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Serena and Bryans Star on Miami Open Super Saturday
7 Comments · Posted by Scoop Malinowski in Articles, Scoop
Serena Williams blasted 28 winners en route to a dominating 62 60 blowout of Carla Suarez Navarro, which is her eighth Miami Open title and 62nd title overall.
Suarez Navarro looked as helpless as a Mike Tyson knockout victim, watching winner after winner fly by her, too fast and too far out of her reach to even run after.
It’s the fifth time Serena has bested the 26 year old Spaniard who only won ten games in the previous four meetings.
After the match Carla said to Serena at the award ceremony: “To me you’re the best, number one right now.”
Serena was matched her opponent’s gracefulness: “It’s always good to see you do real well. We get along well. This is just the beginning.”
“I dedicate this to my dad, he’s not here. This one’s for you daddy…Thank you to all my fans for believing in me. Thank you for supporting me all through the years.”
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The men’s doubles final offered a far more challenging and competitive contest. The Bryans were sharp in the first set and took advantage of some tough luck for Jack Sock, who missed some early volleys, net corded wide an easy overhead, and also even plugged his partner Vasek Pospisil in the head with a cross court forehand. The Bryans won the set 6-3 but you had a sense Sock would find his groove for the second and that’s exactly what he did.
After a short bathroom break, far from discouraged, Sock and Pospisil ran out onto the court with brimming confidence and enthusiasm. Sock made his first six volleys and his confidence snowballed.
Mike Bryan double faulted on a deciding point for the first break of the second, 3-1 for Sock Pop. The rode the momentum wave powered by Sock’s forehands, to a 6-1 rout. The points were short, Sock and Pop were blowing the greatest team in doubles history off the court.
Before the match tiebreak, the Bryans took a bathroom break and the short delay helped to stall the momentum advantage their opponents had gained. The Bryans suddenly found their form and jumped to a 3-0 lead, aided by a Pospisil hitting Sock in the head with a forehand and then double faulting on the next point.
Down 0-5, Sock popped a big forehand to get on the board 1-5. But Sock doubled faulted on the next point, 1-6. At 2-6 Sock missed an overhead from the ad side alley to the alley across, 2-7. But just like that, Sock and Pop rallied with some huge hitting to get it to 7-8. But Sock missed a forehand up the line long and the Bryans finished it on the next point and made a big chest bump celebration. This title meant a lot to them.
Bryans quotes post match: “We hope to play you guys more in some big finals. We were lucky, it came down to the last couple of points.”
“We all love playing doubles, we think it’s a great part of the sport.”
“They are two great guys, already doing great things in the sport. They’ve played together six times and made finals in all of them.”
Sock: “It’s always fun battling friends but it’s never easy playing friends. I missed that ball at the end. We have a lot of fun out there. I love playing doubles. It’s an unbelievable event here. Everybody loves coming here. This is an unbelievable island.”
Pospisil: “Congratulations to Bob and Mike, they were too good today. I hope we’ll have more good battles in the future.”
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Notes: Marion Bartoli was in the media cafeteria for lunch (ravioli with alfredo sauce, tuna wrap, salad, sandwich bites) and I whispered to her: “Are the rumors true of a Marion Bartoli comeback?” And she smiled and did the ‘sssshhhh’ finger gesture to her lips.
A black fan had a cool black T-shirt which read “Rena’s Army” on the front and “S. Williams 01” on the back.
Phil Dalhauser was playing beach volleyball behind the stadium on a beach volley ball court set up. Phil won the Olympic gold medal in London. The AVP was doing an event/exo here all weekend. I did a Biofile with Phil and he’s a huge tennis and Federer fan. He said the AVP has tour events in Gstaad and Klagenfurt, Austria.
Guess who won the media doubles tournament? Yours truly and a reporter from Argentina named Emiliano. We beat some good players including Daniel Nino who plays at Maryland University and has lost practice sets to Alejandro Falla (62 63) and Francis Tiafoe (64 75), and a teenager from Brazil Bruna Pacheco who has a full scholarship to play at the University of Kansas this fall. I was talking with Mats Wilander in the cafeteria after and he said he heard from the British writers that there were a lot of good players in the media tourney.
It’s a repeat after winning last year with Mauricio Paiz who was randomly paired this year with a British guy named Simon.
Maybe I should hire Vince Spadea and Jeff Salzenstein as my two coaches and give the ATP Tour a shot? 🙂
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Dan markowitz · April 4, 2015 at 11:25 pm
No one else is hiring Spadea, give it a shot. Women’s tennis is becoming anticlimactic. The only interest is to see how dominant Serena can be.
Scoop Malinowski · April 5, 2015 at 7:25 am
Women’s tennis is a tyranny ruled by Queen Serena. She didn’t give a timetable yesterday on how long her reign will continue but I could see this going on for years. Nobody seems capable of knocking her off. BTW Harrison lost to Thiago Monteiro, ranked in the 400s. Harrison will plays dubs with Sock in Houston. Donaldson won his first round quali match. I like Djok and Hingza in straight sets today.
Dan Markowitz · April 5, 2015 at 10:51 am
Wow, bad loss for Harry. He seems to fall off when he plays lesser/smaller tournaments, but also, it takes a while for a player to transition his game to clay and I’m betting this dude Monteiro is a clay-ard.
Scoop, don’t you feel its inherently bad for the game, though, when one player has no competition? I guess you can say Halep has beaten Serena recently and gave her a hellava match on Friday. But is it that Serena is so strong, or the rest of the field weak? Even Madison Keys who seemed to be on a big upswing has disappointed.
Basically, you’ve got possibly Keys and Stephens who could vie to become Top 5 players, but the other young American hopefuls, McHale, Townsend, Riske, and the half-Asian girl who was playing well, but got hurt, they don’t seem to have Top 10 or even 20 in their veins.
What do you think? Murray’s been playing well. Can he beat Djoko on basically his home court away from Wimby? I still got to go Djoko.
I heard Ivan Lendl had a hip replacement. If you look at the former men’s players–I haven’t heard of any women, but there has to be at least one I’d imagine–who’s had hip replacement surgery–Connors, Becker, Lendl, Eddie Dibbs that I know of–it’s pretty daunting.
Andrew Miller · April 5, 2015 at 4:29 pm
Harry is in qualifying for an atp so he did the right thing by playing – his ranking dictates that he play the qualifying rounds until it is high enough for direct entry. It is on clayso he has an uphill.climb. and he just got what two straight wild cards for masters. Id think his level would drop a little from the change from big important tourbaments to a u.s. clay event with a lower profile than even non grass season grass court events 🙂
Andrew Miller · April 5, 2015 at 4:33 pm
Serena made the game more interesting in the post graf post seles era and basically created her own competition, but since Henin’s retiement no challenger has emerged. In some ways it is too bad there is n rival, but in many other ways yo got to celebrate how awesome Serena Williaks has been. The power of graf, movement of sanchezvicario, the placement of Hingis and the angles of Seles. Like Seles said Serena will be the best female player in history and no one will ever catch her.
Andrew Miller · April 5, 2015 at 8:17 pm
Isner’s backhand=sweet. Wow, best backhand striking from the u.s. I’ve seen since Brian Baker and before BBaker, Agassi. Had no idea he was ripping the backhand in the Nishikori match. He hits a backhand like that, he will have a great year.
As for Djokovic, probably going to slam again this year. He’s head and shoulders now above his competition.
Andrew Miller · April 5, 2015 at 8:18 pm
(except Federer – Federer still has his chances vs. Djokovic at best of three set tournaments).