Now that defending champion, Serena Williams is out of Wimbledon, the hopes of a new champion have gone up about a thousand percent. There is only one other tennis players, in the ladies draw, that have a major title – Maria Sharapova (2004 Wimbledon Champion), and one who has been a finalist in a Major, Marion Bartoli. Oh yeah, and Venus Williams is out too.
So what does this mean? There could be, for the first time in their career, a new finalist! To be honest with you people, I’ve been anticipating some fresh talent in the finals of any Major Final. Seriously, we are living in a tennis world filled with repetition; it’s either a Williams sister, Nadal, Federer, Djokovic, or Clijsters. Don’t get me wrong, it’s certainly exciting to watch, however; it’s the same people playing and it gets a little predictable. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen somebody other than the above mentioned Champions in a final so I’m totally pumped to see a fresh face in the finals (mind you, I did not see the 2007 Ladies Final at Wimbledon).
But who, of all the ladies, will meet in the finals? It’s really hard to say, especially since all but two of the final 8 have experience on the grandest of stages. All the ladies seem to be in good form and confident as ever to go the distance.
The one woman who stands out the most to me is Frenchwoman, Marion Bartoli. She’s been having an excellent year and she’s been performing extremely well on the grass. She did win the Aegon Tennis Championships a couple of weeks ago, and now she’s in the quarterfinals at Wimbledon for the second time in her tennis career. Way back in 2007 she did make it to the Wimbledon Finals and eventually lost to, you guessed it, Venus Williams. But how on earth can Bartoli pull it off? First off, she’s got the power – specifically on the forehand…she has a two-handed forehand AND backhand. She’s also very quick, she gets to balls quite easily and she moves exceptionally well. The problems she could face in the coming rounds, is her serve which is not a big weapon but it’s effective when placed right, she also has the tendency to keep both hand on her tennis racquet when volleying, so her reach is limited at the net. She has a pretty good chance of performing really well.
Who else is a final contender? Petra Kvitova, she’s no stranger to being in the final 8, just last year, Petra was in the semifinals against who other than Serena Williams. Kvitova has some potential, but she’s going to have to work especially hard to get thing working in her favor. She’s powerful yet a little on the passive side of tennis. To me, she’s not much of an attacker, if she’s going to go toe to toe with the big girls, she’s going to have to play a powerful attacking game…I’m just sayin’.
I guess I could go on about the other contenders and the reasons why they could reach the finals, however; I’m apparently not very good at predicting winners, since I’ve failed already. So what I am going to say is that I’m almost certain that Maria Sharapova will reach the finals and she may even win it and that to me feels like it’s a new champion.
On a side note, I feel like I must be taking crazy pills, does it seem that Yahoo! news feed is really messed up? I mean, every time I see a match result they have a picture of one of the players and then it has another players name in the headline (see picture) and this has been happening almost everyday.
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