2013 US OPEN Day 1: Venus Surprises; Nadal,Serena Win; Blake Retires

Venus Williams won her first round match at the US Open today, getting revenge for a loss at the Rogers Cup to 2013 Wimbledon semifinalist Kirsten Flipkens from just a few weeks ago. This was something of a happy surprise, but Venus looked better than she has in quite awhile. Her serves were regular in the 110-plus mph range and her movement and groundstrokes looked crisp. Now, the question is can she maintain that for an entire 2 hour match?

A highlight  of the Day 1 results was Venus's sister Serena Williams dismantling Francesca Schiavone 6-0 6-1 in devastating fashion. Rafael Nadal schooled young American Ryan Harrison in straight sets while another young American Sloane Stephens barely escaped the first round with a 3rd set tiebreak win.

The biggest news story of the day was 33-year-old  James Blake announcing at a press conference that this tournament would be his last professional tennis appearance. Blake for years was one of the best-looking male tennis players but although he reached World #4 and 2 quarterfinals at the US Open he had not had any good results recently and his retirement was not as much of a surprise as Marion Bartoli's stunner a few weeks ago.

The rain came down and prevented Roger Federer even beginning his first round match.

WTA ROGERS CUP 2013: Serena v Aggie, Li Na v Sorana

Serena Williams has already won 7 tournaments this year and is hoping to win an 8th at the WTA Rogers Cup in Toronto this week. In order to do this, she will need to get through Agnieska Radwanska in the semifinals and then either Sorana Cirstea or Li Na in the final. Defending Rogers Cup champion Petra Kvitova lost to Cirstea in a tough 3-set match, while last year's finalist Li Na beat Dominika Cibulkova. Serena followed up her win over Kirsten Flipkens by dispatching  Magdalena Rybarikova. Flipkens had beaten Serena's sister Venus on Tuesday in 3-sets but could not repeat that result against the World #1. Serena has lost a total of 10 games in 3 rounds (6 sets) of play this week and looks as sharp as she has all year. She has only lost 3 times all year (to Sloane Stephens in Melbourne, to Victoria Azarenka in Doha and to Sabine Lisicki at Wimbledon).

ROGERS CUP 2013: Venus Loses 1st Match Back

Venus Williams returned to the WTA Tour on Tuesday at the Rogers Cup in Toronto after more than two months away and lost her 1st round match 0-6 6-4 6-2 to Wimbledon semifinalist Kirsten Flipkens. Venus is currently ranked World #38 while Flipkens is World #13 so in that light the result should not be thought of as an upset. Both players were coming off long absences from the game due to injury, since Flipkens had not played since Wimbledon and Venus had not played since Roland Garros (1st round loss to Urszula Radwanska).

The match turned in the second set when everything was on serve until 4-5 in the set. (I managed to watch most of the set while on a flight from Washington, DC to Los Angeles--thank you DirecTV in flight!) Venus could barely hit a serve up to 100 mph, a far cry from her typical speed well over 110 mph. She claims that she is treating her back injury gingerly and that explains her diminution of serving power. However, there were other reasons why she lost the match: she had 16 breakpoints compared to her opponent's 8 but they both broke the same number of times, so Venus was exactly half as effective on important points as her opponent.

Interestingly, Serena Williams will face Flipkens tomorrow in the 3rd round. If Serena loses, that would be a shocking result. Other interesting matches include Sloane Stephens and Agnieska Radwanska, Li Na and Ana Ivanovic, Petra Kvitova and Samantha Stosur as well as 2013 Wimbledon champion Marion Bartoli and Magdalena Rybarikova (She won the Citi Open last weekend).

2013 WIMBLEDON: Bartoli Overwhelms Lisicki To Win 1st Major

Unexpectedly, 28-year-old Marion Bartoli of France defeated an overwhelmed 23-year-old Sabine Lisicki to win the 2013 Wimbledon Women's singles title 6-1 6-4 in 81 minutes. Bartoli became only the third Frenchwoman in history, and the first to do so since Amelie Mauresmo won in 2006. Bartoli was playing in her 47th grand slam tournament, the most number of tournaments anyone has ever taken to win their first major.

Lisicki was widely considered the favorite to win this match, having played 2010 French Open champion Francesca Schiavone, Elena Vesnina, 2011 US Open Champion Samantha Stosur(14), 16-time major champion Serena Williams(1), Kaia Kanepi and 2012 Wimbledon finalist Agnieska Radwanska(4) to reach the final. Lisicki ended Serena's winning streak by coming back from 0-3 down when Serena became surprisingly tentative during the high pressure moments of their 4th round match. Amazingly, Lisicki came back again from a 0-3 deficit in her semifinal match against the wily Radwanska. In the end, the ask for her to play her best tennis in one more match was one ask too many.

Bartoli on the other hand took advantage of one of the wackiest Wimbledons of all time, when four former WTA #1's including the reigning World #3 Maria Sharapova and World #2 Victoria Azarenka went out in the same day the 2007 finalist realized she had a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reach another Wimbledon final. She did so without facing a Top 10 opponent, demolishing her semifinal opponent Kirsten Flipkens 6-1 6-2. Her toughest test came against fast-rising American phenom Sloane Stephens whom she outlasted 6-4 7-5 the round before. Bartoli became the first player to win the tournament without dropping a set since Serena did it in 2010.

