Biofile: Simona Halep Interview

Halep and Henin! No wonder I like Halep when she’s focused. My favorite players of all time on the WTA are Seles, Sabatini, the Williams, Henin, Halep, then Safarova, Pennetta, Giorgi and so forth. Kuznetsova. And Coco based on her Australian.

That is a great shot with Halep. I always root for Halep and then find myself exasperated.

This short interview did reveal quite a lot about Simona
and I can see some of her behaviour in a new perspective.
Interesting.

Scoop – have you ever Biofiled Kerber ?

Am OK with Simona’s reading. Reading psychology books counts. Even not finishing books is better than not starting them! It’s the players who say they don’t read at all who are the disappointing ones.

Nice pic and Simona comes across as a pleasant young woman. I will let a huge Halep fan know about this Biofile.

Hartt-

Hope you’ve seen the piece on Petkovic (tennis.com) all about her favourite writers.

Some players do read !

Action: Angie hoping to get the job done in Monterrey. Mentally, a lot attached to this minor title. Heather Watson playing well, wants to defend, beat No 1.

Oh my God, Sock loses to Jordan Thompson in 4 sets and then Izzie goes down in three to Kyrgios. Sock should be kicked off the team for losing to the no. 79! This is the worst Davis Cup loss for an American singles player since Sampras lost to Corretja on grass. Actually, this is worse.

Further to the discussion about OCC, Lindsay Davenport talked about it in this week’s SI Tennis podcast. She said that, because of the mics, OCC is more for TV than for the players. To have it truly effective for the players they would need to get rid of the mics. As it is, the coaches don’t say anything except generic advice and the players are not as forthcoming as they would be otherwise. Davenport also said that for young players like Keys, they have only known a system with OCC.

I agree that OCC does not do the young players any favours since they can’t use it in the Slams.

In their latest Tennis Podcast David Law and Catherine Whitaker talked about OCC and they obviously like it. Their problems with it were around things like much of it is boring and there is no translation when the coach and player are speaking something other than English. They seemed surprised that the majority of their listeners did not like OCC. So I think this strengthens Davenport’s argument that OCC is really for the benefit of TV (and by extension other media).

Angie closer to getting the job done 🙂

Fun interview with Simona.

Charleston is also fun. My girl Daria into the finals, her first in WTA play.

One match more for Angie and job is done.

Carla Suarez Navarro has been just about invisible this year. Guess shes been injured. Great player capable of a big title. Kerber could finally be ending her slump.

Yes, I hope Angie does get the title and a boost to her confidence. She is too good a player to be struggling so.

Yawn yawn – honestly the WTA is a disgrace to the game.
My feeling, based on bits and pieces of feedback, is that a lot of tennis followers don’t actually like OCC.
Not that Simon would care. TV pays the piper.

Angie, yes – when you look at some of her clips you just wonder how a player who is so good,who is so fit, so fast and has such great court sense can possibly lose so many matches.
Just shows, as if we didn’t know, how much is in the mind.

I hope the Charleston final will be a good match between 2 young up-and-coming WTA players. I am rooting for Kasatkina but have no idea who will win the match. Dasha is quieter on court than Jell-O (an easy nickname to remember), but in interviews comes across as a charming young woman. She will be a terrific representative for the WTA.

If we want the media to pay attention to the WTA I think it helps to have winning players who are appealing and I don’t mean in their looks. We hear a lot about what a great ambassador Federer is for tennis and I think the WTA can stand to have some more ambassadors as well.

Anyway, Kasatkina had a surprisingly easy win over Ostapenko. Just as she has all week Dasha ran away with the deciding set, not even needing 3 sets this time. She had a good mix of great defense and some timely offence. She said she has been working hard on the offence side of her game and I don’t think Jelena was expecting that, recently she called Dasha a defensive player.

So Dasha has won her first WTA title, still about a month from her 20th birthday. (With a year’s use of a Volvo I wonder if she even has her driver’s licence.) Clay is her favourite, and most successful, surface, so this could be the start of a good run.

