The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

There was some very good play last week in the Citi Open and Bank of the West classic, as well as some bad and ugly play.

The good: At the Citi Open, Sasha Zverev powered his way to victory, beating Ken Anderson in the final.  Zverev was awesome throughout the tournament, with big serving and penetrating ground strokes that he appeared to be hitting as safe shots, but which backed his opponents off the court.  Zverev played within himself but still dominated.  This guy is the real deal and in my opinion will be in the world’s top 5 before year’s end.  He is 20 years old.

Also good was the final of the Bank of the West tournament in California.  Here Madison Keys defeated Coco Vandeweigh in two close sets.  Both players hit the ball beautifully and served well on big points.  A terrific match.  Will Keys use this post-injury success as a springboard to the top 5?  She as the tools, and Lindsay Davenport is back coaching her.  We’ll see.

The bad:  Some bad play was shown by Christina McHale in the Citi Open, where she outplayed Eugenie Bouchard for 2 sets but collapsed in the third and got steamrolled.  McHale is a better player than she showed in this match.  She needs to work on maintaining her concentration.

The ugly: Some ugly play was shown by Bouchard, who beat McHale in 3 sets and then fell to Andrea Petkovic, ranked 110 in the world, in a 0-6 third set.  Her play has been worse than bad - it has been ugly.  Although she did beat McHale, Christina has had a tough year, with a losing record even when her qualifying matches are included in the stats.  Bouchard sprayed her inside out backhand as much as 10 feet wide of the court on multiple occasions, and also frequently hit her forehand long.  What’s going on with this player, now ranked in the 70’s, who once made the final of Wimbledon?

In my opinion she has problems both technically and psychologically.  On the technical side, she appears to be late setting up for her shots, both with racquet preparation and footwork.  As a result, she is hitting the backhand late and spraying it wide, and on the forehand she is reaching for the ball at the last second, which often results in shots going long.  On the psychological side, she has shown vulnerability in the past, and now it appears that she’d rather not be a tennis player.  She issued a scorching criticism of Maria Sharapova, who, like her, burst on the scene as a youngster.  However Sharapova followed up her early success with multiple slam victories.  Perhaps Bouchard called her a “cheater” out of professional jealousy.  It’s worth remembering that all of Sharapova’s slams wins were achieved while she was in full compliance with substance abuse regulations.  Bouchard also refused to shake the hands of her opponents during the last Fed Cup encounter between Canada and Romania, stating that she didn’t want to be friendly to someone against whom she was about to compete.  These behaviors lead me to believe that she’s a very unhappy player.  She should take a page from Roger Federer’s book.  Enjoy the game!