Petra? 52 unforced errors? You pretty much handed Alexandra Dulgheru that first-round victory on a silver platter WITH bacon wrapped around it, because everything is better with bacon, right? Well, maybe not everything. There’s almost no way that even bacon can help to spin this loss into something positive.
Petra’s booming forehand, the bread and butter shot that helped her win Wimbledon, let her down badly from the first game of the match to the last. Most of her 52 unforced errors came off the forehand side. Her once-lethal serve, another of the strengths that helped her to this year’s Wimbledon title, also let her down badly. Her first serve percentage was 50%. Her second serve percentage was 43%. Those are pretty woeful numbers. It’s impossible to win a tennis match on the pro tour if you can’t even win half of your service points.
Even so, Dulgheru still gave Petra many chances to stay even in the match. But she just couldn’t take advantage of the opportunities, winning only 4 of the 13 break point chances she was given. If you can’t win your own service games, you must find a way to win on your opponents’ service games. At a time when service return games rule the WTA, Petra could only muster 43% of the return points she played.
Her game broke down on almost every level, technically speaking. Her mental game was no better. “Everything is in the head,” she said. “If you are thinking on court negatively it’s bad.” Yes Petra, it was bad.
But rather than focusing solely on Petra’s shortcomings, I will change the direction of this discussion and look at this from a positive angle. Petra’s loss, and those of many other first-slam winners in their next slam, helps to bring focus on (and appreciation to) the remarkable abilities of the players who win when they are expected to win.
We take for granted that whenever we see Grand Slam champions like Serena Williams, Roger Federer, and Rafael Nadal take the court, we absolutely know that they are going to win. There is no doubt in our mind… or theirs. At least that is the image that they outwardly project. And year after year and slam after slam, the reality has been that they back up that belief with quantifiable wins.
Serena won her first slam in 1999, her last slam in 2010, and is the prohibitive favorite for this US Open. Roger won his first slam in 2003, his last slam in 2010, and is always in the mix to at least make the final four if not better. Rafa won his first slam in 2005, is the reigning French Open champion, and is a favorite to meet Novak Djokovic in this year’s US Open final. With these results, why should we have any doubts?
In past interviews, Novak has acknowledged the very different pressure that comes after winning a first Grand Slam. People expect you to win the next one, and that wasn’t the case for any of these champions, himself included. Perhaps that is the positive that Petra can learn from this US Open experience to help put her career in the proper perspective. It’s not that you will be able to win every match you play, or every tournament you enter, but that you can use the pressure positively to be eager for the opportunity to do so.
If I could say one thing to Petra, it would be this: “Winning is not a burden unless you make it a burden”. Let’s hope for a better showing from her at the 2012 Australian Open in January.