This isn’t exactly the women’s final I expected, but maybe it should have been. Kim Clijsters, defending champion, lover of Flushing Meadows, part-time resident of New Jersey, was an obvious contender. I’m pretty sure I picked her as the runner-up (to Maria Sharapova, whoops). But, even though she was the Wimbledon finalist this year, I didn’t see Vera Zvonareva coming up in the rear-view mirror. After her controlling performances through the first five rounds, I thought Caroline Wozniacki was going to put her smart bland blond stamp on this tournament.
Every day is a new day, though, and Friday was a bad one for Wozniacki. It was breezy, as usual, in Ashe Stadium, just breezy enough to throw her normally automatic ground strokes off. Her opponent didn’t help. Playing a wallboard requires an extremely patient mix of consistency and aggression. You’re not going to out-rally Wozniacki, but you also can’t fire away from risky positions; the odds are against you. In their fourth-round match, Sharapova had, predictably, erred on the side of too much risk. Zvonareva was the first of Wozniacki’s opponents to find the blend and—hardest part of all—maintain it for two sets.
“It’s the right balance between being patient and being aggressive,” Zvonareva said afterward. “With those windy conditions, sometimes you have to play ugly.” She pushed forward, against the wind, and made Wozniacki try to come up with the perfect shots in those imperfect conditions.
Zvonareva earned her third date with Clijsters in 2010. The Belgian was at both her brilliant and awful best against Venus Williams in the semis. Up a break in the second, she rushed through a terrible service game; each of her shots went a little more haywire. The same thing happened when she was serving, up a break again, at 4-3 in the third. Clijsters rushed in at break point and sent a swinging volley 10 feet long. It almost looked like she did it intentionally, just to get the horrid game over with and behind her. At the first sign of nerves, Clijsters starts to rush; there doesn’t seem to be anything she can do to combat it. It’s hard to imagine that it won’t happen at some point in the final.
What mattered, though, was that in her next service game, at 5-4, Clijsters did not rush. In fact, she played her best tennis of the match, patiently but forcefully moving Williams out of position and finishing points when she had the chance. This had to be a stinging loss for Venus. You could see the anguish in her face as a Clijsters lob landed in, and frustratingly out of reach, for the final break. It may have been Williams last best chance to win a tournament that, once upon a time, she looked destined to own. I’ve seen her find a way and refuse to lose in these situations in the past, and when she got back to 4-4 in the third, I thought she would find a way again—knowing that Zvonareva, rather than her sister, would be waiting in the final, had to make her desperate to get through this one. Credit Clijsters for not letting Venus find that way in the last two games.
Cijsters has a 5-2 career record against Zvonareva, but the Russian has won their last two meetings, at Wimbledon and Montreal this year, both times after dropping the first set. Zvonareva’s challenge will be different from what she faced against Wozniacki. She’ll get more pace from Clijsters, something this rhythm hitter normally likes. Still, I’ve been surprised by both of their last two matches, because Clijsters is the better athlete—stronger and faster—as well as a better ball-striker. I would think that, as long as she kept her head together, she would gradually overpower Zvonareva. But that’s not how it happened, especially at Wimbledon, where Zvonareva seemed to anticipate Clijsters’ every move, and the frustrated Belgian rushed herself out of the tournament.
In the semis, it was Zvonareva who had to strike a difficult balance. In the final, that job will fall to Clijsters. She should be able to dictate and at the same time track more balls down. But she’ll have to be patient about it. After their last two matches, both players will know that the result of the first set isn’t going to determine the result of the match. As for Zvonareva, she'll need to balance her notorious volatility with her emotional control; she came out a little too controlled, and a little flat, in the Wimbledon final. I think she’s ready to win, but I don’t think she will. After her semi, Clijsters knows that good things can come after bad, that one choke won’t necessarily cost her the match, and that she can gather herself when she must. Clijsters has won 20 straight matches at the Open. No. 21 is not a lock by any means, but I think she’ll get it.