"She keeps fighting. She stays relevant. That's what she does really well - she stays in the point," Williams said. "I have to give her credit for that. I think I could have maybe made a couple more shots, but it's not always easy against someone who competes as well as her. She's been playing well."
Elismerő szavak, de meg is érdemli. Láttam az összefoglalót, több könnyű labdát is rontott Flavia.
Venus Williams and Caroline Wozniacki set up an all-former World No.1 semifinal battle at the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships. It will be their first time playing each other in almost six years.
Williams was the first to move through, winning a tight two-setter against Flavia Pennetta, 63 75. Pennetta had been somewhat of a thorn in Williams' side over the years - she had won four of their seven career meetings going in, and three of their last four on hardcourts as well - and at the start of the match it looked like maybe that pattern would continue, as she broke early and built a 3-1 lead.
But Williams got right back into orbit, reeling off seven games to build a 63 20 lead and eventually getting a game away from victory at 63 53. Pennetta put up some heavy resistance - she caught up to 5-all, saving a match point along the way, and she had leads in the next two games as well - but Williams finished strong, winning five points in a row from 0-40 while serving for the match.
"She keeps fighting. She stays relevant. That's what she does really well - she stays in the point," Williams said. "I have to give her credit for that. I think I could have maybe made a couple more shots, but it's not always easy against someone who competes as well as her. She's been playing well."
And more on how she herself played? "I felt good," she commented. "It was an adjustment playing someone like her. Her game is different than Ivanovic. I had to be more patient; the points are going to be longer. We have to be a little bit more measured. I think in the beginning of the match I wasn't really in that mode, but as the match went on, then I started to kind of self-correct myself a little bit."
Next up for Williams is one of the most consistent - or relevant and competitive - players out there, with a No.8-seeded Wozniacki storming past Sorana Cirstea in just an hour and two minutes, 61 62.
Cirstea had pulled off surprises against Roberta Vinci and Sara Errani en route to the quarters.
"I went into today's match with maybe higher expectations, but all credit to Caroline," Cirstea said afterwards "She played great today. I think she played one of the best matches I have ever played against her. Very solid, quite aggressive from the start. She definitely deserved this win today."
"Venus is a great, great player," Wozniacki said. "I remember growing up in the juniors, I would say, 'Oh, this girl has a good serve.' My dad would be like, 'What? No, it's not Venus or Serena on the other side. Come on, no one has good serves on the junior tour.' Then I made it to the WTA tour and I was playing against Venus for the first time, and I'm like, 'Okay, dad, give me the tactics now, what am I supposed to do on that return?' And he just goes, 'Oh well, I don't know. Suit yourself out there.'
"I remember that. We just had a good laugh about it. But I played her four times in a row pretty close to each other. We had close matches back then, but a lot has changed and it'll be a good match."
An interesting factoid - not including Fed Cup, the last time Williams played doubles with anyone apart from Serena Williams actually came with Wozniacki at Doha in February 2008 (they reached the second round together). Williams has played her last 22 WTA-level tournaments with her sister.
Amúgy ezért Flavia a kedvencem, mert baromi sokoldalú és ízig-vérig (olasz mivolta miatt is) temperamentumos, nagy küzdő. Egyéniben is jól fut, jó skalpokat szerez, súlyos sérülés után, 30-on túl újra a Top20 küszöbén (22.), párosban Dulkoval verte a világot. Komplex játékos, jó alapvonalról, jó a hálónál, színezi a játékát, nem sematikus. Egyszerűen imádom! :)
Salakos meccsére nagyon emlékszem, ahol esti meccsen már sötétdésben hazavágta, a supervisor szerencsére olasz volt, így végigengedte a chatrieren, ha már megvan küldve Venus akkor legyen totál, nehogy másnap kimenjen és Flavia más formát hozzon, szépen meg is verte, konkrétan a közvetítő állásokba belelehetett látni, pedig fényérzékeny kamera, azaz sötétet is világosnak lehet látni.
Flavia Pennetta won 11 of 12 games from 1-4 in the opening set to beat Agnieszka Radwanska. Almost out in the qualies, she now beats the World No.3 - how many Top 3 wins does she have now?
DUBAI, UAE - A few days ago Flavia Pennetta was nearly out in the qualies - yes, the draw is so packed the World No.22 had to play the qualies - but she got through all of that and on Wednesday she pulled off the biggest upset of the week, stunning No.2 seed Agnieszka Radwanska second round.
Pennetta had lost their last three encounters in straight sets and this one seemed headed the same way as Radwanska jumped out to a 4-1 lead in the first set and Pennetta threw in a double fault to start the next game - but she came alive in a big way from there, reeling off eight games in a row to build a 64 30 lead and, after letting one service game slip, winning three more games to prevail, 64 61.
"I'm of course really happy. It was the first time I've beaten her in six years - I thought I would never beat her again," Pennetta said. "But today I played really well. My idea of what I had to do was clear, and I tried to go for the points all the time. I made a few mistakes in the beginning - I was down 4-1, but every game was a big fight - but I kept going and stayed aggressive and it worked in the end."
Radwanska is a player who a lot of players have trouble playing - Pennetta described the feeling.
"Sometimes when you play with a player like Agnieszka it's not easy because the ball is always coming back - you have the feeling like you cannot win any points, because it's like a wall, completely. So you start to get a little bit frustrated and you start to make so many mistakes without making any sense.
"But you have to try to be aggressive all the time - play every point the same way and don't go away."
Pennetta certainly doesn't go away. In the first round of qualies she was down 3-0 in the third set - and serving 15-30 in the next game - against No.149-ranked Kristina Kucova. She won, 36 61 64.
Fast forward four days later and Pennetta is outdoing the World No.3 - her fifth career win over a Top 3 player. The first four came at Zürich in 2008 (No.1 Jelena Jankovic), Cincinnati in 2009 (No.3 Venus Williams), Sydney in 2011 (No.2 Vera Zvonareva) and Beijing in 2011 (No.1 Caroline Wozniacki).
Radwanska - who was coming off a semifinal run in Doha - met the press later and broke it down.
"I think I started well, but the conditions were worse for me than Doha, for example," she said. "The ball was really flying. I didn't really feel the ball today at all. And I think she was using the wind much, much better than I was during the match. I just couldn't really control the ball that well here this year."
And on playing someone like Pennetta in her opening match? "The first match is always the most difficult in a tournament, especially here when you're playing someone Top 20 or Top 30 first round."
Megint visszaakarod volnultatni, mint múlt nyáron erre semi a US openen meg most negyeddöntő az Oz openen és most megint villant. Bárkit bárhol eltud verni, csak fejben kellene erősebbnek lennie. Az idősebb Williams jön holnap :)