4th Round and the much anticipated between Sabine
Lisicki and Serena Williams, the world no.1 versus world No. 23. The rankings didn’t
matter much really, for the first time I felt no one bothered with the rankings
as much as with the thought that that Williams could possibly meet her
match. I saw Lisicki for the first time
in Wimbledon 2011. What struck me was
her body language, it was high voltage but never high strung, she wore her
emotions on her sleeve, smiling and mostly smiling. But it was never anger or
verbal self-flagellation. It was simply
like she was on a practice court. I
think her emotions infected Serena as well for I saw her appreciate Lisicki’s
shots and even mutter ‘great shot’ once.
Now that is rare. Even after the
match, the proverbial handshake was more than that and not a perfunctory brush
of fingers between the conqueror and the vanquished. Serena had words for her
and I saw Lisicki mouth thanks you twice.
I hope what Serena said was “all the best Lisicki, you can go all the
way”.
I loved this new Avatar of
Serena.
Yesterday I mentioned that Williams will win albeit in a
three-setter. The first will be a sitter
for Lisicki but the second and third will be walkovers for Serena. It could have come true if Serena had held
her nerves, it affected her game which was intact but for the numerous
unforced errors which gifted Licki points at crucial times. Not to say that
Lisicki was waiting for an attack of nerves from her opponent. More often than not, if you don’t wilt under
the Serena sun, you stand good chances.
You need to be mentally strong and not heed Williams’ reputation or her
fierce stares or her 123mph serves.
If
you can get in edge ways than you can roam like a wild horse in Williams' head. Lisicki did just that and her natural
exuberance helped in blinding her to Serena’s nastiness and surprisingly
Williams did not get nasty at all. Lisicki’s best serve came in the last game
of the last set when she was serving out for the match. It looked like the famed Williams flight of
the phoenix when a resurgent Williams is absolutely unstoppable. That’s when Lisicki served her 130mph serve
and it whizzed past Serena. She followed it with yet another ace and it was
just another few moments when she closed the match and fell face down in joy
and disbelief. She got up immediately
and walked over to Serena. Serena said
that she played a super aggressive game and When you have absolutely nothing
to lose you can play with so much freedom and you can be so loose. Gracious behavior
and kind words personified from Williams.
Now that I have said what I had to for the loser and the winner,
I must say that I expected more from this huge match. It was engrossing in the way that no one
expected how Lisicki would respond to Serena getting ‘serious’ about her play
if she wanted to win the 4th round.
Serena has a better game than Lisicki’s.
There were nail biting moments that would invariably end in the painful
anticlimax of an unforced error from Serena with routine shots that she wouldn’t
even need to see to be able to hit them.
It was fascinating to watch Lisicki get on without being rattled even
once, not at Seren’a winners and not at the errors she herself committed. In the end you needed a strong head as much
as a great pair of hands against the greatest players of our era.
No comments:
Post a Comment