WTA World No.24: Flavia Pennetta in 2010
The 28 year old Italian pro, Flavia Pennetta is World No. 24 and has had an illustrious career so far, in 2009, she became the first Italian woman to reach the Women’s Tennis Association Top 10. Since last month, she has been ranked
World No. 23 in singles play and World No. 2 in doubles. In addition to this, Pennetta is an active member of the Fed Cup team, she helped Italy win the Fed Cup finals against the US team in 2009 and 2010.
This year, Pennetta’s best performances emerged towards the end of the year. At the 2010 Fed Cup final, after American player Melanie Oudin defeated Italian Francesca Schiavone to give the US a fighting chance for the Cup, Flavia
Pennetta defeated Coco Vandeweghe in straight sets in the last match of the season. Consequently, Italy won their second straight Fed Cup, this is their third title in five years.
Pennetta also climbed the WTA rankings to reach World No.10 (her highest career ranking to date) just in time for Wimbledon. However, she fell to World No. 66 Klara Zakopalova in the third round at the All England Club. This was
no surprise to most commentators, Pennetta had lost to World No. 39 Ekaterina Makarova in straight sets mere days before Wimbledon.
All in all, 2010 has been a mixed year for the Italian. She was able to demonstrate considerable skill on all surfaces this year, as is obvious by her great results at several varied tournaments. Pennetta made it to a hard court
final at Auckland, and had a reasonably good run at the US Open series. She concluded the series with ten victories and four losses, including wins over US Open finalist Vera Zvonareva, Samantha Stosur and Maria Kirilenko.
Her lone 2010 title was won on the clay courts at Marbella, before she reached the dirt finals of Palermo. She did not perform too well at the Wimbledon Championships, producing a mediocre result at best. However, she made up for
it in the doubles run by reaching the semifinals with Gisela Dulko at the All England Club. Dulko and Pennetta ended 2010 as the Number 1 women’s doubles team because of their successful run.
Flavia Pennetta’s best Women’s Tennis Association season was undoubtedly her 2009 singles run, when she ended the year as World No. 12. Despite the drop in her rankings, it is still difficult to find fault with the player, she
was a crucial member of Italy’s Fed Cup team and helped them to reach three finals, an achievement repeated from last year. In the end, though, her performance throughout the season proved difficult to replicate and she was quickly knocked out of the Top Ten.
Winning the tournaments at Auckland or Palermo may have helped her rankings. Nevertheless, she had a good run at both events.
If rankings are considered, Pennetta’s greatest triumph was her defeat of then-World No. 5, Sam Stosur at the quarterfinals of San Diego. Overall, Pennetta played yet another solid season, however, she has regressed from her previous
success (she was ranked in the top 15 for the last two years). It’s unfortunate that players are not ranked for Fed Cup performances: Flavia Pennetta played top-notch tennis at the premier event, scoring a perfect 6-0 in the draw. However, she is expected
to provide stellar results in 2011 and make her way back into the Top 20, if not the Top 15 by the end of next year.
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