Svetlana Kuznetsova appeared on Indian Wells unexpectedly. Top tennis players often skip a tournament to save energy for Miami - who wants to play four weeks in a row? And Miami is not only mandatory, but also more prestigious, and the prize pool is higher there. Last year, Svetlana was guided by precisely these considerations - she was not at Indian Wells, but she won Miami. And this year I decided to try. She probably considered Indiana as a way to prepare in a real tournament setting for the defense of the title in Miami.
From a rating point of view, Kuznetsova on Indian Wells would have been happy with any result: there is no need to protect anything, all points go into a net plus. But from another point of view, also rating, Svetlana was desirable to reach the finals in order to remove Amelie Moresmo from the third line of the rating. This task was seen to be more than feasible, especially since Kuznetsova was seeded at the second tournament and was obliged to reach the finals.
The Russian woman reached the quarter-finals, one might say, by a walking step. The quarterfinal match with Nicole Vaidishova should have been more difficult, but still it was planned, and therefore quite surmountable difficulties. The opponent is comfortable, plays in a similar manner, less experienced, has lost both previous meetings. In general, the question was how much Kuznetsova would want to strain in front of Miami. I didn’t have to strain much - the usual attacking Nicole bent enough to yield to Kuznetsova, as usual, in three sets.
In the semifinal, instead of the planned Nadezhda Petrova, Sybil Bammer, a little-known 26-year-old tennis player from Austria, jumped out of the snuffbox, the 46th ranking number, which unexpectedly knocked Ivanovich and Golovin out of the fight. It would seem that Kuznetsova and Bammer are heaven and earth, but the match turned out to be surprisingly stubborn, so I had to really strain. During the meeting, it seemed that only the thought of such a close third place in the rating helped Svetlana to extinguish bouts of irritation by a rival, who pulled out absolutely everything.
The next stop is the finale. Now a little about Khantuhova.
Daniela is known on the tour, first of all, as the owner of the longest legs. And also by the fact that having won her first title in 2002 in Indiana, she still could not win the second. It doesn’t often happen that young rising stars immediately celebrate victory in the first category tournament, and it is only natural that 19-year-old Daniele began to be predicted for a great future. Hantuhova let us down. True, paired with men, in the mixed doubles, the long-legged Slovakian won as many as four Grand Slams and was once in the finals. But in singles she didn’t achieve much success anymore.
All these years, Khantuhova steadily stayed in the area of the top twenty of the rating, in 2003 she was even fifth, but she did not win any more titles and counted only one quarter-finals at the Australian Open, US Open and Wimbledon. In short, the fame of a tennis player, whose bottomless potential will never be revealed, gradually gained a foothold for Khantuhova. The reason many call psychological instability. Because of her, Daniela often loses to tennis players, significantly inferior to her in class. And the leading tennis players of Khantuhova are inferior with some fatal inevitability, so it seems that she is losing these matches even before going to court.
Considering that in recent years, Daniela did not lose on Indian Wells, not Henin, not Moresmo and not even the Williams sisters, but Amanda Ketzer, Marissa Irving and Fabiola Zuluage, nobody especially expected her in the final. This time the stars helped her, not otherwise. And also other stars: Martina Hingis and Maria Sharapova.
The very finale in Indiana in 2002, Daniela won against Martina Hingis. And this was all over - the next two meetings, in 2002 and 2006, Martin won. Each tennis player has principal rivals, and Hingis for Khantuhova is one of them. For matches with such rivals they are always tuned especially, and now at the tournament in Doha, just before Indian Wells, Daniela finally got ready. The fact that Khantuhova in Doha got out of an almost hopeless situation indicates the degree of principle: when she lost the first set 1: 6, she lost in the second 0: 4. And in Indian Wells, Daniela, I think, decided to consolidate her success and beat Hingis in two sets. Approximately with the same score as in 2002 - 6: 4, 6: 3. In 2002, it was 6: 3, 6: 4.
And then Daniele was seriously lucky. If Sharapova remained in the net, one could put an end to the beautiful Slovak. She beat Sharapova only once, back in her pre-Wimbledon period. One more time, they counted a technical victory for her, since Sharapova did not go to court due to an injury. Sharapova, however, has five victories over Khantuhova, and only one of them required three sets.
Like this: after Sharapova’s departure, Daniela Hantuhova opened her eyes and saw her Chance. A chance to win the tournament in a deeply symbolic context: the second in his career, he is also the second in Indiana, “5 years later ...”. Sin was a chance not to take advantage, and Khantuhova did not commit this sin. She had a specific goal, and with it a concrete plan. Daniela traditionally plays powerful tennis on the back line. But she is smart enough to understand: in such a game she has little chance against the more powerful and faster Kuznetsova. In this scenario, there will be equal errors, but Kuznetsova will still have more winners.
And Daniela learned from her memory all the skills of the pair game, stepped on the throat of her own song and began to play “not her” tennis. She methodically powder Kuznetsova’s brains with the shortened, half-lighted, counter-currents the whole match. In short, she was tearing up the pace in every way, that is, she was playing in a more diverse and inventive way. And Sveta simply showed her game, which on that day was also not of the best quality. In such cases, it is usually said that the scythe found on a stone.
Ksenia VITRYAK