Madrid Update

When you first look at the draw, you have no other reaction than : «Holy Shit» or any other saint expression that you might use in your home town. The level of competition reached such a high standard that some crazy matches started right on the first round.

I am a little late to make my own prevision but, I wasn’t surprise at all to see Azarenka and Wozniacki lost: these girls are playing with injuries and I doubt it is going to help for their RG preparation. Sharapova hadn’t played for a while and Safarova was definively a threat since she got a momentum these weeks with good results. Pennetta, who is still struggling a little was sent out kinda early by Petkovic who eventually lost to Rezai.

Yes, Rezai caused a surprise beating Henin 60 in the third set and she is still in the tournament in quart waiting to face Jelena Jankovic to night.. Jelena survived her second round match crash despite a slow start against Ana Ivanovic who seems to have found her game for a set but the oldest of the 2 Serbians shifted gear since then and shouldn’t have any problem to make it through to final again this week.

Dementieva lost to Dulgheru. The Romanian is playing her best tennis lately but still, I didn’t expect that, but she wasn’t enough to stop Safarova who is now standing in the last four. She surprised today Nadia Petrova who couldn’t use the momentum of her great Victory over Serena Williams.

Speaking of Williams, I was wrong thinking that Stosur would defeat Venus Williams; the oldest of the sisters’ got her ticket in semi after beating the Aussie in a one way match. She should met and send out Peer tomorrow to make it to the final against Jankovic. And I really doubt that this time, Jelena is going to get away with the win as easy as she did in Rome.

But this said, one match at the time, none of those players are there yet,and we all know that a match is not over till it’s over, even less when it isn’t started yet. But I do think that it should be Venus against Jelena and this time, it might be a 3 setters. Who is going to win ? I don’t know, aside last week victory 60 61 of Jelena on Venus, it always been epic matches before. But on clay, Jelena leads 4-1 so, I gave a slight advantage to the Serbian.