Manon Leonard
Surprise, surprise, this year all the courts are covered by Eurosport Player, so also juniors’ matches can be watched! Or maybe it was as such also last year, but I didn’t realize it; who knows. Anyhow, I followed two matches yesterday: the first one was Molinaro vs Leonard, i.e. the rematch of the 1st round of the Italian Open in which, of course, Molinaro won, even if experiencing some troubles; the second one was Wang vs Gracheva, as I am a fan of the latter and it was supposed to be an interesting match, anyway.
Starting from Molinaro vs Leonard, as per the styles of the two girls, I prefer to refer to the article I wrote on the two some time ago, so to avoid to repeat everything; today’s match, anyway, confirmed that Molinaro kind of suffers playing against Leonard. The French took an immediate lead of 4-1, which she kept up to the end of the first set, which ended 6-4 in her favour. Honestly speaking, Leonard didn’t have to do anything special to secure the set. Molinaro was playing awfully: her best feature, i.e. baseline consistency, today was completely absent, as Elè was missing very easy shots from whatever position in the court. More, she played most part of the match without her first serve and double faulted several times. Add to all this that Leonard owns good defensive skills and, in particular, she is very fast: in a day in which Molinaro was more faulty than usual, the fact that she was forced several times to play a further shot to close the point made her position even more troublesome. Actually, Molinaro was quite lucky to have won 4 games, as Leonard in the first set gained 11 breakpoints, but converted only three of them.
It’s Leonard’s low breakpoint conversion rate which was decisive to make the match turn. She had, I think 1 breakpoint in the first game of the second set, which wasn’t converted; immediately after it was Leonard who was broken. Being a break down, the French missed so many break-points (and easy points which weren’t break points) that, if converted, could have reopened the set and put further pressure on Molinaro. For instance and in no particular order, the French: 1) managed to miss a smash with the opponent’s court completely open: Molinaro, everybody else and their mother understood where Leonard was hitting 15 minutes in advance and, as a result, Molinaro managed to hit a winning backhand passing shot; 2) failed a very easy (for her) forehand high volley; 3) played a very cute lob against which Molinaro barely managed to hit a high volley and then she missed the following forehand (vs open court again), and so many other mistakes blatant as the above ones. Being 0-3 down, Leonard missed further occasions to gain a game and little after the set ended 6-0 in favour of Molinaro (who continued to play quite badly, anyway). In the second set, Leonard didn’t manage to convert any breakpoint of the 5 she had. During the third set I lost a bit of focus on the match after Leonard missed further breakpoints in the first game, as I thought she had no more chances. I was right, as she lost the third set by 6-2, converting only 1 break point over 6.
Today Molinaro was too bad to be true. I’m sure tomorrow she will capitalize on her lucky day (she could have easily lost today, notwithstanding the score) and she will raise the level, also because I guess she can’t do any worse than what she showed. It’s anyway a very important quality to be able to somehow win matches also in bad days – ask Sampras about many first rounds of the slams he played – and today’s win can be a (further) good sign for Elè. Leonard, instead, wasted a huge opportunity: it’s not conceivable to miss so many chances, especially against a more solid opponent who is supposed to win due to a much more powerful tennis and consistency from the baseline. But beside the occasions missed, Leonard must change something in her game: from the baseline she is very light and also quite faulty; sometimes, especially if she has to deal with weightless balls, her shot is so powerless that the ball doesn’t really fly from the racket. The girl confirmed to be, in my view by far, the best volleyer on the junior tour; today again she showed some serve and volley and a couple of Edberg-style backhand volleys which were a pleasure for eyes. But this is not enough: or Manon relies much more on her net game skills, charging the net every two or three points (assuming it is still possible to play as such), or she has to materially improve her baseline game. She has all the time she needs to remedy to her weak spots and I hope she manages, as the girl plays a unique tennis.
Let’s focus now on Wang vs. Gracheva. Again, I prefer not to repeat everything I have written a few days ago; as per the styles of these two players, please refer to this and this article.
Of course my heart was with the Russian, but I knew she had slim chances. Actually, Varvara played quite well and her defeat was in no way crushing: 6-3 7-6(5) was the final score in favour of the Chinese. Vaja’s huge problem was her own second serve. She hits that shot very high, with a lot of spin and the ball is too slow and often short. It was a joke for Wang to step on the ball on Gracheva’s second serves and hit tons of winning returns. In the first set Gracheva managed, even if with troubles, to hold her serve three times as her percentage of first serves in was high enough; though, as soon as the first serve didn’t work so well, the Russian was broken twice in a row and lost the first set by 6-3.
In the second set Wang’s level lowered a bit: she was more faulty, also against Gracheva’s second serves, and in the meantime, the Russian started to handle Wang’s huge first serves a bit better. Vaja took a 5-3 lead but, to be honest, I had the impression that it was the Chinese who was still in charge of events: if Wang continued to miss Gracheva could have won, but if she managed to keep her level high, the Russian seemed to me to lack of credible answers to her opponent’s more powerful game. I don’t know how Wang broke back as I received a phone call: on 5-5 Gracheva managed to break again her opponent but didn’t hold the following service game. Wang took a 4-0 lead in the tiebreak, but Varvara, also thanks to Wang’s inconsistency equalized on 5-5. It was Wang, though, who eventually won; and I think she deserved.
As said, Gracheva played well, but she doesn’t own a super-imaginative game and I am not surprised she found troubles against one of the few girls who can hit harder than her. More, Varvara sometimes missed easy shots, such as when attacking opponent’s short balls, or hit half a metre long not particularly challenging forehand or backhands. She was forced to defend for most of the match and indeed she shouldn’t have missed the few attacking chances she had; more, she should have reduced unforced close to 0, as forced mistakes were so many. She failed a bit in these two aspects and she lost a match in which anyway she honoured herself. As per Wang, she is so powerful and hits so flat: this is the only weak point I see in her game: if her opponent manages to keep a good depth when countering her missiles, as several times Vaja managed to do today, she may go into troubles as her margin is very thin. Also, the Chinese suffers a bit changes of rhythm and rotation (today Vaja never variated rhythm, but she was good in increasing spin on her forehand as the match went on). Keep the ball long and variate the game: easier to say than to do, as the Chinese hits with double power than any other girl.
