TENNIS WTA Madrid – Judging by the scoreline, world’s number 1, Serena Williams won her 3rd round match 6-2 6-3 over Spain’s Carla Suarez-Navarro in routine fashion. However, anyone who saw the match will know that this was far from a convincing victory. Cordell Hackshaw
Interviews, results, order of play and draws of the Mutua Madrid Open
Judging by the scoreline, world’s number 1, Serena Williams won her 3rd round match 6-2 6-3 over Spain’s Carla Suarez-Navarro in routine fashion. However, anyone who saw the match will know that this was far from a convincing victory. The two-time defending champion was facing Suarez-Navarro for the 4th time and on all three previous encounters, Williams dished out a bagel set per match including the double bagel on the Spaniard’s birthday at the 2013 US Open. With this “lack of compassion” for her opponent, one imagined the American would blitz Suarez-Navarro in front of her home crowd. However, that was not to be the case today as Williams was seemingly in a more “charitable” mood donating points and games to the Spaniard.
In her opening service game, Williams was broken at love and though she broken right back and raced off to a 3-1 lead, she was again broken at love to get back on serve at 3-2. Conversely, Suarez-Navarro had seemingly figured out how to break the “Serena Serve” but the problem of holding her own serve remained. Williams would again break Suarez-Navarro on two more occasions to close out the set 6-2. The American can hardly be pleased by the stats for this set as she only got 50% of her 1st serves in and won a meagre 56% of those points. Her second serve numbers were not pretty as well at 33%. She committed 15 unforced errors compared to 7 from the Spaniard. The only positive marks for Williams in the set are her 13 winners and converting 4/6 break points.
Having secured the 1st set, one expected Williams to settle down and get her act together especially since she was up against a player who struggles mightily to hold her own serve. However, Williams was again broken on two consecutive service games but Suarez-Navarro continued to have the issue of being unable to consolidate the breaks and so we were back on serve 2-2. This string of four consecutive breaks was finally ended when both players held serve for 3-3. It was at this point that the “real Serena Williams” finally showed up as she broke the Spaniard again in the 8th game and served out the match with her only ace 6-2 6-3.
In her post match interview, Williams spoke highly of her opponent, “She made me work for every point and it wasn’t an easy win. I think that was her goal today, was to put on a really good show and play really hard and show me what she’s capable of. She’s obviously capable of doing a lot.” Suarez-Navarro should be pleased with this performance: She won games in each set; 5 in total which equals the total games won in her last 3 matches verses Williams, she broke Williams four times and even held serve; something she could not do in the last 4 sets against the American. Williams on the other hand, has to clean up her game tremendously if she wants to “threepeat” as champion here in Madrid. Serving at 52% for the match and winning only 36% of her 2nd serve points will not get the job done against Petra Kvitova who she will face in the quarterfinals. Williams will be looking for her 651st career win tomorrow, which would put her in the 10th spot along with big sister Venus Williams on the women’s All-Time win list.
