Australian Open 2010: The Saviour Cries For Help
They said that the returning Belgian girls would bring some credibility to the women’s game. They said that they’d teach the young ball-bashers a thing or two about variety and finesse. They said that they’d save the WTA. Well, Kim Clijsters, one half of that magical duo that was supposed to have all the solutions to the WTA’s grapples with obscurity, certainly did no ‘saving’ today, as she went down with alarming ease to that headcase of headcases, Nadia Petrova. The scoreline was a borderline ridiculous 6-0, 6-1 in the Russian’s favour, which probably stunned Petrova herself more than any of the shocked spectators. Which, judging by the flabbergasted comments and responses that came from all quarters after the match, is saying quite something.
The funny thing about the match is that on paper, it isn’t an upset at all. The 19th -seeded player crushing the 15-th seeded one in the 3rd round of a Grand Slam doesn’t usually raise more than an eyebrow or two. Ok, maybe the fact that the match lasted all of 52 minutes IS a source of surprise, but only mild at best. However, they say context is everything, and for once, ‘they’ may be right. Clijsters is the reigning US Open champion, having made a smashing comeback from retirement and motherhood late last year, and was hailed by many as ‘the best player on tour’ going into the Australian Open. And Nadia Petrova is, well, Nadia Petrova. Of all the Russians that have swept across the game in the last decade, Petrova, together with Svetlana Kuznetsova, are probably the two most physically gifted and natural athletes. Unfortunately for both of them, they’re also possibly the most mentally fragile. And even more unfortunately for Petrova, her competitive demons outweigh even those of Kuznetsova. Some people have even wondered at times whether Petrova is literally afraid of her opponents on the court (most particularly of her compatriot Maria Sharapova). It’s not that hard to get why today’s result felt so very wrong to most people.
Being a doting wife, hands-on mother and professional tennis player all at the same time is no mean feat. Clijsters had shown at the US Open that she was up to the challenge; she is such a superlative athlete that she could, at least for one tournament, put all her domestic worries behind her and stare down the fiercest of fighters in the WTA (read: Serena Williams). But today, her bizarre capitulation left even the most stoic of tennis watchers reeling, with some even beginning to question the feasibility of juggling family and competition. In her post-match conference she looked just as lost and dazed as she did on the court, unable to offer any explanations for the ludicrous amount of unforced errors that leaked from her racquet and the utter lack of heart that she put on show. At one point Petrova had won seven straight games, with Clijsters managing a measly five points in those seven. That’s right, FIVE STINKING POINTS. Shocking upset doesn’t even begin to describe the carnage that took place on Hisense Arena today.
While it may be easy to heap all criticism on Clijsters and her lack of fight for the lopsided result, it wouldn’t be either accurate or fair to dismiss the role of Petrova’s stellar play. She came prepared to pull some punches today, displaying clarity of thought and flawlessness of execution the like of which she’s never displayed before. Her serving was authoritative, her groundstrokes power-packed yet consistent and precise and she pretty much outclassed Clijsters in every department of the game. The woman is 27 years old today, and it makes us wonder whether we might have been looking at a completely different landscape of the Russian pecking order in the WTA if Petrova had been anywhere near as level-headed throughout her career as she was today. Sharapova may have been the one always ducking and lurking in fear whenever Petrova appeared before her, as funny as that possibility may sound.
Before the start of the Australian Open I had done a draw analysis of the tournament (in which I made a few bone-headed predictions, like picking Sharapova to win the whole thing), wherein I had mentioned that I wasn’t yet convinced that Clijsters had it in her to got toe-to-toe with the never-say-die shriekers of the WTA. Her US Open win seemed to have given faith to many people that perhaps her second coming on the tour would be considerably less frustrating than her first – surely the joys and contentment that motherhood had no doubt brought the woman would help her calm her nerves and give her greater steadiness in those big moments when she always seemed to falter? While it may seem churlish to dismiss all of Clijsters’s personal breakthroughs of the last year based on just one match, the shellacking she received does pose plenty of questions about her ability to be a dominant champion of the game. At the US Open no one expected her to win; her eventual march to the glittering trophy presentation was truly a pleasant surprise. Fast forward 3 months, and now everyone’s predicting her to not only get past her big-game tormenter Justine Henin, but also Sharapova/Safina and Serena Williams. I don’t know about you, but that’s a lot of pressure and expectations on a woman who’s only barely begun to run around on a court again. Any coincidence that her surrender was so abject and absolute that it came in a match against Nadia Petrova, of all people?
It is said that the more things change, the more they remain the same. Two days ago Justine Henin put on a stirring fight against one of the top players in the world, coming through in a titanic battle of wills against Elena Dementieva. And today Clijsters showed, for the umpteenth time in her career, that pressure is not something that sits well on her shoulders. She would be well-advised to brace herself for some pretty tough times ahead – a 6-0, 6-1 defeat in 52 minutes is not just a walloping, it’s a freaking humiliation. It will take quite a bit of time to recover from.