Bacsinszky Triumphs Over Venus. Could She Be This Year’s French Open Champion?
On Sunday we saw some of the best tennis matches of the season. With Mladenovic beating Muguruza in three sets, and Wozniacki beating Kuznetsova, there were a lot of matches to watch. One however really caught my attention, mostly because the winner could be a strong contender in many tournaments to come.
In what could be called a battle of wits, Timea artfully beat Venus Williams 5-7, 6-2, 6-1, making her way into the quarterfinals of the 2017 French Open.
Bacsinsky was in charge of the match the entire time. In the first set, her pace was helping her to dominate Venus, who is a big hitter herself. Bacsinsky’s strong forehand and backhand were finding the lines and the angles, and often Venus was at a loss, except for when she could step inside the court and reach the net, where Venus would then gracefully put away a volley or an overhead.
If Williams had somehow managed to win this match, it would have been her 38th Grand Slam quarterfinal, however, it seems it was not meant to be at this French Open. Twelve months ago, the two had played each other, and Bacsinszky had won the match losing only 6 games.
It seemed like there would be a repeat of the match a year ago when Timea was up 5-1 in the first set. Bacsinszky’s powerful ground strokes were taking Venus out of her hitting zone, and Venus’s backhand did not seem to be in top form. Bacsinszky seemed confident during the change over, however she would soon lose two breaks, and eventually six games in a row.
The first time Timea served for the set she made two double faults. At 5-4, Venus’s backhand would falter, giving Timea a set point. But that same backhand would end up giving Timea another set point, much to Venus’s frustration. Bacsinszky however seemed unable to handle her nerves and made an unforced error from the forehand side. Timea then received a time violation, and would lose the next two points, making it 5-5. From there on Venus gained a lot of confidence and began to go for her shots. Luckily for Venus, her shots were accurate and working for two games, giving her the first set.
As Timea would say in her interview, “I started making absolutely catastrophic decisions. I thought, I don’t want to finish my Sunday like this! So I started to vary my shots and I kept up my courage.”
And that is exactly what Bacsinszky started to do. It was surprising to see the variety and shot selection of the Swiss, who was suddenly able to pull out various different shots and spins from her arsenal. Although Timea did have a little bit of a mishap, resulting in a 2-2 in the second set, much to her visible frustration, Bacsinszky did not let that affect her game heavily. She stuck to her game plan and got herself right back together, dominating Venus for the rest of the second and third set.
Bacsinsky not only used her pace and power, but also showed a variety of spins and slices. She hit multiple drop shots that Venus was unable to reach. She also hit a variety of high rising slices, and sharp, low-cutting slices, disrupting Venus’s rhythm. Bacsinszky alternated between top-spins and flats on her ground strokes as well. By midway into the second set, Williams seemed to be out of breath and out of gas, which only contributed to the difficulties she was facing when she had to deal with the variety of spins that Bacsinszky was throwing at her.
For returning spins and slices, you have to put in your own power and force, which requires a stable position and clean transfer of energy from the ground up. In simpler terms it means that it is crucial for the knees to be bent so that the legs can be used for power, and the core to be stable so that there is stability and the ball can be hit cleanly. Since Williams was already winded by the second half of the second set, she had difficulties dominating the points, at least until and unless she was at the net.
Bacsinszky’s come back and display of variety made her a crowd favorite. In fact, Bacsinsky took the time to thank the crowd as well. “I don’t have words to thank you. I heard my name so many times.”
In her next match Bacsinszky will face Mladenovic. This will be the true test for Bacsinszky. Will she be able to continue to use her power and spin in such a way that Mladenovic will face issues? Mladenovic is also just coming from a great win against Muguruza and is definitely a crowd favorite.
The winner of this match could very well be the French Open champion.