Just before the French Open starts – the main draw matches I mean -, some final considerations on the Bonfiglio (again, especially dedicated to foreign readers). Last time, I spoke about the players who impressed me during the qualifications, i.e. Mandlik, due to the quality of her game, and Krznaric due to the “tennis strength” is so easy to see embedded in her.
Let’s focus now on the players I saw in the semifinals and final, starting from Rybakina, since she won the tournament. I won’t go in details on the matches because some time has passed, results are available, matches were broadcasted on TV, etc. I just write down my impressions on the players’ game.
Rybakina: well… I must say I was not particularly impressed by her. I mean, of course she is good, but I did not find her outstandingly good. Rybakina is 100% an “–ova” (more precisely, an “-ina”), meaning that she is very tall, very strong, very big and hits the ball hard. The shot I most liked of hers is the serve: it is very effective and even when she does not hit it 100% power she can obtain a lot from it, being able to hit a good lift which bounces very high and to find tight angles. Then, she owns a good forehand; her game is mostly based on the 1-2 serve and forehand. She is also good in receiving with her crosscourt backhand: she hit many winners with that shot. For me, that’s all (of course, she plays much better than I do, so I may be wholly wrong on her and she may be better than what I think). I also noticed downsides in her game: for instance she is quite slow and sometimes has issues in finding a good placement with her backhand. A last positive consideration on Rybakina, though: both in the semi-final and in the final, it seemed that she was going to lose. Both times she won: i.e. when playing against Rybakina it is better to remain focused until the last point is over.
In the semifinal, Rybakina has beaten in three tight sets Ylena In-Albon, a veteran of the junior tour who I’ve never seen playing before; I enjoyed her game so much! In-Albon is just outstanding, due to the quality she can display. To fully appreciate what this girl is capable of, one has to take in account that she is five feet tall which, for a professional player is, of course, a great limitation; nevertheless, she is able to compete at top level against girls who are 30 cm. taller than her. She plays a kind of tennis which I have described in a piece in Italian as worthy of protection by Unesco: even if Ylena hits all her shots (serve included) with a decent pace, she can’t rely on power, for obvious reasons; thus, she relies on different weapons: first of all, she has one of the best slice back-hand I have ever seen on the junior and on the (contemporary) pro-tour, in my view second only to Vinci’s. She has played a couple of down the line attacks with it which caused a standing ovations of the public. Furthermore, she has a real tender hand, being able to play drop-shots and volleys which are true pieces of art. She played a couple of drop shots to counter Rybakina’s, and the difference between the execution of the two players was quite evident. Finally, she moves on the court so well and plays so soundly: if you expect her to play conventional schemes, such as playing the backhand diagonals, nope; she always changes the pace and directions of her shots, and never hits two balls in a row equal one to the other: it seems that she is 30 year old from the way she plays. This tiny girl eventually lost her semifinal, but conquered the crowd, which was enthusiast of some masterpieces she showed. I saw that she easily qualified to the main draw of the French Open and I am very happy about that: I hope she plays a good tournament and, even more, she enjoys a good career, because I think the sport needs girls who play such a different game; a tennis different from the one played by the “–Ovas”. She will face troubles, because she is so tiny: still, from what I saw, I think that Yleania, and the public too, really deserves to overcome her limits and achieve some good results. And, come on: who ever thought that Sarita Errani would have become the 5th seeded player in the world? Let’s hope also Ylena does as well as (or nearly as well as, or even better than) Sara.
Then, Swiatek, a.k.a. BerghemIga. I won’t describe her game in full, because I already did that in the occasion of her win in Bergamo; I will just focus on the differences I found in her game compared to three months ago and on some features of hers I did not notice last time I saw her; just allow me one general consideration: compared to all the juniors I have seen in this tournament or elsewhere, she plays a different sport. In particular, she has one distinguishing feature: she is the only player I saw live that is able to leave her opponent at three metres from the ball; plus, she tends to do that within three shots. Up to now, she is the only girl I attended a match of on which I thought that: yes, if nothing weird happens, she can become a true champion.
I feel Iga hits the ball even harder than three months ago, basically with all her shots: of course the ones below are only impressions and I may have been overenthusiastic or exaggerated; nevertheless: her forehand was very good; now is outstanding; her backhand has improved a lot: in both matches I have seen in Milan she could hit lots of winners with it, whilst in Bergamo I felt it to be more a defensive shot. I believe that both shots are heavier and the ball now is also faster than in February. Her serve, to me, also improved: if she hits it flat, and she does that more often now, she often obtains a direct winner with it, or at least she manages to open the court to her forehand; maybe the percentage of flat first serve in is not as high as it should be and for this reason she hits not so many of them. Ok, she serves well, but returns even better: both against Rybakina and Boskovic, even when returning good first serves, 
several times she was able to hit winners against which the opponent didn’t even move. One technical feature which I didn’t notice in Bergamo (even if it was there; I checked the pics I took) and impressed me a lot: whilst many girls play with their feet stuck to the ground, Iga is able to hit the ball rock solid whilst jumping; and I don’t mean little jumps: sometimes she jumps as a cricket when executing her shots (you can find an example in the picture beside): that was just stunning.
When Iga showed some of her best potential, both against Boskovic and against Rybakina there was no match, at least until the light remained turned on: and this is her weak spot; currently her game does not seem to be very consistent. In both the semifinal and the final (and also in Bergamo against di Giuseppe), when her light turned off, she started hitting the ball everywhere and executing completely meaningless dropshots which could be confused with lobs or became really predictable (and the girl owns a heck of a good hand: when she is focused, dropshots from her are not as In-Albon’s, but still they are very good: Iga is a complete player). Against Boskovic the light turned off when she was leading 4-0; thanks to the blackout Boskovic was able to win 2 games in a row and gain a break point in the following game which, if converted, could have reopened the match. Against Rybakina light turned off after the first set, which Iga literally dominated, winnin g it by 6-1 (Iga lost the first game due to initial and visible tension); during the second and third set, instead, there were many downs and some ups and Iga couldn’t find her consistency anymore; this time, against a strong and more experienced opponent, she paid a high price, losing a match she could have won (easily, in my opinion). Having said this, the girl has just turned 16: Iga has all the time she needs to win the struggles against herself and improve her focus on the game. If or, hopefully, when this will happen, things will get painful for all her opponents.
On Lea Boskovic, instead, I can’t comment. During the first four games of the semifinal aginst Swiatek, she virtually didn’t see the tennis ball; then BerghemIga kindly allowed her to enter in the match for a couple of games, but soon after the Polish started again to hit a winner per shot. Boskovic retired when she was down 6-2 2-0: I thought and wrote in my article in Italian that her retirement was due to frustration, since I did not notice any problem with her. I might have been 100% wrong since, three days later, Boskovic withdrew also from the French Open; I guess I have to apologise since it seems I badly misjudged her.
In order to try something new, I attached above some pics of the players I spoke about; hope you will enjoy them.
A bientot!
