I managed to see a further match of the junior U.S. Open, and it was again an Amanda’s one; not because I felt in love with her (even if it would be understandable if I did, ok), but because I had no other choice: beside the Arthur Ashe and the Grand Stand, only court 17 was broadcasted, yesterday. The match I saw was the quarter finals that Anisimova played against Olga Danilovic, the 8th seed of the tournament. Even if it was supposed to be interesting, I did not enjoy it; and it was quite a weird match actually.
Danilovic started on fire: the Serbian hits hard and serves even harder, being able to break 110 mph. In the early stages of the match, she managed to handle quite easily Anisimova’s serve, hitting lots of winning (or almost winning) returns; plus, she was difficult to play against on her serve, managing to obtain many direct points with it. Thanks to the above, Danilovic broke twice her opponent, and took a 4-0 lead. Anisimova was not playing bad, especially in the first few games: she managed to reach the advantages on the Serbian’s first service turn. The difference between the two was that Anisimova was missing few shots, especially with her forehand, whilst her opponent was missing basically nothing. When 2-0 down, Anisimova was broke at 0, over-hitting and double-faulting, because she was trying not to be under constant attack; the next game, though, again Danilovic had a few troubles to hold: overall, the gap between the two girls was not enormous, in any case.
Down 0-4, Anisimova held for the first time, and the same happened on 5-1 for Danilovic. On 5-2 the match completely turned. Danilovic’s level lowered just a little, whilst Amanda became a bit more precise; eventually she managed to break. Notwithstanding the 5-3 lead, Danilovic started to become frustrated, to lose her temper and to complain on each point (she was complaining even after good executions by her opponent, such as of a simple serve and forehand scheme); in particular, it was evident that Anisimova’s was starting to dominate the back-hand diagonal (backhand-forehand, actually; Danilovic is lefty). Anisimova managed hold again; on 5-4 Danilovic completely crushed: sorry, but she became a real pain in the ass to watch. Final result: Danilovic lost the first set by 7-5 (and she was crying at the end of it) and the second one by 6-1.
Honestly, Danilovic pissed me off completely. I get it, she is 16, but Danilovic was not tolerable by screaming, complaining, hitting her raquet on ground on each point. Her opponent is also 16 and she was not having fun when she was down 1-5, but managed to keep focused, improve her game and turn the match.
But there is another reason why I was pissed off: neither of the two players, when in troubles, tried something different to change the course of the match. True, Amanda raised her level, and she did fine. But even when losing the “boom-boom contest” and being 1-5 down, her game didn’t change an inch. Amanda managed to get back in the set thanks to herself but also with the decisive cooperation of her opponent, who completely lost her mind when she had to face the first difficulties: the match could have ended differently if Danilovic were more solid. The same applies even more to Danilovic, who several times tried to hit a winner when she was 3 metres behind the baseline and 2 meters beside of the court. None of the players though, when facing troubles, thought: “ok, let’s try to slice, let’s try to spin more, to break my opponent rhythm, to find the net” or whatever else. I counted 1 volley, 2 dropshots and 3 slices (the latter all from Danilovic, all bad) during the whole match. Not a single shot had extra spin, except maybe a couple by Amanda. Even the serves at a point became all the same and I could predict that Amanda would have served on the side, Danilovic would have returned powerfully but central and Amanda would have closed on the other side.
I wonder why if a girl has the ability to hit powerfully, she does not play any shot with less pace, or she does not pursue any plan different from “I hit at 200 mph”. But, what if the opponent hits at 201 mph? Every youngster loves Federer, everyone says “my favourite player is Federer”. I saw Federer losing by del Potro: in the process, the Swiss started to play on Delpo’s forehand, in order to attack on his backhand; this didn’t work and tried the opposite; he then tried some serve and volley; he started playing topspin backhand and then sliced a bit more. He attempted drop shots, but was not inspired, so switched to short slices to call Delpo to the net. It wasn’t his day and Federer lost, but, gosh, he tried. If he is so loved, why youngsters don’t study him? If Federer still slices, and it did that even more in the past, why young girls slice no more?
I asked a coach of a strong player these kind of questions and he replied me something like “some girls play super-powerful shots, but they don’t think why they play a certain shot: I could not teach to play as such”.
There are, of course, exceptions: I saw Marta Kostyuk, when in troubles, change her game and start to go more and more to the net: she got out from troubles and won Australian Open. But mostly, tactics and shot different from super-hard shots seem to be reserved only to smaller girls who cannot hit the ball at 400 mph. Does it make sense that a girl who can hit hard is precluded from doing whatever else?
I want again to report, one more time, Robrerta Vinci’s words on this topic, following one of the many losses she suffered: “the future we have in front of us is as such. This makes me fucking angry and I lose my mind. My opinion is that these players do not think because they do not want to do so; they prefer to rely on a “make it or break it” attitude. In my opinion sometimes they can’t even understand the importance of a point: whilst myself, facing an important point, I am under pressure and I try to hold on, they hit the ball and “pum”: winning resturn. It’s true that I play a different kind of game and I can’t do so much in certain situations, though, I think that this is the future we are facing: less and less tactics and more power, who hits the ball harder wins.” [excerpt from Ubitennis.com, translated by myself]
Also in consideration of Roberta’s words, statistically, it can make sense to play as Danilovic (and a bit also Anisimova) did: eventually, they are top seeded. Though, today, Danilovic lost, and Anisimova could have lost, by relying only on their power. In any case, both Danilovic and Anisimova play much better than I do, so I can’t criticise. What I can do is just to support the Mandliks, the Juvans, the Chwaliskas and the In-Albons.
Ok, it’s enough. In the semi-finals Anisimova will play against Arango. The other semi-final will be between our new friend Cori Gauff and the Argentinian Carle, who played a great tournament, having beaten Rybakina in the quarter-finals and Waltert in the third round (by 6-2 6-2).