On another site I said that Dasha would be my one WTA player (outside of 16-year-old Bianca Andreescu who still has a way to go) whose big wins would warrant a special treat. So now I am setting off to check out my neighbourhood delis for an appropriate Russian treat. 🙂

I admire D-Kat’s power, some Stosur and Mauresmo physicality in terms of being able to punish the ball. But alas unlike Hartt I am not in either lady’s corner. I find Ostapenko’s game very junior in an Eastern Euro game and a far cry from yesteryear’s talent. D-Kat to me hugs the baseline and I haven’t seen her do much more than this. I’m *shocked* they were able to up-end WTA players with any momentum, and employed such low levels of strategy.

Not to take away from Hartt’s enjoying this match or this week on the green clay. But I hope these young ladies set their sights on more complete games. I have found ALL of the teen-agers game to be quite lacking. Ana Konjuh seemed to be able to do a little bit more with the ball.

In any event I hope that these kids don’t sit back and ride to glory on under-developed games. That’s all the rage these days and I earnestly share Craig Kardon’s full on critique of “play my game-ism”. This ego trip can’t be successful forever.
Or can it!!!!!

Dasha does come in when she has a shorter ball but often her opponents are keeping the ball too deep for her to manage that. She did try some swinging volleys, with mixed results. I like aggressive tennis and wish more of the WTA players played that way. That said, I think Dasha did show more offence in this tournament and if, as she says, she is continuing to work on that aspect of her tennis, she can only get better.

I was rooting for Angie but have to admit that overall Pavs was the better player in this match, outside of some costly DFs. Was surprised when she won the third set so easily. But obviously this tournament suits her – her 4th time winning it! Thought it was interesting that she said in the on-court interview that this was where she won her first title.

Scoop, no joke, “HIT HARDER!”. Players that did well from the academy were already strong. I went only a day and joined the regulars. And that was it. Hit harder.

Scoop: HIT HARDER! Mindless ball bashing. Fantastically consistent kids, zero strategy. Stroke production – not mechanics, not court knowledge. No wizards here.

More thoughts on Kerber –

Angie changed a lot over a couple of years, she lost weight, started building up in the gym and her face changed too as some of the plumpness came off. Planes emerged that were hidden before – when she looks in the mirror she must see, in some ways, a different person. And the makeup, which she doesn’t need, began to be applied with a eye to glamour, a quality Angie doesn’t naturally display.

(The camera, of course, loves the new Angelique Kerber. If I were a picture editor I would love her too.)

And then, to have that great year, and all the publicity, all those activities, to maintain your equilibrium, keep contact with your roots during all that, and still remember how to play the game, how to deal with day in day out tensions and stresses – well, that could be hard for the toughest character. And Angie’s not tough.

As spectators all we can make judgements on is the superficial. What’s going on underneath isn’t known to us of course. And if Angie prefers to keep it that way, and she should, then we’re left guessing, and hoping that ultimately she can find a way out of the labyrinth
that tennis has become for her.

Her game, the way she plays it, the amount she gives to it physically, is hard on her body – she’s got to have something to fall back on as she grows older. Frailties are going to be treated with little respect by opponents.
I doubt anyone fears her anymore.

I was surprised that Angie lost that third set so badly, especially after winning the 2nd quite handily. I thought she sort of gave up when she was down 0-4. But Pavs deserves credit, she came out strong in the decider and made some great shots that probably did discourage Angie. I remember one where Angie got to a Pavs’ drop shot, went CC almost to the line. I thought no way could Pavs get to it, but she not only did that but hit a winner.

Jon Wertheim’s take on Angie’s season was that last year was great but that Angie has reverted to her normal level. I guess the next few months will show whether he is correct in that assessment, whether Angie can start to have better results or not.

Hartt –
Wertheim’s take is the common one for Angie – that she’s reverted to her previous level. But I can’t see any reason for that being so in a technical sense. She plays rather differently now. I think it’s mental. No number one player should be discouraged by their opponent’s good shots and no No 1 player should collapse in a 3rd set like that.

I keep going back to one of her quotes in Miami, or maybe IW. ‘ I began to believe in myself again’. That’s where the fracture is and that’s maybe something a good sports psych or mental coach can help with.

She’s not aggressive much anymore; and what she’s lost, mentally, is in some way the reason to be aggressive. The reason she decided to embrace aggression in the first place. Because she made a goal for herself – be the best.
Now it’s ‘stay the best’, which is a lot harder as any great champion will tell you.