Sunday, August 2, 2009

Hard court season

Long awaited by certain players it is finally here, the US series hard court season. In the meantime, Ula Rad played one more time on clay, in Bastad, Sweden, she lost in the first round to Iveta Benesova. Then, she along with Marta Domachowska went to Istanbul, where they played on hard courts (change from last year, when Aga won that tournament on clay just before RG).
Both girls had promising showings, with Ula beating Stefanie VOEGELE, Ekaterina DZEHALEVICH, and loosing third round match to Timea Bacsinszky. Marta also lost in the third round (to Lucie Hradecka) first taking out Patricia Mayr and Aravene Rezai. She also competed in doubles and was eliminated in the second round by eventual Champions, Hradecka/Voracova. Marta is working with the new coach, Slovak Mario Trnovski and it seems she is playing better. That win over Rezai, she showed some signs of strenght and stability, let's hope it not one time fluke.
Aga was already on the American soil, sweating on the Stanford courts. She played Sorana Cirstea winning 60 61, but lost her second round match with Daniela Hantuchova 64 76 61. She couldn't close the match in the second set and Daniela took full advantage of that.
By the way, Stanford was won by Marion Bartoli, who took out in the tight three setter Venus Williams. That is going to put Marion ahead of Agnieszka in the rankings, she is falling to number 13 on Monday. Playing in that tournament was the defending champion, Aleksandra Wozniak, but she lost in the first round to none other than... Daniela Hantuchova.
Aga and Ula are already in Los Angeles, Aga having bye in the first round awaiting for the winner of Sugiyama/qualifier match, and Ula is playing Julie Coin. There are reports of last minute changes in the draw, Sabine Lisicki was suppose to play Daniela Hantuchova but she wrote on her twitter that now she is seated. (Bartoli, the winner of Stanford or maybe Stosur, who took Serena in the quarterfinals, but was complaining about back pain and then lost to Marion in SF?) Also scheduled to play in that tournament is Karolina Wozniacki, with bye in the first round and Ola Wozniak, playing Bethanie Mattek-Sands.
On the boys side of things, our promising junior, Jerzy Janowicz got wild card to ATP Washington after a good showing in challenger Porsche Poznan last week, where he got into semifinal. Lukasz Kubot lost in the third round of qualifying, and he is playing doubles with Marach,facing Martin Damm i Robert Lindstedt. Lukasz was also playing in Stuttgart, where he got into quarterfinals (lost to Nicolas Kiefer) in singles and played semifinals in doubles (lost to Hanescu/Tecau). Later he played in Hamburg Germany where they lost in second round doubles.
Fyrstenberg & Matkowski are going to play Australian Stephen Huss i Brit Ross Hutchins in Washington. Fyrstenberg played in Stuttgart and lost in SF (with Marcelo Melo), and also they played together in Hamburg, where they lost in the first round.
On the other spectrum of things Radwanskas sisters are going to be students in the fall, they were accepted in Krakow Physical Education College.

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