Wimbledon '09 Day 6: Melanie Oudin and Sabine Lisicki Steal the Show

Wimbledon’s final day of the first week proved us something. First the good news—there is no shortage of talent and grit in the women’s side.

However, the bad news—the top players in WTA badly lack consistency and variety. The latter may not be a breaking news after all; nevertheless, it was further justified yesterday.

 

The survivors

Venus Williams took sweet revenge for her defeat in Australia, against the Spaniard Suarez Navarro, by overwhelming her in straight sets, including a bagel in the first.

Venus’ grass court prowess was on full show, as she served big, and moved far more comfortably than she did in Australia and Paris. Her powerful ground strokes meant that the short-heighted Navarro was running all around the court.

The second set was far more competitive than the first, as Navarro began to read Venus’ groundies better, and showed us some delightful play as well, the highlight being the Henin-esque inside-out backhand.

In the end, though, she was no match as Venus marched through 6-0, 7-5.

Ana Ivanovic’s revival has been heartening to see after the former world no. 1 and French Open champion missed the most of last year through injury and bowed out tamely as defending champion in Paris.

However, she seemed a much improved player yesterday, and one would start thinking that her game is better suited to grass than to clay as she hardly got her service wrong and moved effortlessly around the court.

Her inside out forehand, one of the best in the women’s game, was on full show, as she cruised along against Samantha Stosur to march through in straight sets, 7-5 6-2, to set up an exciting fourth round contest against the Wimbledon Queen, Venus Williams.

The other top seeds to march through were the World no. 1 Dinara Safina, the 2006 champion Amelie Mauresmo and Caroline Wozniacki.

 

The upsets

The day, however, belonged to two emerging stars, Melaine Oudin, from USA and Saline Lisicki from Germany.

It would be safe to say that, this American qualifier would have completely dismantled the sixth seed, Jelena Jankovic, if she had some experience of playing a Grand Slam before.

She showed supreme confidence, and attacking tennis to overwhelm the counter-punching Serbian throughout her match.

She held six set points in the first, but was visibly nervous during all six of them as she lost them meekly due to her silly unforced errors.

Jankovic was lucky to sneak through the tie-breaker, as she neither showed spectacular play, nor the heart to battle through the points.

Even though disheartened after losing the set which she dominated, Oudin showed grits of a seasoned grand slam player, to bounce back in the second—still needing five set points to equalize the match—and then raced past the third set to march through to the fourth round, leaving the hapless Serb in tears as she left empty-handed from yet another Grand Slam.

In yet another upset, world no. 41 Sabine Lisicki defeated the newly crowned French Open Champion, Svetlana Kuznetsova, in straight sets on Day 6.

Kuznetsova looked nowhere close to her French Open form, as the powerful German flushed a barrage of accurate ground strokes to unsettle the Russian right from the onset.

Kuznetsova looked completely exhausted after losing the first set 6-2, and even though she looked an improved player in the second, Lisicki completed the formalities in a close second set, winning it 7-5.

Ultimately, it was a bad day in office for the birthday girl Kuznetsova, who turned 24 yesterday.

 

Day 6 was easily the most entertaining day on the women's side of the tournament, and dare I say, it may have overshadowed the battles in men's singles, had Andy Murray not played that blinder towards the end of the day.