This wasn’t exactly what they had in mind when they dreamed up the round-robin format for the WTA Championships.
Minutes after Serena Williams finished playing Victoria Azarenka with very little at stake (Williams had already qualified for the knock-out semifinals), Sam Stosur had to go through the motions as a stand-in for Petra Kvitova, the Czech who had withdrawn from Istanbul. Kvitova pulled out after losing her first match to Agnieszka Radwanska, leaving Stosur with a slim chance to survive in what for her was a single-elimination tournament. She didn’t accomplish that, losing to Italy’s feisty Sara Errani, 6-3, 2-6, 6-0.
It was a hot mess of a match, through no fault of Errani’s. The WTA No. 8 was her usual self, as difficult to shake as a dachshund that has locked onto your ankle. That’s a particularly tough type of opponent for Stosur, who’s enjoyed remarkable success as well stunning failure for one reason: A basic lack of the single most indispensable quality in the game—and one which Errani has in spades—consistency.
If you think of Stosur as a player forever struggling to make all the moving parts work together in unison (in which case she’s extremely dangerous) the final score is a little less baffling. Especially when you take into account Errani’s nature as a foil whose outstanding gift is an ability to make her opponent look in the mirror. For some, that can be disconcerting.
But let’s not sell the 5’4” Italian short here. Errani knows how to dig and pick at a rival’s weakness. Her 45 percent rate of success against first serves by opponents this year is best on tour, and she also had the highest break-point conversion rate. Additionally, today she put 82 percent of her first serves into play.
Errani got off to a good start, which is always helpful against players like Stosur, whose confidence is prone to waver. With a 5-3 lead, Errani put the pressure on and pinned Stosur down on her serve, 0-40. The alternate from Oz used her deadly kick serve to claw her way back to an ad-point, but then threw in a double fault. She faced another break point and blasted a forehand to stave that one off, too, but a forehand error by Stosur brought Errani to set point again. This time, she never had to touch the ball to win the set—Stosur double-faulted.
It looked good for Errani at that point. But surprise, surprise. . . Stosur’s game jumped a few notches at the start of the second set. A break in the first game seemed to boost her confidence, even though Errani broke right back. But when Stosur broke Errani in the next game it opened the floodgates. Soon the Aussie was slapping winners left and right, especially with her lethal forehand.
As Stosur began to dictate, the window for Errani to get to her opponent’s backhand became smaller and smaller. When Stosur can get comfortable with her forehand, her backhand is apt to also improve dramatically. By the time Stosur consolidated her lead to 3-1, she’d hit 12 winners. Stosur added another break and then cruised to a 6-2 set win.
Errani seemed in deep trouble when Stosur had a break point in the first game of the final set, but she failed to capitalize on one of the few second serves Errani was forced to hit, and botched a forehand return. Errani won the next two points to hold.
Then the wheels suddenly came off for Stosur. She was broken for 0-2, and after another quick hold by Errani, the rout was on. In the fourth game, Stosur fell behind 0-40 thanks to three consecutive wild mishits. She made a feeble backhand error to give Errani the 4-0 lead, and the rest isn’t worth the telling.