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by Pete Bodo
Quite honestly, Flavia Pennetta's chances of making the Sony-Ericsson WTA Tour Championships in Dough-ha are slim to none. She basically has to win every match she plays for the rest of the year, and she still needs help from her rivals for the remaining slot in the eight-player draw screwing things up. It's hard to imagine that Jelena Jankovic won't be the final qualifier, and if we know her it's entirely possible that she'll then go out and win the blasted thing.
But I wish Pennetta would make it; she's put together one of the better stories of the WTA year, and she's had a long and tough road to travel since the summer of July 2007, when she learned from journalists (and published newspaper photographs) that her de facto fiance, the Spanish star Carlos Moya, had hooked up with a new girl. "They (Pennetta and Moya) had been together for two years and were planning to marry," my pal, Italian journalist and blogger Ubaldo Scanagatta, told me at the US Open. "They were living together, and had bought furniture together. Then she discovered, like everyone else, that Moya was cheating on her with a Spanish TV star."
The break-up that followed was so painful to Pennetta that she lost 16 pounds; at the US Open, she devoted a lot of energy to, as Ubaldo put it, "hiding" from Moya. Her ranking followed her heart - she fell out of the Top 50, but scrambled back to finish that year at no. 40. As Ublado explained, "She had a big job to do to re-build herself."
She accomplished that mission admirably and emerged a better player and perhaps even a better person. Pennetta had a shot at making the WTA finals last year, but disaster struck once again. Her good friend, Frederico Luzzi, died of leukemia at age 28 in October. Pennetta faced a dilemma: If she attended the funeral, she would have to skip the WTA event that week, all but destroying her hopes of making the championships.
Pennetta decided to attend the funeral.
This year, Pennetta caught fire in Los Angeles. Entering the event, she was already thinking of the US Open quarterfinal points she would have to defend in a few weeks time. She responded to the pressure beautifully, winning Los Angeles and following up with a semifinal in Cincinnati. "The pressure was out completely after I won in Los Angeles," she said at the US Open, while trying to rationalize her outstanding summer results. "I started just to play my tennis and that's it. Doesn't feel (like) a lot of tension, except maybe in my first (Open) match. It's always like the first one is the worst, you known. There are so many. . . you think so much, and the pressure is high. I didnt breathe too much in the first one."
But Flavia already knew something about exhaling, and it helped. After a tight-three setter in the first round of the Open, she embarrassed Sania Mirza, feeding her a double bagel. She relented a little against Alexandra Wozniak, giving her a game in each set. Her fourth-round match against no. 7 seed Vera Zvonareva was an entertaining mess as well as a terrific effort by Pennetta: She fought off six match points, which made her opponent cry (Zvonareva is always ready to turn on the faucets, equal-prize money be danged!) and went on to sweep at third set at love.
"I didn't take the count (of the match points) when I was playing," she said later. "But at that point I just was playing very aggressive. Just anyway the match, it was almost over (in the second set tie-breaker) so it's better to play aggressive and not wait. I just was thinking on that."
Pennetta's run was ended in the quarterfinals by Serena Williams, but by then she'd earned a distinction she gave up earning out of loyalty to a deceased friend in 2008. She became the first Italian woman - ever - to make the top 10. Pennetta is a frank, worldly young woman of 27. When she was asked why she thought things had fallen into place for her, she deadpanned: "I don't know, you have to ask my coach."
She paused before continuing: "No, it's just a joke. I think I just start to win more and more matches, and getting more confidence and everything has come. Tennis - it's a very strange sport, because one point can change everything. You have to be very focused, mentally, in all the moments."
And that's an easier assignment to fulfill when you know how to exhale, and understand that no matter how bleak things sometimes appear, you can make them alright in the end.
Have a good weekend, everyone.