Are we ready to believe in Sam Stosur? I did once, very briefly, years ago, when I first saw her play somewhere in her native Australia. She had a game that might have been described as half-Heninesque. She had the inside-out forehand and the aggressive, jocky, all-court style, but she didn’t whirl around that court quite like the Belgian. And while Stosur’s backhand was strong, it was a workmanlike two-hander, one that would never make it into tennis’ Hall of Great Shots alongside Justine’s Olympian one-hander. Still, Stosur appeared to have Top 10 athleticism, her kick serve had the virtue of simplicity, and she was more capable of dictating a point from the middle of the court with her forehand than most of her opponents.
For years, it seemed that those gifts would be wasted. Stosur bounced around the rankings—No. 65 to 46 to 29 to 47 to 52—but never landed anywhere near the Top 10. The relatively few times she popped up on my radar screen, I could see that the shots and the talent were still intact, but she seemed to have no idea how to use them or to modify them for the moment. Like, say, Ernests Gulbis or Svetlana Kuznetsova on a bad day, Stosur could hit the ball as hard and as well as anyone, but her game lacked texture and adaptability. Like Kim Clijsters, if she got tight and things didn’t go well, she could rush herself into a trip to the showers.
But you don’t need to adapt when you can just hit a blatant winner off any ball you like. That’s what Stosur did for two very quick sets against Vera Zvonareva on Sunday in Charleston. The Aussie, who, even as she improved in 2009, had a habit of folding in finals, won her second and most prestigious title at the Family Circle Cup. At 26, she’s in the Top 10 for the first time, with a 17-5 record on the year. More impressive is the way she won this title. While Stosur hasn’t lost to Zvonareva since 2004, she made the sometime Top Tenner look like a barely coordinated amateur. Along the way, she inspired Vera to commit one of her most YouTube-worthy meltdowns—after double-faulting at 0-3 in the second, she broke her racquet, chucked it into the sideline sofa, and then, after it landed on the court, gave it a kick for good measure. It was the highlight of her afternoon.
Otherwise, it was all Stosur. Every time I looked away for a second—at a newspaper, out the window, at the floor—I looked back up to see her sending another viciously angled winner past a staggering Zvonareva, who had trouble even getting within five feet of some of these balls. Stosur’s uncluttered service motion and the powerful kick it produces is a thing of athletic beauty, one of the finest shots on the women’s tour. She can backpedal and hit her forehand for winners equally well to either corner. And she was using her slide-and-slice backhand when appropriate yesterday—that’s the texture and adaptability I was talking about. Better than all these, though, was Stosur’s return. She took it early, used a truncated backswing, hit it crisply, but never went for an outright winner with it.
So, back to my original question. Are you ready to believe in Sam Stosur? Can she rise higher than No. 10? Can she avoid the dismal early losses that have plagued her at the majors (before 2009, she was a collective 17-22 in the Slams)? Is she a match for the even more physically gifted Williams sisters, Henin, and Clijsters? Can she overpower someone as steady as Wozniacki, who will make her hit an extra ball to finish a rally? For the moment, as we head to Roland Garros, I'll say yes. Stosur made the semis in Paris last year, and she has the point-ending power for clay. Maybe now she’s learned to use all of her gifts. I hope so. Normally a blowout final is dull stuff, but not this one. After the Henin-Clijsters trainwreck in Key Biscayne, it was satisfying to see a player grab a match from the first game and win it decisively, with outstanding play from start to finish.
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The same could very nearly be said for the men’s final that had been played earlier in the day, in Monte Carlo. Rafael Nadal grabbed his match with Fernando Verdasco from the start, winning the first six points and ending the second game with a vintage crosscourt backhand pass from off his shoe tops and outside the doubles alley. It's probably a shot that only a right-handed left-hander could hit. In other words, it's probably a shot that only Nadal could hit.
That’s the shot we’ll remember from his 2010 Monte Carlo win, his sixth in a row. What was most memorable the rest of the time was how routine this title was and how self-assured Nadal was winning it. He didn’t drop a set and, as he has in years past, the anxieties that seemed to plague him through the early part of the year all blew away in the red Monaco dust. There wasn’t a moment all week where Nadal seemed in any kind of doubt about who the tournament’s winner would be. There was more confidence in every part of his game. He had no issues going up the line with his forehand or taking an aggressive cut at his crosscourt topspin backhand, two shots that he gets cautious with when he’s not confident. What I noticed most, though, was how seldom he was forced to hit his slice backhand, which is a shot that can float on him. On hard courts, when he’s pushed back, he’ll resort to this stroke. On clay, with a little more time and his ability to slide, he seems to have no trouble taking the extra step needed to get in position to drive the ball. Nadal has mastered the surface, the subtleties of footwork and court positioning needed to get around on it efficiently, to the point where he appears to believe he can hit any shot from any spot, and that he’s never out of a rally. Must be a nice feeling. A confidence-boosting feeling.
