Of all the clues that had been available as to who would win this time – they started the match level on 12 victories each – perhaps the one to which we should have been paying most attention was their marital status.
For the first time since Wimbledon ditched the tradition of putting 'Miss' or 'Mrs' in front of the women's names on the scoreboard, Kim Clijsters and Justine Henin were playing here and against each other, and it was left to the umpire's announcements to remind the spectators on Court No 1 which of the Belgians was married and which was not.
Clijsters, who has married American basketball player Brian Lynch since her last appearance, dropped the first set, yet she improved as the match continued for her 2-6, 6-2, 6-3 victory.
Next month, just for a bit of fun, Clijsters and Henin are to play an exhibition match to celebrate their country's six-month presidency of the European Union – how very Belgian – yet there was nothing carefree about this, and there was some nervous tennis from both sides of the net.
It is partly thanks to Wimbledon that Henin and Clijsters decided to return for second careers. Clijsters received an invitation to appear in the exhibition last May to celebrate the installation of the retractable roof over Centre Court, and it was as she worked her way back into fitness on the practice court that she decided that she wanted to have another go at being a professional tennis player. Henin would like to win a first Wimbledon title and so complete her set of grand slam titles.
Clijsters, who had a baby during her 'retirement', returned to the grand slam scene last summer to win the US Open title, and Henin came within one victory of doing the same at her first slam back as she finished as the runner-up at January's Australian Open to Serena Williams.
Yet since then Henin has not found life so easy. She has described this as a "transition year". She has now lost all three of her matches with Clijsters this season. All of them have been close. In both the Brisbane final and the Miami semi-finals, Clijsters won by taking a final-set tie-break 8-6.
No tie-break was necessary this time. For the first half an hour Clijsters struggled with her nerves and serve, and it was because of her double-faults that Henin broke her a couple of times in the opening set. Midway through that first set, Henin lost her footing and hurt her elbow, and that injury clearly bothered her, both mentally and physically. She took a medical time-out, and had more treatment during the next change-overs. In the next two sets, Clijsters' serve picked up, and so did the rest of her game. She will today play Russia's Vera Zvonareva, a winner yesterday over Jelena Jankovic, the fourth seed from Serbia.
I'm glad the Miss, Mrs. thing has finally been brought to attention I've actually been wondering about that. It's a little strange I'm so used to always hearing Miss for both players.
In a post last week I give Kim the edge over Justine. Based on past performances between these 2 this year.
And I am so happy to be right for once. It wasn't easy, and I think Justine took Kim by surprise a little bit when she came out firing from all cylinders from the get go.
And obviously nerves played a part in it as well. But despite losing the first set Kim kept her cool and won the 2nd set.
I'm sure Justine's injured arm effected her play somewhat in the second and 3rd set, but still full credit to Clijsters for keeping it together.
Kim now edges Justine 13-12 in their head to head. I expect her to pull through against Zvonareva.
And despite what Mary Carillo thinks I don't think there's going to be an all Williams final because if anyone can win with those two it's Kim.
So I say go Kim and kick some Williams booty!.
Also a notable mention to Maria Sharapova for putting up a fight against Serena especially in the 1st set. She's definitely on the road to recovery.
On the men's side Roger Federer moved through easily in straight sets over Jurgen Melzer.
The big shock today was Andy Roddick going out in 5 sets to 82nd ranked Yen Hsun Lu of Taiwan making things interesting for the remaining guys in the draw.
Rafael Nadal will now face Robin Soderling in the quarters that's definitely not going to be an easy one and I'm giving the edge to Soderling on this one.
Although I'm split on who I would rather have Federer face since both these guys have beaten him.
No comments:
Post a Comment