alb said:
Vaidisova/Kuznetsova;
mental toughness is unknown amongst 95% of the players.
Also a good example of why everyone needs a 'live-betting' out to hedge on feeble minded front runners.....24/1 on Kuznetsova when down 5-3 in the 2nd set.
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It would be tough to blame Vaidisova for thinking ahead when it was her turn to serve while leading 5-4 in the second set. A little more than 1 1/2 hours in, and all she needed was four points - four measly points! - to put it away.
"You kind of figure, 'If I win this game, I'm in the finals,"' Vaidisova acknowledged. "But I don't think I (was) crazy nervous or started shaking or anything. I really didn't."
After losing the first point, she smacked a forehand that landed near the baseline and was ruled good by the line judge. Vaidisova pumped her fist and prepared to serve at what she thought would be 15-all - now three points away.
But the chair umpire overruled, calling the shot out and making the score love-30. When Vaidisova heard that, she slapped her palm to her mouth and staggered back. Two points later, she sailed another forehand long, then double-faulted to get broken, making it 5-5. On the first point of the next game, Vaidisova blew a return and swatted at the ground with her racket.
The unraveling had begun, and Vaidisova soon was muttering to herself after every point. Still, when Kuznetsova sent a return wide in the tiebreaker, it was 5-5, meaning Vaidisova was two points shy of the final.
Next came an 11-stroke point, and Kuznetsova - a comparative veteran at 20 - tried a drop shot she later acknowledged wasn't all that good. But Vaidisova rushed a forehand, pushing it wide, and never recovered.
Her backhand error on the next point ceded the set, and Kuznetsova raced to a 4-0 lead in the third. Kuznetsova made only one unforced error in the third set.
"Would I want to go back and redo it? Yes, but I can't," said the 16th-seeded Vaidisova, who knocked off former No. 1 Venus Williams in the quarterfinals and current No. 1 Amelie Mauresmo in the fourth round.
"I just have to take my experience from this and, you know, figure it out next time."
That, in a nutshell, is what Kuznetsova did. The Russian let match points slip away at the French Open each of the past two years, losing to the eventual champion in the fourth round: Anastasia Myskina in 2004, and Henin-Hardenne in 2005.
Vaidisova "got a little bit nervous. I know how it feels because I've been there, in her position, so many times," said Kuznetsova, who's worked with a psychologist to avoid such pitfalls.
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alb
Damn you were right. The woman tennis players are psychos
