Tuesday 15 March 2011

Indian Wells: “Brazen Hussies”

 





Dominika’s Law of Universal impudence: Capable giant slayers (like Domi) will only slay Goliaths in your tennis pool. Espesh blue-eyed ones with hot coaches.


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Cibulkova d. Zvonareva 46 76(4) 64

Players like Domi and Rezai employ a brazenly simplistic hit’n miss formula.

Many people have a problem with this (and not just coz it’s one-dimensional). I don’t.

It’s not conventional. It certainly shouldn’t be taught. And you live, just as you must die, by the sword.

But let us please not pretend it has no place in the game. And let us please not pretend it’s not soul-stirringly hypnotic when they do connect. 

Without them, that sort of shameless audacity simply wouldn’t exist. Why would it? It’s idiocy.

Trouble is, if you entirely eliminate that idiocy from the game you remove the only elemental (madcap) force capable of pulling off the most suicidal of wins at the highest of levels – the occasional duffing up of a top five player forces the game to evolve in ways it might not otherwise see. Think of them as the mutants that create sufficient amounts of instability in a population that might otherwise lack for vitality, or worse, go sterile.

At its best you get the kind of apocalyptic run Aravane exhibited at Madrid last year. At its worst she goes down, like she did yesterday, flailing in a fug of her own insolence.


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Sharapova d. Rezai 62 62

That’s not at all to say Pova didn’t play a contained, measured and entirely professional match – as good as anything I’ve seen from her in months.

It’s just difficult to know what to make of it and how much stock to place in it (which I totally want to do) without having had the match this was hyped up to be. Dinara next.

I have no idea what chance Domi stands against Wicks (Universal Impudence says she’ll flame out in straights) – players like her aren’t built for longevity, nor do they naturally lend themselves to any extrapolation.  I only know that I find it ironic that two of the fiercest ball strikers we have measure in at (or under) 5’5.

Where does that leave so called “Big Babe Tennis”?


(Pics: Getty)

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