TENNIS ROLAND GARROS – Sara Errani may seem diminutive on the tennis court but she more than makes up for that by being one of the most daring, dynamic and defensive player on tour. This deadly combination has destroyed many of opponents who have been deceived by the Italian’s size. They soon find out that Errani is determined on single point. Cordell Hackshaw
Interviews, Results, OOP, Draws from the Roland Garros
Sara Errani (10) may seem diminutive on the tennis court but she more than makes up for that by being one of the most daring, dynamic and defensive player on tour. This deadly combination has destroyed many of opponents who have been deceived by the Italian’s size. They soon find out that Errani is determined on single point. Only the top power players seem able to dismantle the Italian. Her opponent today, Jelena Jankovic (6) can certainly not be considered one of those power players and hence, Errani was able to defeat her in straight sets 7-6(5) 6-2 in about 2 hours. “What makes her successful is she just gets balls back…always one more, one more back. She’s a player you have to beat. She’s not gonna beat herself. That’s for sure,” Jankovic would later say.
Jankovic and Errani had a somewhat similar game plan; run down every shot and be patient for the opening to take your shot. Jankovic can be very aggressive off the ground particular on her backhand side whereas Errani favours her forehand and she is far more dogged than Jankovic on court. She goes after every ball. This determination was quickly rewarded as she had an early 4-1 lead in the 1st set. Jankovic was struggling on serve as she only won the game by breaking Errani. However, she too can be relentless and soon got back on serve 4-4. She broke Errani once more to serve for the set 5-4. Errani was not going to go down without a fight and got back on serve 5-5. Jankovic knew the importance of taking the 1st set and broke back when Errani’s backhand found the net. Serving for the set again 6-5, Jankovic could not convert two set points and found herself in a tiebreaker down 2-5 points. Errani looked to be taking this breaker comfortably only to let Jankovic back into it at 5-5. Errani got back on track and took it 7-6(5) after 81 minutes.
Maybe it was the disappointment of losing the 1st set or the nagging thigh injury which she received treatment for several times in the first set or perhaps a combination of the two, Jankovic started the 2nd set badly making reckless errors. She put herself in a winning position only to dump shots into the net or well wide or long. “[T]hat long tiebreaker. I think, you know, physically I got tired…There was some long points there. I lost them all…As the match got longer and longer, I got more and more tired. You know, she took advantage of that….I was 3 Love down because I just was going for those shorter points and made a lot of mistakes,” Jankovic said after the match. Errani was soon serving for a 4-0 lead to consolidate the double break. Jankovic was able to get one of the breaks back with a trademark backhand winner and hold to be down 2-3. Errani sensing danger, held her serve and broke Jankovic at love for 5-2. Jankovic seemed ready to press extend the match at love-30 but again, errors crept into her game and lost it 6-7 2-6.
Errani mainly capitalized on the poor serving and errors from Jankovic who despite getting 57% of her first serves in, won only 37% of those points and 41% on the second serves. All this added to 39 errors to 28 winners from the Serbian. Errani, on the other hand though possessing a rather weak serve, was able to win 51% on her first serve and 50% on her second serve. She had only 20 errors to 26 winners. Errani later spoke about the match, “Yeah, very unbelievable tough match today. Jelena played very good…[A]ll the points was very tough. I just tried to be focused. I was 4 1 up. She start[ed] to play much better. I was a bit tired. So it was not easy to stay there. Of course, was very important to win that first set… I’m very happy to win this difficult match…” Errani will play Andrea Petkovic (28) of Germany who beat Dutch qualifier KiKi Bertens 1-6 6-2 7-5 for a place in the semifinals. They are both one win a piece in their head-to-head. Errani won their most recent encounter earlier this month in Madrid.
