Serena next on Stosur’s list at French Open
Sam Stosur can now claim to be the first player in six years to have defeated Justine Henin at the French Open, but the tough assignments just keep coming for the Australian, who now faces Serena Williams in the quarter-finals.
Serena enters the match with a 3-1 winning record against Stosur, the most recent an emphatic 6-4, 6-2 victory in the fourth round of Australian Open this year, where the eventual champion lost just seven points on serve.
It’s worth noting though that all four of the previous matches between Stosur and Williams have taken place on hard courts. The move to clay might just favour the Gold Coast-based player.
Somewhat inexplicably, given the acute lack of dirt courts back home in Australia, Stosur has developed a game, featuring some heavy topspin groundstrokes and a big kick serve, that suits the clay, while there can be little doubting clay has been Williams’ weakest surface over the years.
A glance at the American’s Grand Slam title record is testament to that. Roland Garros is the only major Serena has won just once in her career, in 2002, while eight of her 12 Grand Slam titles have come on the hard courts of the US Open (five) and the Australian Open (three).
It’s a formidable record but one that shouldn’t overawe 2009 Roland Garros semi-finalist Stosur, who held her nerve to knock four-times Roland Garros winner Henin out of the competition in her last match.
“Going into a quarter-final, I couldn't probably hope to be in a better position, I don't think,” Stosur said after her victory over Henin. “It's definitely something I can take a lot of confidence out of. And to know that going into that match against Serena I've just done that is, I think, going to help me.”
It’s that ever increasing self-belief which could be Stosur’s biggest weapon against a player who has never seemed to be lacking in that particular department.
The 2009 French Open semi-finalist may have entered the Australian Open struggling to cope with the pressure that came with the expectation of a ranking that was at the time pushing towards the top 10, crashing out in the first round of the Sydney International after a forgettable Hopman Cup campaign, but she arrived in Paris with every reason to believe in her own abilities.
The goal of breaking into the top 10 has now been achieved, and a push towards the top five doesn’t seem out of the question. Winning at the Family Circle Cup on the green clay in Charleston after completely dominating Vera Zvonareva in the final, and then reaching the final of the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix in Stuttgart (where she lost to Henin) made Stosur one of the in-form players heading into the French Open.
This should be a very different Stosur to the one Serena overwhelmed at Melbourne Park in January and for one big reason: the seventh seed now seems to have the belief that she belongs at the top of the game and the point end of a tournament. Especially on clay.
That Stosur has the power and the serve to go toe-to-toe with Williams was apparent to anyone who watched a certain first-round match in Sydney in January 2009. There, the Australian held match point in what was ultimately a three-set loss to Serena, but one which suggested her transition from an accomplished doubles career to focus more on her singles success might just be a very good idea.
There is no doubt now that risk has paid off for the world No. 7, and should she play herself into a winning position at Roland Garros, it won’t be so easy for Serena to fight her way out of trouble. These days, Stosur believes she can win, and in the quarter-finals of the Stanford Classic in mid-2009 proved she could indeed do so against the world’s best player.
Williams herself seems to be a convert too, telling reporters after her fourth-round match that: “Sam is actually a wonderful clay court player. I think she proved that last year, and this year I think she's only lost twice on the clay. So she's someone you can't overlook. She has a good chance to go all the way.”
As we all know, so too does the top seed, who was struggling with illness when dropped her only set of the tournament so far against Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova in the third round. Other than that hiccup, it’s been largely clinical for Williams in the early rounds and those sorts of performances from a player who traditionally builds her form over the course of a Grand Slam does not bode well for Stosur in the quarters.
Stosur’s form leading into the French Open and her fourth-round victory over Henin has, however, indicated she might just be up to the challenge.
Prediction: Stosur in a three set thriller.
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