The last two Miami winners faced off tonight, but you wouldn’t know it watching this messy quarterfinal punctuated by winners out of nowhere and errors everywhere. Especially off the racquet of 2010 champion Kim Clijsters, who lost to 2009 titlist Victoria Azarenka, 6-3, 6-3, in 80 long minutes.
It’s not that Azarenka, wailing and whaling away, didn’t bring quality tennis. She brought enough, using depth and all that pace to hit a dozen winners. It’s just that the Planet Tennis stat of the match was this one: 39. That was the number of errors from Clijsters, who threw in 16 winners, but mostly played listless tennis that made you wonder if she wanted to be playing (and why you were watching).
Clijsters was broken three times in the first set, which ended when she barely got to a return Azarenka barely got back. Azarenka’s return clipped the net; Clijsters’ reply went into it. It was an appropriately undramatic end to an undramatic set.
The second set was a little better. Especially once Clijsters faced two match points down 1-5. You couldn’t help but wonder if she’d come back, even then, considering how she came back after being down 1-5 in the third yesterday against Ana Ivanovic. But today it wasn’t to be, and the match ended when Clijsters hit a ball long on the third match point.
Before the match Clijsters told Brad Gilbert, “I’m a little tired.” After the match Azarenka told Gilbert, “I thought she would be a little tired.” The Planet Tennis word of the day? Tired, of course.
Clijsters has seemed tired lately, both mentally and physically. She barely got to this match, having faced five match points against Ivanovic. She said afterwards she wasn’t feeling the ball. Then there’s also the shoulder injury, the reason she retired against Marion Bartoli in Indian Wells. And she commented recently about the obligations that come with being in the Top 10 again. Her comments last week that she’d pull out of several Asian tournaments, apparently because of radiation fears, were surprising too. Lately she hasn’t sounded as…ambassadorial. Time to heal and recharge the batteries, perhaps?
As for Azarenka, it’s hard to know what to make of her these days. She’s a regular in the Top 10, but you can’t help but feel it’s not enough. Is it because, among all the young players, she was the sexy pick for so long but hasn’t done as well as expected? Or perhaps that she’s often compared to contemporary Caroline Wozniacki, who’s leaving everyone in the rankings dust? Plus there’s always a new young player to watch—the sexy pick now seems to be Petra Kvitova (Bud Collins is keeping an eye on her) or Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova. Yet on her way to this match Azarenka beat Pavlyuchenkova, who beat Kvitova. And, of course, Wozniacki’s no longer around either.
Azarenka said after the match that something’s changed, that she’s now “more happy and stable” on court. We’ll see if that makes a difference, starting tomorrow in her semifinal match against Vera Zvonareva.
—Bobby Chintapalli