The most anticipated event on Thursday was the second match of Maria Sharapova at the tournament. And the reason was not only the status of a tennis player. Masha did not have a very confident start-up meeting, and her next performance was to show how this “failure” was an accident. Another intrigue was that another Russian woman, 24-year-old Anastasia Rodionova, who took the hundredth place in the WTA ranking, got into Sharapova’s rival. As a result, the first racket of the competition reassured all of its fans, having achieved victory in less than an hour - 6: 0, 6: 3. At the end of the meeting, Sharapova once again, but already verbally, convinced everyone that she had almost completely recovered after a difficult duel of the first round.
“After the first match, I did not resort to any special methods for recovery, I just tried not to go anywhere, not to get nervous, I slept a lot and drank. And it helped: today I felt pretty good, at least I didn’t feel any physical discomfort. But to show your best tennis, you still need to gain strength. " The next rival Sharapova will be the 30th racket of the competition Tatyana Garbin from Italy.
Just as successfully, without spending extra forces, two other Russians - Vera Zvonareva and Dinara Safina went into the third round. Only Anna Chakvetadze needed three sets to defeat the American Laura Granville. Our losses in the female part of the tournament are minimal and quite expected - in addition to the mentioned Anastasia Rodionova, Alla Kudryavtseva finished the performance, losing to Martina Hingis - 6: 2,6: 2.
In the men's tournament, of the four Russians continuing to fight today, two went to court - Nikolai Davydenko and Dmitry Tursunov. And they did not have much problems with rivals. Tursunov defeated Belarus Max Mirny in three sets - 6: 2, 6: 3, 7: 6, and Davydenko - tennis player from Luxembourg Gilles Müller - 6: 4, 6: 0, 6: 3.
The first matches of the 1/16 finals will be held in Melbourne tomorrow, in which some of our tennis players will have to compete with at least equal rivals: Svetlana Kuznetsova will play with compatriot Maria Kirilenko, and Nadezhda Petrova with Serena Williams, quickly gaining her former form. Only for the outcome of the match between Elena Dementieva and Italian Maria Elena Kamerin can we worry a little less.
But with all due respect to our girls, we must admit that the main events of tomorrow will be the matches of the men's tournament. Mikhail Youzhny will meet with the strongest tennis player on the planet Roger Federer, and Marat Safin will play with the 6th racket of the tournament Andy Roddick.
Although Yuzhny got the most formidable opponent, the Russian intends to give Federer a fight. This was stated in an interview with RIA Novosti by the personal trainer of the tennis player Boris Sobkin: “Federer is not an ordinary opponent. He has no weaknesses. He has elements that he performs well, and there are those that he does great. Despite this, we identified a number of points in his game, due to which you can score points. I will not reveal all the secrets, but there are some achievements. We have already thought out the tactics. ”
Match Safina with Roddick and does promise to become one of the most interesting in the championship. The American has already stated in an interview with the official website of the championship that he regrets meeting with Safin so early: “We are both great tennis players and it will be a shame that one will fly out of the tournament at such an early stage. Our level is at least a semi-final. But this is all because of Marat. He has fallen so low in the ranking and now, barely starting the tournament, he is falling into favorites, for whom there is nothing worse than playing with this extraordinary opponent. After the matches with Marat, a week of rest is needed to recover. ”
Andrey IVANTSOV