Hingis Beats Venus

Wow that puppy sniffing the dirty socks really brought her some luck! Because Eurosport completely screwed-up the live broadcast of the semifinal matches, my pro-Hingis post didn't actually occur until AFTER she was already being totally demolished by Williams. I should have known not to trust the "live" times, because when I looked at the schedule on the Rome website, it looked like the match would be starting almost an hour before Eurosport's live broadcast would begin. Because it was SUCH a big match, though, I assumed that Eurosport wouldn't get it wrong, and I trusted the television start time and wished Hingis luck a bit too late. And it showed!

Hingis dropped the first set 0/6. I mean, it was a serious thrashing. She said in a post-match interview that she wanted to cry. Then, perhaps in part thanks to my late posting of the cute puppy photo (and my tuning-in to the European broadcast from Cairo), she totally turned the match around and won the next two sets 6/3 6/3!

I'm still worried about her form, because I think she's sometimes not selecting her shots well (which is really her strength), and is sometimes trying to go behind her opponent when she should just hit predictably into the open court, and I also think that she's making too many errors *when not pushing for power* (which is when I think it's ok for her to make errors), as I would encourage her to. The problem with Hingis would be that she'd win against most players making no mistakes, but her clean tennis approach wasn't working against more powerful players; the thing is: she CAN hit the ball, or at least hit it harder than she does, but then her errors increase and it drives her crazy. What I think she needs to understand (and I think she's starting to) is that she will still come out on top more often than not when she goes for the shot (she'll have more winners than errors), and her OVERALL result (winning against people she used to lose to) will validate the messier play. Anyway, the problem the past two days has been that she's been neither aggressive NOR clean, but both her opponents have been playing pretty mediocre tennis, too. I felt like she and Venus were both in pretty average form.

But congrats to her, anyway! She plays Dinara Safina, tomorrow, a Russian player who I really like (and not just because her more-successful tennis-playing brother USED to be hot, like back in 2002). Safina has had some REALLY impressive wins, this week, and I think it will be a good match.

Sticking to my theme, I'll post another photo of my stuffed puppy doing something cute to give Hingis the luck she was missing in that first set, today.

VC