works that time, and she gets an easy put-away)
40-40 (Naomi attacking, Maria chipping the ball back, forehand slice drifts wide, apparently. I'm not so sure)
40-adv (massive serve, but she nets the smash)
Game Maria (Naomi at the net but sends down 3 weak volleys and eventually nets)

Oops. Spoke to soon. Made 3 poor errors at the net in that game. The smash at deuce was particularly bad.

5-4*

-- Edited by PaulM on Friday 20th of February 2015 01:19:56 PM

PaulM · Tennis legend

Maria's defensive skills are really quite something, particularly on a court which looks reasonably quick. She's covering miles at the back of the court and Naomi is having to hit a lot of very big balls to create space or eventually force the error (given that she's getting very few cheap points on her serve at all).

She steadies the ship with a solid hold to 15

6-5*

Sadly, her run here means she's been automatically withdrawn from Doha qualies, so hopefully she wins to avoid double disappointment.

PaulM · Tennis legend

Love hold from Maria so it's a tiebreak

PaulM · Tennis legend

1-0*
*2-1
2-3* (two sensational points from Maria whose defense again keeps her in play before she hits a lob and then a gorgeous cross court angle)
*3-4
4-5* (one great winner and a soft unforced error from Naomi)

Maria takes the first set 76(4)

Naomi played really well in that set other than the one game it perhaps mattered most, when she served for it. That smash at deuce was exactly where she wanted it and she just made a hash of it sadly. Maria stepped up and played a great tiebreak, easy to see why she won Midland a few weeks ago.

Tough ask from here, will be important to start the second set positively.

PaulM · Tennis legend

Naomi saves a couple of game points, but misses a break point when she goes wide with a backhand after another long rally (Maria heavily slicing everything to get herself into the points under lots of pressure, and when Naomi is at the net she's going high up to the backhand as Naomi just can't seem to hit the ball properly when it's in that half-volley-half-backhand-overhead-smash space)

*0-1

It's pretty tough to work out, well for me anyway, what else Naomi can do in this match. She's doing everything right in terms of how she's looking to work the ball and construct the point - Maria is just scrambling incredibly well from well behind the baseline. Naomi's not even leaking all that many errors (so far), Maria just keeps slicing and chipping until she can apply a bit of offense herself and is creating some really nice winners.

-- Edited by PaulM on Friday 20th of February 2015 01:52:10 PM

PaulM · Tennis legend

Once again, the high ball over to Naomi's backhand does the trick - she has been made to hit around 10 today and gotten 3 back in court.

3-5*

PaulM · Tennis legend

All over, Naomi loses 76(4) 63

Ended a bit abruptly, but I genuinely can't see what more Naomi could have done today. Opponent just too good on the day, Maria was slicing about 75% of her shots simply to give her time to recover as Naomi was dragging her all over the court but no matter where she hit the ball Maria was getting there (just), and then cleverly turning defense into offense. Naomi played easily the best I've seen her play since Wimbledon in the first set, so overall very positive I think, despite the mess at *5-3 in the first.

She has been pulled out of Doha, so an unexpected week off sadly.

Could perhaps do with a drill of backhand smashes though - Maria went for it every time because it was a guaranteed way to win a point Naomi had set-up perfectly.

-- Edited by PaulM on Friday 20th of February 2015 02:39:11 PM

Peter too · Tennis legend

QF: BROADY, Naomi (GBR) 5 167 lost to MARIA, Tatjana (GER) 2 112 6-7(4) 3-6

Naomi often got herself into what should have been a winning position at the net only to miss the volley.

emma · Strong Club Player

thanks PaulM for the reporting, very helpful

it sounds as if there are areas that Naomi can work on but very pleased to see her get some good wins this week.

indiana · Tennis legend

I think that Naomi has done remarkably well in the last couple of years considering how many areas it seemingly always looks like she can work on.

I can't help but think here was a player who could have already been top 100 and maybe would have been if certain things had followed a different course.