Thursday Report

By Barry Wood

It isn't easy being Vera Zvonareva. When you're a top player you are one of the hunted. Almost everyone you play against has nothing to lose when they face you, and they'll try extra hard to beat you because then they get their picture in the papers and the tennis world takes notice and talks about you. And there's something else. Vera Zvonareva reached the semi-finals of her last tournament, which happened to be the Australian Open. And let's face it, playing on the courts at the Dusit Resort, Pattaya, nice as they are beside the sea and with the sound of jet-skis pounding the waves just a short distance from the stands, it is not Rod Laver Arena in Melbourne. So some brain adjustments need to be made, as Vera explains.

"I think it's very difficult to come in here from a Grand Slam playing such a tough six matches in a row and then right away you're put in such conditions here, very hot, very humid. You have two courts next to each other so it makes it a little bit difficult to concentrate. You can hear all the noise so it's totally different and you have to totally switch your mind after the Grand Slam for this event. So it's a little bit difficult for me with these conditions.

"And all the players are here very relaxed against me. They come out there with nothing to lose and are trying to execute their shots and they aren't worried about anything else. So that makes it very difficult for me and my level of game is not quite there yet and maybe I didn't get used the conditions here yet."

Yet still she won. This time her victim was Yaroslava Shvedova, who was born in Moscow and lives there now, but she changed nationality to Kazakhstan in 2008. Rather like Bulgarian Sesil Karatantcheva did last month. What's so special about the place, we wonder? anyway, Vera now on the match.

"I think it was a very tough match. She was playing pretty good tennis today and serving really well so I had to hang in there. But what I think I did very good today was that I was fighting for every ball and I wasn't giving her easy points at all. I was trying to play as hard as I can every single point and I think that made the difference at the end.

"I played pretty clean service games today. She wasn't able to break my serve once. Any time she got a chance she was going for her shots. She didn't have anything on her mind except to take every opportunity she got and she was pretty successful, so I'm pretty glad I was able to go through this match without giving her a break of my serve."

Actually, you shouldn't believe every word a player says. The bit about "She didn't have anything on her mind except to take every opportunity she got and she was pretty successful," in this instance. Actually, Shvedova's success rate was zero. She had six break points and won none. That is pretty unsuccessful. Why do players say these things? Zvonareva broke once in each set, in the first set when her opponent somehow managed to hit two successive double-faults.

Caroline Wozniacki knows what Vera means about being hunted. She played Ksenia Pervak, who won the Australian Open juniors last month, and boy, was it tough! Wozniacki went down 4-0 and 5-2 as Pervak refused to let her settle into the match. Eventually the second seed did, got to a tiebreak, led it 4-1 - and then lost the next six points and the set.

"It really hurt to lose a tiebreak like that, being behind 4-0 and 5-2 and coming back, leading," said Wozniacki. "But she was playing well and it took a while for me to get into my own rhythm and to start to play my game. It wasn't my best match today, but she didn't allow me to play my best so I'm just happy to be through."

Anyway, Pervak dropped her level just a little after that and by the third set it was pretty obvious there was to be no giant-killing this time. Wozniacki eventually won 6-7 6-2 3-0 when her opponent retired with a back injury.

Tamarine Tanasugarn won again, 6-3 6-2 against Neuza Silva. As she should have done, but that is not always a guarantee of success with Tammy. She thought she didn't play as well as the day before, even though she won more easily. Now she plays Sania Mirza, who beat Russian qualifier Vitalia Diatchenko 6-4 6-0.