Thursday, June 11, 2009

Fernando Verdasco

Perhaps this year will be their year to break the mold and finally add their names to the list of tennis superstardom. Having said that, some might be there already but because of inconsistency, have seen their game suffer and thus the poor results. Others might be the people who are in the brink of that one win that can change their tennis careers completely. The names do not really have to follow the seedings that have been released for the tournament. Rather, it is a random name recalling for me, of things that can possibly happen. I shall start off with the ladies first.

1. Elena Dementieva - She has vastly improved over the years. I first noticed her during the all Russian French Open tennis final between her and Anastasia Myskina. Dementieva was only 22 years old. But what struck oddly for me was the quality of tennis being played. Both women were so nervous in the match that they committed errorrs after errorrs. Myskina proved to be the better player as she controlled her nerves and finally won the tennis match. I thought Dementieva was a luck finalist at that time and won't be seeing her that much. But after she won the women's singles gold in the Olympics, beating Serena Williams in the semis and Dinara Safina in the finals, I still thought it was a fluke. But then she beats Serena again in the Sydney International Tennis semi-final match and again disposes of Safina in the finals match that made me think that Dementieva really has game! Let's see just how far she goes in the first Grand Slam of the year.

2. Ana Ivanovic- Compared to the previous year when she held the number one ranking just after Justine Henin announced her retirement prior to the start of the French Open, Ana Ivanovic then had a mediocre year afterwards. I had high hopes that her winning the French Open title shall give her the confidence to win Wimbledon too. That didn't happen. And I now think that perhaps it was the people's expectations of her for being number one added to the pressure. Of course, it doesn't help too if she suffered a number of injuries that put her out of commission. Now that she isn't ranked number one anymore and has less media exposure (unless she is caught out on a date with fellow tennis player Fernando Verdasco), perhaps she shall do well here just as she was the beaten finalist of Maria Sharapova last year.

3. Dinara Safina-Marat's younger sister seems to have more mental toughness than him. If there is one player that I am happy for because she finally is proving that she too has what it takes to succeed, its her. It's surprising to know that at 23, she has been a veteran of the women's circuit for years. And for years, she has always been known as "Marat's younger sister". In interviews, she often says that when she steps into the court, she wants to do well and create her own name, not live in the shadows of her brother who is a previous Australian Open winner. Perhaps today, Marat is now known to be "Dinara's elder brother".

Read the live tennis scores at Scorespro.com/tennis.

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