Category Archives: Flavia Pennetta

Fed Cup: The Rebirth of Italy



Last week’s Fed Cup final marks Italy’s fifth successive final in the competition, with Italy winning three of those five. It’s quite funny to look back on the previous finals. As they fought their way into those finals, Italy was forever billed as the team with the most spirit and commitment to the competition. Those are, of course, admirably qualities in themselves, but rarely were the individual players shown the respect they deserved.

Those days are long gone.

2010 has been the greatest years for Italian Tennis in decades; they have crowned their first Grand Slam champion in God-knows-how-long, in addition to not one, but two Italians finally gracing the top ten with their fiery presence. No longer are they simply a strong team, they are one of tennis’ most powerful supernovas, and this Fed Cup victory only confirms it. Magnifico!

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Posted in Fed Cup, Flavia Pennetta, Francesca Schiavone | 1 Comment

Semifinals Set in Washington, San Diego and Copenhagen

ATP Washington Draw
WTA San Diego Draw
WTA Copenhagen Draw

Washington saw more upsets on Friday as the first and third seeded pair of Tomas Berdych and Fernando Verdasco were ousted from the competition. After given only 12 hours rest between his third round and quarterfinal matches, Berdych was furious with the tournament organizers and even commented on possibly skipping Washington next year because of it. Verdasco reacted to his loss in a different however, instead taking to twitter and interacting with fans. The remaining winners on Friday were Marin Cilic and David Nalbandian, who took out Gilles Simon in a topsy-turvy three set match. Nalbandian will look to continue his run later on today against Marin Cilic, while surprise semi-finalists Malisse and Baghdatis will fight for a place in the final.

Over in San Diego, Samantha Stosur’s game was taken apart for the second week in a row - this time to Flavia Pennetta. Pennetta attributed her success over Stosur (a 3-0 H2H) to her outstanding return of serve and backhand down-the-line. She expertly neutralised Stosur’s serve and forehand time and time again with those plays, exposing the Australian’s poor technique and ultimately taking the match. The other winners of the day were Svetlana Kuznetsova, Agnieszka Radwanska and Daniela Hantuchova, who fought back for the second time this week - this time recovering from a 6-4 3-0 deficit to Alisa Kleybanova to claim the match 6-3 in the third. Today will see Radwanska up against Hantuchova and then Kuznetsova squaring off against Pennetta.

In Copenhagen, Caroline Wozniacki booked her place in the semi-finals of the e-boks Danish Open by recovering from a 3-5 0-30* deficit to see off Julia Goerges in a three-set in a dramatic third-set tiebreak. The latter part of the tiebreak saw a number of horrendous calls against Julia Goerges which effectively ended her contention in the match. In the remaining quarterfinals, second seed Na Li moved into the semis without any hassle and will now face Klara Zakopalova of the Czech Republic. Meanwhile, the other semi-final will pit a current top five player against a former top five player, as Caroline Wozniacki and Anna Chakvetadze face off. The Russian has enjoyed a revival of late, notching up ten straight wins and she will be looking to make her second straight final later on today.

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Posted in Copenhagen, Fernando Verdasco, Flavia Pennetta, Li Na, San Diego, Washington | 4 Comments