Naito and Sato: finalists in doubles
I have seen a few matches (or better, bits of matches) during last week on which I didn’t find the time to write; thus, I decided to do a “wrap up article” to allow myself order to utilise the hours I spent in front of my PC and to draw a few considerations on the various players I have seen. I will not mention anything about the final, on which you can read here.
Going in random order, Yuki Naito confirmed her great period of form, as she won her rematch of the Italian Open’s semifinals which was scheduled in the third round in Paris: this time it took two sets for her to beat the strong Danish Clara Tauson; the final score was 6-4 6-4. She lost in the following round by 5-7 5-7 against Swiatek; in both sets, though, she was leading by 5-3: she was close to beat the strong Polish girl, demonstrating thus that she can be a very dangerous player.
Italian Elisabetta Cocciaretto has confirmed the impressions she left me with in Milan: once again, in the other rematch of the Italian Open semifinal (i.e. the match against Molinaro), Cocciaretto played very well in the first set, which she won by 6-3: she found great angles both with her forehand and backhand and she went for the net, showing good volleying skills: all very good. And, again, Molinaro didn’t play a great match, being quite faulty and suffering a lot the offensive game of the Italian. Though, from the beginning of the second set, when points started to really count, it happened exactly the same as two weeks ago: Cocciaretto’s level decreased quite a lot, as she got more faulty with her forehand (even she didn’t do as bad as in Milan), she started to fail easy shots (including a smash hit one metre from the net) and let her opponent regain the grip on a match she was controlling. When Cocciaretto was down 1-5 in the second set she started again to play very well, in my view because she had nothing to lose. She recovered to 3-5 but lost the following game. I stopped there to follow the match as I was sure she would have lost, and that is what actually happened. The Italian is currently one of the best 10 juniors still competing on the junior tour; to make a further step she needs to gain some mental toughness, though.
Eleonora Molinaro reached the quarter finals and played, overall, a good tournament. The Luxemburgish confirmed to be very solid and to rarely lose against weaker opponents. She was stopped in the quarter finals by Cori Gauff, and there’s nothing wrong in that: I saw the first set between the two and, even if Molinaro lost it by 6-2, she was not outplayed by the American: she demonstrated to be able to handle Gauff’s rhythm and power and, in my view she played better tennis than against Cocciaretto. In the second set (which I didn’t see), she forced Gauff to a tie-break. Though, beside her loss against Gauff, the match against Cocciaretto was not the only one in which Molinaro experienced troubles. Molinaro run serious risks to be eliminated in the first round by Manon Leonard, as she survived to such much more due to Leonard faults that due to her own merits. It seems that the Luxemburgish experiences troubles against players who do not play exclusively on rhythm.
A further “victim” of Gauff was the second seed, Wang. The match between the two was utterly boring, fully dominated by the respective serves and no rally lasted more than five shots. At a point, the service stats of both players showed over 80% of points won when hitting a valid first serve; quite amazingly, the same stat applied also to Gauff’s second serves, whilst Wang was around 60% (still a huge figure). Wang hits as hard as Gauff; I think she lost because Gauff can do more things. Wang hits every shot very flat, as it is typical of Chinese/Oriental players; her margins are very low and, especially on with her backhand, she tends to make too many unforced errors. The final result between Gauff and Wang was 6-4 6-4, but I left the match at the endo of the first set as it was basically unwatchable.
The girl I thought was the favourite to win the tournament was Iga Swiatek. The Polish girl didn’t disappoint, as she lost in the semifinals against the revelation of the tournament, i.e. Caty McNally. I saw two matches and a half of Swiatek: you can find a report on the one against Alexa Noel here. In the match against Clara Burel, Iga played so well that the French girl couldn’t even be judged: she was forbidden to hit any shot during the hole the first set and in the second she was too demoralised and she missed a lot. That was maybe the best match of Swiatek I have ever seen. I saw also the tie-break of the second set and the third set of Iga’s match against Katy McNally. In the tiebreak, the American was brave in saving a match point with a well-executed serve and volley and good in winning shortly after. While watching the third set, I had the impression that Iga was playing too defensively, waiving her tennis made of winning attempts and grounded on rallies not exceeding five shots. I saw that set again two days later and I changed my mind: in my view Iga didn’t play bad at all; it was Caty who played wonderfully, serving very well throughout the set and winning several points through beautiful lobs, forehand winners and other various nice solutions, being able to effectively counter the Polish girl’s offensive game. Iga cannot have any regret: this time her opponent maybe has deserved more and all credits must go to her.
Another girl who played a very positive tournament is Canadian Leylah Fernandez: she reached the semifinal by beating good players as Rakhimova, Osorio Serrano and Garland, before surrending to Cori Gauff. I haven’t seen any match of Fernandez and I have to put-off any comment on her to another occasion.
As said, though, the true protagonist of the tournament was Caty McNally. I spoke about her style rich of different solutions in the article on the final and I won’t spend other words on that. Katy was the most unexpected finalist, but she deserved this result so much (and maybe she deserved even more). She has beaten not only Iga Siwatek, but also the Maltese Curmi by 6-1 6-1 (and Curmi is strong, trust me), Lulu Sun, the 8th seed Wang and the 1st seed En- Shuo Liang. She had a very hard draw and she performed great to reach a final which in day 1 was honestly unforeseeable. McNally is very well renewed as a double player, having been a finalist in Wimbledon and having won Bonfiglio Eddie Herr and the Eastern Bowl (plus this edition of Roland Garros, paired with Swiatek); though, in singles, I think that in Grades A she never did better than a third round reached in last year’s Orange Bowl. Had she played in the few occasions I saw her as she did last week, she would immediately have become a further Beloved One (possibly this is the reason why she played badly when I attended her matches: maybe she was wise). Who is the true Caty? The one we saw last week or the one not able to win more than two matches in a row? Did she finally reach a degree of maturation in her tennis to allow her to perform so well? I don’t know the answers to such questions; the only thing I can tell is that the game she displayed in the semis and even more in the final cannot come from nowhere: the girl is for sure very talented; now it’s all on her to confirm the great performances she delivered in Paris.
Let’s close with the winner, Cori Gauff. What can be said on her? I was expecting her to become a top ten this year and she fully met the expectations. In the last three slams she played, she reached a final in the U.S., she lost in the first round in Australia and she won in Paris; yet she has to turn 15. I don’t think anything can be add to such figures, beside the fact that I believe that this will be her last season on the Junior Tour.
