Henin Ends Sharapova Run; Flipper Pulls from Grass Challenger
Posted on June 1, 2005
Federer, Nadal Make Semifinal Date at French OpenWorld No. 1 Roger Federer and claycourt dynamo Rafael Nadal won their respective quarterfinal matches Tuesday at the French Open to set up the meeting of the tournament in the semifinals, with the winner highly favored to take the title.
Federer brushed aside Victor Hanescu 6-2 7-6 6-3, fighting back from a break down in the second set against the unseeded Romanian.
"Being in the semifinals for the first time here is great," said Federer who has not lost a set thus far, an energy-saving tactic that could serve him well against Nadal. "I'm very satisfied with my game and my form so far. I feel I have plenty of energy left. I'm glad to be able to prove that I can do well in this tournament."
Federer showed his first sign of nerves in the event while trying to close out Hanescu, hitting three doubles faults and missing on two match points to drop serve before finally closing it out on his next service game.
"It's an awkward moment, serving for the match, double break," Federer said. "You're feeling everything's in control, and that's exactly how I felt...Suddenly you serve two doubles and you don't feel so good anymore. Hasn't happened to me in a long, long time, to serve so bad, you know, closing out the match. It just happens, I guess. I was too much in my zone, you know. I was -- just wanted to get it over and done with too quick. I was so happy the way I was playing, and making my first semifinals appearance, and got a little overexcited there, I guess, just for a couple minutes."
The No. 4-seeded Nadal steamrolled 7-5, 6-2, 6-0 over the tired and back-addled No. 20 seed David Ferrer who was coming off a five-set upset over defending champ Gaston Gaudio.
Scheduled for Wednesday quarterfinal play are (9) Canas vs. Puerta in an all-Argentine (Puerta leads career tour meetings 1-0), and (12) Davydenko vs. (15) Robredo (first tour meeting).
"Some players say it's less stressful playing a compatriot but I am going to try to forget all that, the fact that we are friends and have known each other for over 15 years," Puerta said of facing Canas. "I'm just gonna concentrate on my tennis."
Henin Stops Sharapova No. 1 Run at French Open
Former No. 1 Justine Henin-Hardenne, supposedly drained Tuesday at the French Open from a previous three-set battle, instead came out firing from her deep claycourt arsenal to easily defeat No. 2 seed Maria Sharapova 6-4, 6-2 to advance into the semifinals at Roland Garros.
It was the second consecutive win for the Belgian over a Russian grand slam champ after previously surviving two match points to defeat Svetlana Kuznetsova in the round of 16. With the win the No. 10-seeded Henin-Hardenne denied Sharapova the No. 1 ranking. The Russian would have rose to No. 1 on the WTA Tour Rankings if she had progressed one round further than current No. 1 Lindsay Davenport in Paris.
Sharapova, pounding her flat forehands and backhands better suited to hardcourts or the lawns on Wimbledon, had no answer for the variety and scampering of the Belgian, and had no "Plan B" to fall back on with a game lacking slice or a consistent volley.
"I didn't play on every shot really powerful," said Henin-Hardenne on mixing up her game. "I think I changed a lot all my shots, and that helped me to win the match pretty easily."
Henin-Hardenne will face her third consecutive Russian in her bid to reach the final, as Nadia Petrova stomped 17-year-old Ana Ivanovic 6-2 6-2.
The long-legged Sharapova was frequently out of position and was at times toyed with by the Belgian's delicate drop shot, but Sharapova said her claycourt footwork was not an issue.
"I think it had nothing to do with movement today," Sharapova said. "I think she served a lot -- a lot better than I did and she got a lot more free points than I did. And it was really close in the first set, and then I just went for too much at the wrong times."
Following the exit of the No. 2-seeded Sharapova, the French Open lost its top seed when world No. 1 Lindsay Davenport was upset 6-3, 6-2 by No. 21 seed and homecountry favorite Mary Pierce.
