Vera Zvonareva broke a run of five straight losing finals and three straight losses to Caroline Wozniacki, to capture her first title in 12 months, defeating the Dane 6-3 6-4 in the final.
This week could really be one of the most important moments in Vera’s 2011. After her run the Australian Open semi-finals, her form looked to be finally regressing after 7/8 months of the best results of her career by a mile. First she failed to defend her lowly Pattaya title, and then followed up that disappointment by getting easily brushed by Alisa Kleybanova.
They may have been only two poor tournaments, but both saw her produce uncharacteristically indecisive and passive tennis, with no real direction. Her form continued in Doha, but with every match there was obvious improvement, culminating in her brutally handling of Karolina in the final, notching up third career win over a world number one in the process. After such a lousy record and indescribably poor performances in her recent big finals, could this prove the big turning point for Vera?
For Karolina, I don’t think she stood any chance against Vera playing her new “aggressive” tennis. Why? When does play more like an aggressive counterpuncher, she effectively comes a much lesser version of Vera herself. Not only is her technique just not good enough to consistently get the ball past a player who moves as well and hits as deep as Vera, but the loopy topspinny “junk” she usually religiously plays with actually inadvertently compliments her defence as it gives her more time to recover and get into the perfect position to defend her opponent’s next shot. She’s not actually that quick or anywhere near as athletic as Vera herself, and it meant Vera found it much easier to get the ball past her.
It’s fine for her to up the aggression against the likes of Pennetta. But she just had no chance against a player of Vera’s quality who is by far a better offensive player than her. More power, much sturdier technique, better angles, movement, footwork, and just a far superior offensive mindset and shot selection. While Pennetta and co were feeding Wozniacki with the perfect balls to attack, Vera was hitting with much more depth, angle and even the occasional high ball or slice which, time and time again, completely exposed Wozniacki’s countless technical hitches on both sides.
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So happy for Vera. It was a real feel good win for her yesterday and I enjoyed every minute of it. I do hope that this kind of win gives her that edge she needs to perform better in a grand slam final this year, regardless of whether or not she actually wins.
If she does make to a final I hope she does win, unless she finds herself up against JJ when I will be hoping she reverts to her previous finals form.
Indeed. Hopefully it wasn’t just a one time thing.
You’re acting like Vera is the 10x better player. Vera was hitting the lines in that final, but I wonder why she can’t do that in the Grand Slams? Their records speak for themselves. Caro still leads the H2H 4-3 without the retirement. It obviously was a mediocre performance from Caro, her first of the last two weeks. Hit way too many uncharacteristic errors.
I didn’t say that at all.
Wozniacki is at her best when she’s looping the ball back and running everything down. People may want to see her step in, but when she does there are just so many holes in her game that are easily exposed by quality players. And Vera did just that in the final.