Warming up - 4/19/2011

Date: 4/19/2011
Result: Fes R1, Aravane Rezai def. Arantxa Rus, 4-6 6-4 6-3
Why it matters:
- It's crunch time for Rezai.  Fast.  Her year has been as close to a total disaster as possible.  She's ranked 123rd in year to date points. And what else would you want when she's playing with no confidence? To gear up for her title defense in Madrid! This win might actually begin to turn things around for the French player, though.  First, she's back on clay, which actually rewards her play.  She hits hard and isn't a great mover, but she takes such massive swings that she needs the extra time clay gives her to wind up and pick her spots.  By starting in the low-pressure atmosphere of Fes (rather than Stuttgart, for example) to kick off her clay court season, she should be able to get the extra matches to build her confidence on the surface.  Additionally, this match in particular should be good because she remembered how to use her competitiveness and fight to her advantage in coming back from 6-4 4-2 down.  If she remembers that not everything will always go perfectly, but that the right attitude can make up for things sometimes, she might come through more often than she's been able to this year.
- For Rus, she still is trying to match the career of her namesake.  After a promising junior career, her rise up the pro ranks has been slow but steady.  But it has been steady in the right direction. Matches like this will sting, but she's still young. The young Dutchwoman from Monster needs to get mentally tougher and improve her serve if she wants to become a bigger threat, especially on surfaces other than clay.  But on clay she should be ready to challenge people now.  She moves well, defends the court effectively, and can use her "tricky" leftiness to give opponents a different look on a lot of shots.  She will need to step up and close points, either with down the line shots or by closing the net though if she wants to take matches, rather than hope her opponent gives it away.  Unfortunately, on this day, she waited for Rezai to finish losing, and Aravane never did.
Honorable Mentions:
- Barcelona R1, Juan Carlos Ferrero def. Xavier Malisse - 64 62 - Ferrero picked a Spanish event to make his big comeback from injury.  After months away, he really needs to build some solid results to revive his ranking for one final push before inevitable retirement. I watched his previous last match live in New York vs. Melzer, and you could see he was slow.  Only time will tell if that was solely due to injury or if it was a sign of the final decline.  It would be sad if this former #1, who had a career revival of sorts in 2010 winning 3 titles, went down due to injury and faded away.  Hopefully he'll put things together for a final run of good form before he decides he wants to retire on his own terms.
- Stuttgart R1, Zuzana Kucova def. Anna Chakvetadze - 16 75 44 ret. - First the harrowing experience of being robbed caused Chakvetadze to lose lots of her confidence, and now a strange illness is keeping her from competing at the highest level.  Even if Chakvetadze is not the player who once reached #5 in the world in 2007, she's good enough to beat the likes of Kucova, and was proving it until she started to feel unwell.  It looks like she's just destined to have bad luck, but Chakvetadze is fun to watch, so as a viewer (and a compassionate human being) I really hope something will turn positive for her soon.