"When I was on the court and hitting the ball, they were just going in," Pierce said of the slugfest that looked like a hardcourt match on the red dirt, with both players going for the knockout punch. "Sometimes I missed them wide by this much and they were going on the line. I even shanked a ball and it just went in deep for a winner. I was like, 'Wow, okay, this is my day. Take advantage of this.'"
For Davenport, who had struggled through three-setters against lesser opponents the entire tournament, it was a matter of not being able to find the higher gear.
"I just am disappointed that I just could never get better," Davenport said. "I was struggling so much and was able to win, which is a great sign. But a sign of a great player is to win when you're not playing well, which I was able to do, but then make the corrections so you don't keep playing not so well. And I could never do that here."
Other quarterfinal winners were the Russians (7) Petrova (d. (29) Ivanovic 6-2, 6-2), and (16) Elena Likhovtseva (d. Karatantcheva 2-6, 6-4, 6-4) who both dismissed the tournament's final teenagers.
"I really got tired," said Karatantcheva, who also got really scared at the thought of a slam semifinal. "I don't really think I believe in myself. I think things just happened too fast for me. I don't think I'm really prepared for this."
Scheduled for Wednesday on the women's side are the doubles quarterfinals with (1) Ruano Pascual/Suarez vs. (12) Loit/Pratt, Chinese Li/Sun vs. Black/Huber, (13) Asagoe/Srebotnik vs. (5) Petrova/Shaughnessy, and (8) Morariu/Schnyder vs. (3) Raymond/Stubbs.
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TENNIS-X NEWS, NOTES, QUOTES AND BARBS
Justine Henin-Hardenne and Rafael Nadal have both won 22 consecutive matches. Andre Agassi has the longest win streak by a teen at 23, FYI...Roger Federer has yet to drop a set in his last 11 match wins (28 straight sets)...Mariano Puerta has dropped just one set, as has Rafael Nadal...Elena Likhovtseva has reached her first Slam SF in her 46th career major...Mary Pierce has reached her first slam SF since winning Roland Garros in 2000...Nikolay Davydenko has won nine straight matches...None of the four quarterfinalist playing on Wednesday have ever reached a slam semifinal...Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer both have 46 wins on the year...Weather Wednesday: continued nice...Teen prodigy "The" Donald Young was ousted in the second round of the juniors in three sets at Roland Garros, and girls top seed Jessica Kirkland was also ousted 9-7 in the third...Maria Sharapova blew her chance to take the No. 1 ranking from Lindsay Davenport after the American sat out the entire European French Open lead-up. At Roland Garros Sharapova failed to reach a round further than the similarly clay-challenged Davenport, and now faces an uphill climb to simply retain her No. 2 ranking during the grasscourt season, defending titles at Eastbourne and then Wimbledon: "Being No. 2 is also a great achievement. I've got no pressure on me, whether I'm No. 1 or No. 2. I'm going to have so many great memories and I'm just glad that I'll be back on grass and playing where I feel really, really comfortable. At this point, I'm just so excited. It's going to bring back all the really good memories. I'll do some retail therapy in Paris and then I'll head to England."...Roger Federer wants to make it clear that he has not been intimidated by his girly-draw at the French Open: "I said from the start I don't think my draw is extremely tough. You know, I just thought it's a regular draw. It's more to me who said, "Look, you got this hell of a tough draw." And I looked at the draw and I thought, "Where is this tough draw, you know, everybody's talking about? Because I don't fear no players, but I respect them all. I said that very clearly. Of course if I would have played (Carlos) Moya at his best, you know, it would have been a totally different match, you know. (David) Nalbandian or (Victor) Hanescu, for me, it doesn't really matter either. I've beaten him, too, now, over the years. I don't fear him."...Victor Hanescu on moving out of Romania to train on surfaces other than clay: "In Romania we have only claycourts and in the winter it's very difficult to practice indoors. We have only one court, the national center. The surface, it's very bad. To try to play on hardcourts, it means to move from Romania to another country, maybe to go in the States or somewhere else, I don't know. It's not very easy to do this because -- I don't know -- make a change like this, you need maybe a lot of money or you need a place sure where to go. You cannot go alone there, you need to go with your coach, maybe with your family. It's very difficult to make this move."