Date: 4/5/2011
Result: Marbella R1, Svetlana Kuznetsova def. Mona Barthel, 4-6 7-6 6-4
Why it matters:
- Kuznetsova is a two time major champion, including at the French Open. Therefore she's proven she can beat anyone on clay. Anyone... like Mona Barthel? No offense to Barthel (I'll discuss the impact of this for her later), but this seemed like a "why would I want to watch a crazy beatdown?" match when the draw came out. And the reason turned out to be obvious and a reason that comes up so often with Kuznetsova: Sveta is a headcase and can lose to anyone at any time. Kuznetsova has all the weaponry to be a dominant number 1. If she had the mentality to harness her skills and optimally utilize them, there's no reason she couldn't dominate even against players like Serena Williams or Kim Clijsters. She's as athletic, hits as hard, hits with more topspin, and is extremely competent at closing points from the net. But with her fragile mind, she can just lose focus at the drop of a hat - and more often than not, loses to the top players (like Williams or Clijsters) who can keep it together mentally. I've made mention before that certain players should be visiting sports psychologists, and Kuznetsova should be at the top of the list. In the end, she scraped through against Barthel. But the point is that she never should've had to.
- For Barthel, #165 in the world, a player who has never beaten anyone in the top 50, let alone a two-time major winner, closing out the match when she served for it at 5-4 in the 2nd set would've been a huge accomplishment. But for so many players, that surprising big win leads into a let down - often caused by raised expectations that come too early. Although this loss will sting, hopefully Barthel will get more motivated by how competitive she was against Kuznetsova, and will be spurred on to bigger and better things. We'll see...
Honorable Mentions:
- Houston R1, Ryan Sweeting def. Tim Smyczek - 62 62 - Sweeting's game looks like it would transition well to clay, and he's taken a first good step in Houston. Smyczek seems to have appeared out of nowhere in the last several months, playing extremely well and shooting up the rankings. This loss is acceptable - Smyczek seems to be more suited to hardcourt, but by the same token, in order to become part of the US tennis conversation, Smyczek will need to post a big result somewhere - anywhere - soon.
- Casablanca R1, Frederico Gil def. Simone Bolelli - 63 61 - Gil is a solid player, not spectacular, but gave Bolelli a beatdown on this day. Gil made the finals in his home tourney at Estoril last year, so he has plenty of ranking points to defend this year. Winning a few rounds in Casablanca will help with confidence (and ranking points) before his big week coming up. Bolelli is extremely talented, having reached #36 in the world at one point, and used to have enough variety and firepower that he could excel on clay and win enough matches on hard court. But since his friend and countryman Federico Luzzi passed away stunningly from Leukemia at the end of the season in 2008, Bolelli has barely been winning matches; he most notably had a 14 match losing streak from the end of 2009 to 2010. Hopefully Simone will regain his focus and make another push towards the top of the game, but at age 25, his time is limited.
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