TENNIS AUSTRALIAN OPEN:SERENA WILLIAMS could not get out of Melbourne Park quickly enough after losing 6-2, 6-3 in a mere hour and 22 minutes to the world number 56, Ekaterina Makarova, in the fourth round of the Australian Open.
Makarova, a tall, left-handed Muscovite with not a lot of previous in eight years on the circuit, is the lowest-ranked player Williams has ever lost to in Melbourne. Nor has she won fewer games in losing a match in the tournament – five.
It was, in short, a nightmare in the sun for the last American left in singles. Even her doubles campaign with Andy Roddick came to nought when he went home injured. “She went for broke on a lot of her shots,” the former world number one said. “I made 37 errors. That kind of tells the story.”
There must be a worry now about Williams’s commitment to the game after such a dismal showing. Even she must realise she can no longer stay away from tennis for prolonged periods and hope to win titles again. She has done well to overcome various illnesses and injuries but she seems to have lost the vitality and power that separated her from her contemporaries for so long. At this tournament, where once she was supreme, she arrived with an ankle injury that never quite healed.
Her mood reflected her tennis. “It was just disastrous,” was her succinct summary. “I served horrendous; that was one of the 50 things. Every ball that came, I just hit it as far out as I could. But I feel like I definitely can play so much better. And that’s good. Like, if I felt like I couldn’t play better, then that would be a problem.”
Did she have difficulty moving? “It was definitely hot out there. I guess I just didn’t move the way I wanted to.” Should she have played? “I probably shouldn’t have played. But (if this wasn’t a slam) no way would I have played.”
She gave up 15 break points and converted only one. Her serving, also, was poor. These are tough times for a player who has survived more trials over a couple of years away from tennis than on the court. It’s time for her to look at priorities.
Ivan Lendl, as much as he is being portrayed lately as the reincarnation of Charlie Drake, could not sound more serious when he says he did not sign up with Andy Murray as a comedian, or just to get the Scot to quarter-finals of big tournaments. That is where Murray is at in the 2012 Australian Open tomorrow, against the emerging Japanese talent, Kei Nishikori, who showed heart and class in dispatching Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in five gruelling sets over three and a half hours in the afternoon heat yesterday.
Murray took a shorter route: just 49 minutes of blazing strokeplay before the 92nd-ranked Mikhail Kukushkin surrendered to a seized-up left hip and retired without holding service once – although he broke the world number four once in each of the two completed sets.
The interest in Murray, who was 6-1, 6-1, 1-0 up, is intensified here, naturally, by the presence of Lendl, who has returned from years of anonymity and is being hounded for interviews all over Melbourne. When he sat down with the British media after the Kukushkin and Nishikori matches, he was relaxed and funny – and not a little upset with his old rival, Jim Courier.
First, he expounded on where he and Murray have got to in their still fresh partnership. “I wasn’t hired to get Andy to the quarters,” he said. “We all know that. He doesn’t need me to get to the quarters or semis, he’s done that without me and he could do that without me again. That’s not to say he’s going to win. Nishikori is a good player, you don’t get to the quarters by being a bad player. It just doesn’t happen. Hopefully I can help Andy, whether it’s talking to me, asking for my experience, helping him a little bit here and little bit there, just to go to the next step – that’s the goal. Not just for here obviously.”
And what about Courier, whom Lendl beat in their four meetings and who is now a slick TV presenter with no shortage of anecdotes from the past for the local Channel 7 viewers? Courier plainly has an edgy relationship with Lendl, having said on air yesterday his reason for hooking up with Murray was “a little bit more mercenary” than it might appear.
“He hasn’t been allowed to make any money from tennis for the past 15 years because he cashed in disability insurance (because of his back trouble),” Courier said. “That is the reason Ivan is back playing again. There are all sorts of complexities there.”
He tried to leaven the broadside, when he added: “I think it is great that Ivan is back in our sport. I don’t like it when our champions disappear and lose contact with the sport.”
Well, he might be advised to steer clear of Old Stoneface for a while. “That’s ridiculous,” was his response. “Jim shouldn’t be saying stuff like that. First of all it’s wrong and he doesn’t have the proper information. End of story.”
Guardian Service
MELBOURNE DETAILS
Men's Singles Fourth round
(5) David Ferrer (Spn) bt (17) Richard Gasquet (Fra) 6-4 6-4 6-1, (4) Andy Murray (Bri) bt Mikhail Kukushkin (Kaz) 6-1 6-1 1-0 ret, (1) Novak Djokovic (Ser) bt Lleyton Hewitt (Aus) 6-1 6-3 4-6 6-3, (24) Kei Nishikori (Jpn) bt (6) Jo-Wilfried Tsonga (Fra) 2-6 6-2 6-1 3-6 6-3.
Women's Singles Fourth round
Ekaterina Makarova (Rus) bt (12) Serena Williams (USA) 6-2 6-3, (2) Petra Kvitova (Cze) bt (21) Ana Ivanovic (Ser) 6-2 7-6 (7-2), (4) Maria Sharapova (Rus) bt (14) Sabine Lisicki (Ger) 3-6 6-2 6-3, Sara Errani (Ita) bt Jie Zheng (Chn) 6-2 6-1.
