tt stern-enzi (a recap of live coverage)

Monday morning I had the chance to catch part of Samantha Stosur’s opening match at the tournament and it seemed fitting to follow-up with today’s action pitting the Australian against young American Jamie Hampton on the Grandstand. Stosur has earned the support of fans for her spirited play (and never say die attitude), but going up against an American player means a slightly less than favored status this time out.

Hampton, at first glance, doesn’t appear capable of matching Stosur’s power, swing for swing, but she’s got a dependable serve and a simple game plan – stretch and move Stosur around the court to open things up – and she has no problem taking the first game of the first set. Stosur’s first service game highlights her advantages – a much stronger initial serve in terms of mph and a nice kicking second serve that she places to push her opponents off-kilter. Stosur takes her service game at love.

By the time Hampton settles into her second service game, it is apparent that she’s got a bit more punch than anticipated and decent accuracy. Looks like this match will go back and forth in favor of the server.

Watching Stosur though, there’s the sense that she’s got this coiled torque action in her upper body. Her swing is compact, quick, and explosive. But even more than that, what drives her game is a spirit of enjoyment that comes with excellent shot making. She’s excited when she hits those marks and she uses that energy to propel her into the next point. Stosur and Hampton both strike hard and keep their shots low and tight to the net – each scores a couple of points off the net cord, but Stosur has a more powerful focus and intent on this aspect of the game.

Stosur sneaks in a break for a 3-2 lead and pounces on a hold in the next game (4-2). Hampton struggles with sloppiness but finds a way to hold (4-3). Stosur smells blood in the water though, scoring a love hold in her next service game before breaking Hampton to close out the first set (6-3).

The second set has a loosey-goosey Stosur exhibiting a smidgen of frustration over a couple of early points, but she rights the ship to hold the first game. Hampton seems to have tightened her focus, winning her opening service game with impressive net play. Stosur has to work harder than usual to earn a hold for a 2-1 lead. Signs indicate that Hampton has amped things up. She knots this one up at 2-all, and Stosur, aware of the growing pressure, gets back into a routine groove to stay on serve and forces Hampton to pull out all the stops to stay on course in her next service game (3-all). Tension mounts as each holds, but more than a hint of frustration creeps up on them. As the points come to matter more, they dare to ratchet up the aggressiveness, challenging each other at net with scintillating volleys. The mood infects the crowd, which gets more vocal in its support of the two players; everyone feels the need to do their part now.

Stosur misses a series of opportunities to seize control, allowing Hampton to dig in for 5-all. It is no surprise when the set goes into a tiebreak. Stosur starts strong on the first point, but Hampton zings a passing shot by her and then simply overpowers her on the next point to go up 2-1. After tying it up, Stosur, uncharacteristically double faults, giving Hampton a mini-break (3-2), but she yanks it right back and suddenly flips the switch. Stosur gets the benefit of a challenged call, but its like she begins seeing the coded world of the Matrix for what it is and never looks back. Stosur takes the tiebreak at 7-3 and the match.

 

Note: I slide into John Isner’s match against Richard Gasquet (FRA) for a quick peek to see if how he would handle a next level opponent. Gasquet is a dangerous player in any bracket, at any tournament, so I wanted to scout Isner out. All of his weapons were at the ready and he used them to pummel and frustrate Gasquet to no end – even goading him to launch a ball out of the Grandstand court after an Isner ace. Isner caps off the match with, what else, an ace. He’s on his way to racking up more bonus points, people!