OT Austrailia Tennis Open

[cooler]

I was baffled how hingis cream williams(a power player) 6-1, 6-1 and lost to J. Capriatti 6-3. 6-4, also a power player. In the final with J.C., Hingis played like an amatuer; soft serve, no creativity, and lots of careless out shots. It's like Hingis had accepted defeat after the first set.

[shaun]

um....isnt this a badminton post :(

[Zclyh3]

Cooler, this is a badminton post. Not to hate or anything, but tennis posts are somewhat prohibited. *oh yeah..I saw that game...Hingis screamed and threw her racket..what a poor player. I'm glad J.C. won. She deserved it.*

[Byro-Nenium]

I apologise Tennis haters, but i think J C deserved to win as well. Hingis wins too much. But i feel sorry for that chick. She is kinda cute.

[cooler]

Hey, i got u guys fooled. There is some badminton implication here. For singles, tennis or badminton, there is alway a debate between power versus finesse, which is more a dominating factor in winning singles. In the hingis vs jennifer match, i come away empty handed on this issue.

[vince poon]

I agree, you should call the police on him Shaun, this is a serious problem, it ok if this is a public domain, hey....wait a minute.

[vince poon]

You would be great in 'polical incorrect' with Bill Mahar. I like that show, and watch often. Anyway I saw that match, I too was surprise by the result. I thought the cutie pie Hingis take it in two sets, boy, am I wrong. Although Hingis didn't play her best, I have to give credit to Jenifer because she the one that cause Hingis to lose her confident. She is not just a power hiter, she has accuracy in her shot, which in return, it harder for Hingis to move her around like she did with Venus. And the bad calls and umpire over ruled the call against her does not help her confident either. Mental toughness is so important in world class tennis, she didn't recover that aspect of the game, she was content to just serve it in, instead let her serve rip. Only the legends like Joe M of the 49ers, Pete S, Wayne G, etc... has that department beats, they actually play better when there is more on the line.

[Brett]

At the risk of supporting racquet sports in general rather than just badminton, I will also dare to comment on the Australian Open. I think several factors led to Hingis falling apart in the finals. First, after beating both Williams sisters, I think she came into the finals match overconfident and I think she let her guard down, not really considering Capriati to be much of a challenge. Second, she was probably just having a lousy day, like we all do from time to time. Third, she often has an immature mental approach to the game. Capriati's good (but not great ) playing probably caught Hingis by surprise, she got a few bad line calls and just lost all of her mental concentration and her temper as well. She clearly gave up the match, maybe even in the first set. She is not known for being the most mature player on the WTA and her reputation proved to be accurate on Saturday.

I do have to applaud Hingis' playing against both Serena and Venus. I think Venus was having a bad day during their match, but I don't know that I have ever seen more accurate shots in a tennis match by any player, male or female. The way that Hingis kept nailing the corners or hitting so many of her shots deep, to within a few inches of the baseline, was really impressive.

Either last summer or the summer before, I saw Hingis play in a charity fundraising event that featured some tennis skills and accuracy tests. Among the other pros there were Andre Agasi, Lindsey Davenport and Todd Martin. Hingis cleaned up on the points, hitting target after target all over the court and, at least on that day, she clearly had the most precise control.

As far as the power vs. control debate, I think control is more important, because power players who are successful still have to be playing with decent control in order to win. In general, though, as long as overall skills are relatively equal, in a power player against a control player match, I think the player who is best able to keep confidence in his/her game plan will be most likely to win.