  |
|
|
|
Page 4
So there it is. Steffi Graf, the most enigmatic character on the WTA tour, will most likely leave her mark on women's professional tennis by the year's end. A sad, but a sweet ending to a career written down for the ages.....
I believe it is the media who focus undue amounts of time to the up-and-coming teenagers of the tennis tour. It was a big shock to them that all but one of the teens had fizzled out of contention by the quarter final stage at Roland Garros. Well, they've come back bigger and better than ever, and they were represented well at Wimbledon this year. Definitely a sign of things to come for the future. Of course, we can't mention tennis teens without mentioning the two most talked about personalities of the WTA tour - Venus Williams and Anna Kournikova. In actual fact, the pair had met in a marquee round of 16 encounter. There was not much doubt that Williams would win the encounter, of course being the higher ranked opponent and having won their two previous encounters. However, this was their first meeting on grass, and Anna is definitely no stranger to the grass at Wimbledon. She reached the semi finals in her debut at the All England Club, and looked remarkable in the first set against Williams. Anna frequently rushed the net against her error-prone opponent and raced to a 4-0 lead, eventually winning the first set 6-3. However, Venus recouped and got her power game off to a good start in the second set, winning it 6-3. It was all Venus in the third as it was her turn to become the more consistent in the baseline rallies, while Kournikova withered with a ghastly amount of errors, losing the final bracket 2-6. But there were some new names we were to come across in the course of the championships. Of course, out of absolutely nowhere arrived this precocious 16 year old Serb born Australian Jelena Dokic who shocked the Court 1 crowd with a 6-2 6-0 demolition of top seed and Wimbledon favourite Martina Hingis. She proved she was no one hit wonder as she went on to the quarter finals of her first Wimbledon, taking another big scalp in the form of Mary Pierce in the fourth round. But she was defeated by an inspired Alexandra Stevenson, an American with as powerful a game and as big a serve as the Williams sisters. The 18 year old American became the first qualifier to reach the Wimbledon semi finals since John McEnroe in 1978. She hit Dokic off the court with her aggressive groundstrokes and served with incredible speed and direction for much of the match. Dokic was unable to generate as much pace on her own serve, and could not create any spin on her second serve which caused her to double fault at some crucial moments. Although it was her serve which let her down in the encounter, it was her aggressive groundstrokes and her will to fight which won her the second set 6-1.
The copyright of the article The Unheralded Number 1 - Page 4 in Women's Tennis is owned by . Permission to republish The Unheralded Number 1 - Page 4 in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
|
|
|
|
