Top two hard court female tennis players
With the arrival of the summer hard court season, let us have a look at some of the best hard court tennis players from the women side who have excelled on the hard courts in comparison to the rest of the players.
1. Kim Clijsters
Hard court has always been the darling surface of the Belgian tennis ace, Kim Clijsters. She recently proved it once again by winning the 2010 ATP Cincinnati Masters tennis tournament which accounted for the 38th trophy of her career. Kim has so far won a total of 26 titles on the hard courts.
Similar to the American tennis ace, Andre Agassi, Clijsters like the bounces on the hard surfaces and is not fearful of them. As a result of this approach towards the hard surface, the Belgian plays more comfortably on the hard court in comparison to the clay or grass surfaces and hits more powerfully and confidently.
Kim has a wonderful season back in 2005 when she won the Indian Wells; Miami doubles as well as the entire summer hard surface events she participated, followed by her first trophy at the United States Open tournament as well.
Since making a comeback to the professional game of tennis, Kim Clijsters has once again won just the hard surface competitions including her title victory at the US Open back in 2009, Miami, Brisbane, as well as Cincinnati so far this season.
As far as Kim’s strengths on the hard surfaces are concerned, it is without any question that her movement is flawless. She is a superb athlete who can hit the ball from any corner of the court and is one of the greatest players from the women’s side at implementing the wide to wide tactic, particularly while serving.
Kim’s weakness on the other hand is that she is not good at hitting the high balls particularly on returns. However, not many players from the women side are capable of exploiting that probably because of the nature of the game played by them.
2. Monica Seles
Monica Seles is without any measure of speculations another legend of this form of court. Out of Monica’s total of 53 titles, 28 of them came from the hard surfaces.
Similar to majority of the American based contenders, Monica also grew up on the hard surfaces of Florida at the Nick Bollettieri tennis Academy.
Seles, however was also a great clay court player, as she won a total of 3 clay court French Open trophies in a row.
Monica captured the United States Open title back in 1991 and 1992, and also made her way into the finals of the competition back in 1995 and 1996. Moreover, Seles also grabbed the hard court Australian Open title on a total of four occasions from 1991 to 1993 as well as in 1996.
Seles also won the Rogers Cup Women’s tennis tournament on four consecutive occasions from 1995 to 1998.
Seles used to control the middle of the court and was also famous for her devastating ground strokes. Later on in her career, Monica also developed a powerful serve that helped her in winning many important matches particularly on the hard courts.
However, Monica wasn’t one of the greatest athletic players and that’s the reason why players such as Venus Williams as well as Steffi Graff troubled her during the later stages of her career.
As far as her basic strength is concerned, it was definitely her return of serve, which she utilized well to bring down her opponents on the court, particularly off the second serve.
Seles was also legendary for being a cool player under pressure situations and had mastered the art of controlling her nerves in the big moments more than anyone else on the tours.
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