Women's Final Review
Bartoli confidently began the match by winning the toss and choosing to serve. Although she served two double faults in the first service game, she saved two breakpoints by continuing to go for her serve the entire game, even though she lost it. Lisicki returned the favor by easily losing her serve the next game and Bartoli held easily as Lisicki started to spray balls. The nerves became apparent on Lisicki's side of the net quickly as she failed to hold serve in the first set, hitting only 2 aces (and 2 doublefaults) with only a 54% of first serves in.

She righted the ship in the first set, beginning with an ace, and although her ground strokes were still a bit wobbly, especially the backhand side, she held serve again. But then history repeated itself as Bartoli continued to go for her shots, displaying her improved movement and fitness by getting to lots of drop shots and being able to go for her laser-like bakhand crosscourt.

The key moment in the match was the 2nd game of the 2nd set where Bartoli saved 3 break points with clutch serves and ground strokes deep into the corners of the court. Once Lisicki failed to capitalize on her opportunities and win that long service game of Bartoli's the match was essentially over because the German's level of play returned to her first set's level and she found herself down 1-6 1-5 15-40. However, magically her serve reappeared and with an ace and a couple unreturnables she was able to hold serve (dismissing three Championship points in the process) and in the very next game was able to break Bartoli when she understandable got nervous and started missing serves while trying to closeout the match and win Wimbledon. Lisick finally broke serve and then went on to hold her own service game again. This was a rare string of three games in a row won by Lisicki an it looked like things might be turning around.

At 6-1 5-4, Bartoli was serving for the championship again and this time she won the first two points displaying her improved fitness, winning both on Lisicki errors after long rallies. The third point was a weak return then sailed wide and Bartoli held Triple Championship Point. She hit a serve out wide in the corner to Lisicki's backhand and it was untouched by the German. Game, set and match, Miss Bartoli!

It will be interesting to see how Bartoli takes this win going forward. She is now embraced by the French federation and this could be the beginning of a good patch in her career. At age 28 she has the mental toughness to hang with anyone on tour and she can hit the ball as hard as the the elites at the top of the game. Her mobility can only get better, and if it does, it would not be unreasonable to think she could win another major. If so, she would do something none of the recent brand new major champions (Li Na, Petra Kvitova, Stosur, or Schiavone) have been able to do.

We shall see!

2013 WIMBLEDON: Women's Semifinals Preview

Here are my predictions for the women's quarterfinals at the Wimbledon Championships for 2013. Last year I correctly predicted 2 of 2 men's semifinals and correctly predicted 2 of 2 women's semifinals. This year I have correctly predicted 3 of 4 women's quarterfinals and 3 of 4 men's quarterfinals.

Sabine Lisicki (GER) [23] vs. Agnieszka Radwanska (POL) [4]. This is the third meeting between these two players, but the first time this year and their first ever meeting on grass. The two have split their previous matches and there's no clear favorite. Lisicki has already achieved the rare feat of defeating the World #1 and defending champion in Serena Williams. But even more impressive is that she followed up that momentous upset with another win to reach her 2nd Wimbledon semifinal in 3 years. The woman she is playing reached the final here last year and is the World #4 player. Radwanska is known as The Swiss Army Knife because of the variety of shots she is able to play. This was shown to great effect in her quarterfinal win over Li Na. Despite being overmatched by the powerful Chinese player, she used her superior defense to cause Li to lose the match (despite needing 8 match points to do so). Generally in a battle between power and control I usually take the side of power. Lisicki will be the player dictating play and the result of the match will be under her control. If she plays at the level she played in her two previous rounds then I expect her to win this match. PREDICTION: Lisicki.

Marion Bartoli (FRA) [15] v. Petra Kvitova (CZE) [8] Kirsten Flipkens (BEL) [20]. This is the first time these two have played on the WTA Tour. However, this result is most definitely not as hard to predict as the other semifinal. In fact, a friend of mine (and reader of this blog!) picked Bartoli to reach the semifinals (against Kvitova) from before the tournament started. I tend not to make predictions before the tournament begins, preferring to see how play is proceeding before prognosticating. The Belgian must be ecstatic just to be in her first career major semifinal, especially two days after defeating a former Wimbledon champion who happened to be struggling with some kind of virus. Flipkens just one year ago was ranked so low (#262) that she was low to even enter the Wimbledon qualifying tournament, and now she has a chance to make the final. True, it is not much of a chance, since she is playing a powerful, wily veteran. However, Flipkens was given almost no chance to win against the powerful Kvitova and managed to use her good hands and comfort on grass to  do so despite her short stature. It's possible some off -the-court assistance from her best friend Kim Clijsters may have been helpful producing this tournament's breakthrough result. On the other hand, Bartoli truly feels like she should be a Grand Slam champion already while Flipkens almost certainly feels like she is just lucky to be there. And, honestly, she is. PREDICTION: Bartoli.