...Maria Sharapova, hanging on to her childhood: "I'm a huge fan of kids' books. I just think they're -- I don't know -- they always make you smile and make you laugh. They always make you think like there's no negative things in life. You know, they just make you look towards good things. I don't know. I mean, when I go to bed, I love to read that book. It's just so fun. Then I have good dreams. I don't have bad dreams (laughing)."...Sesil Karatantcheva on choking Tuesday at Roland Garros: "I mean that it's my third Grand Slam in my life -- I mean, WTA Grand Slam -- and I get to a quarterfinal and I'm playing a girl I've already beaten, I mean, a great player that I'd beaten in the tournament before that. I go there, win first set 6-2. I mean, things are just moving too quickly, you know. I was there to win, but in the same time, I really don't think I was ready for this win in the fact that I definitely didn't believe in myself that I can close it out. I was -- I mean, I was expecting her, you know, to come back strong and just play better and just overplay me, over-hit me. At the end, you know, I got really tired mentally and physically. And, as I said, she stayed in the match longer than I did. She was more competitive than I did. And that's why she's the winner."...Nikolay Davydenko is in the midst of his career year, winning 13 of his last 14 matches on clay, including a semifinal at the Masters Series-Hamburg and the St. Poelten title...Tommy Robredo, competing today in singles, also won the 2000 Roland Garros boys' doubles title with Marc "M-Lo" Lopez, defeating the serving combination of Joachim "The Jackhammer" Johansson and Andy Roddick 7-6, 6-0 in the final...Mark Philippoussis pulled from the Surbiton (grasscourt) Challenger Wednesday with a back injury...The BBC will push the Wimbledon women's final to BBC2 and instead broadcast the Live 8 concert for world poverty relief organized by former Boomtown Rats singer Bob Geldof...From the AP: "Putting Ilie Nastase, John McEnroe, Yannick Noah and Jose-Luis Clerc on the court together guarantees some fun. Noah and McEnroe, kindred free spirits, were teammates in the over-45 category Tuesday at the French Open. For the first set, they took things seriously. Then came the clowning. Clerc smacked a ball way off the court, while Noah sat in the umpire's chair and ordered the umpire to play with McEnroe. When Noah finally climbed down, he sprinted around the court, chasing ballboys and ballgirls. Unhappy with a line call, Clerc grabbed the umpire playfully by the throat. As McEnroe prepared to serve, Nastase coughed loudly while Clerc cleared his throat. McEnroe complained, so Clerc slung his racket at him. McEnroe picked it up and tossed it to a spectator wearing a business suit. McEnroe and Noah won, 6-3, 6-2. "It's a lot of fun with Yannick. We're going all the way," McEnroe said."...Mariano Puerta on his nine-month drug ban last year: "I took medication for asthma, my mistake was not to notify the doctors about this."...Radek Stepanek and coach Petr Korda scored a doubles wildcard this week at the Prostejov Challenger in the Czech Republic...Marat Safin, not looking forward to the grasscourt season: "Every time I go on the grass, I can't move. I feel like I'm going to fall down every single time...The whole thing is just making me nuts."...Thus Lindsay Davenport ends her career without a French Open title...Svetlana Kuznetsova could likely go down in history as losing with match points against the last two Roland Garros winners...The ATP Washington event will add a women's USTA Pro Circuit $75,000 tournament during the same week, July 30 through Aug. 7...The French and US Opens are trying to add an extra Sunday to their events for 2006, but the ATP and WTA want bank first from the wealthy slam events before they rearrange the calendar...Mariano Puerta returned to the court last July with a ranking in the No. 400s and spent the rest of the year on the Challenger circuit after returning from his drug suspension: "I can't believe I'm in the quarterfinals of a grand slam. It is great I'm going to play against Willy (Guillermo Canas), because there will be an Argentine in the semis. We are the only ones. We're going to make sure that Argentina gets as far as possible. I'll be playing Willy, who is a fighter, an excellent player, a top player. I don't think I will be favorite but I don't see myself as a loser either. We're both dying to be in the semis."