Kasatkina aces last spot for ferocious shoot-out
FORT Worth, Texas, historically renowned for some of the fiercest wars waged in America, against Comanches and cattle raiders, will be hosting the ultimate showdown between eight of the most ferocious ladies on tour, all of whom have fought tooth and nail to earn a place at these prestigious WTA Finals.
It will be a maiden event for half the field – Coco Gauff, Ons Jabeur, Jessica Pegula and Daria Kasatkina.
The remaining four will be playing for only their second time – Iga Swiatek, Maria Sakkari, Caroline Garcia and Aryna Sabalenka.
As Kasatkina, the dark horse and last to qualify in this race to Fort Worth, put it: “Only the best players go there and you want to be one of them. Your driving force is to become one of those best eight and then when you’re there, you want to be one of the best of the best eight. It’s like Formula 1 ... . ”
Her driving force included making her first semi-final Slam at Roland Garros this year, winning two WTA titles for the second consecutive year and making the semis or finals of six tournaments on all three surfaces.
Fortunately, the Round Robin format, gives the lower ranked players a fighting chance.
Meanwhile, top players on the ATP Tour are still battling it out for last spots at the ATP Finals, in the race to Turin.
The finals of the Basel and Vienna Opens unfurling today, and the ultimate Paris Masters starting next week, present last-ditch chances for points to catapult one into that elite eight.
Young guns Canadians Felix Auger Aliassime, Denis Shapovalov and Dane
Holger Rune, have had indifferent starts to 2022, yet are finishing on the rampage, all making it through to their respective semi-finals and looking lethal in the process, with Auger Aliassime, on points, the most likely to be in that Turin line-up. World No 1, Carlos Alcaraz, who has been unstoppable and already qualified for the ATP Finals, as US Open Champion, is poised to play his eighth 2022 championship match, overtaking Greek No 1, Stefanos Tsitsipas, who currently has seven under his belt.
What has been a veritable joy to watch, in Vienna and Basel, regardless of whether they reach any final, has been the return to form of the former World No 3s, Dominic Thiem and Stan Wawrinka.
They have provided season highlights in their respective matches, on home soil, against current top players, American Tommy Paul and Norwegian Casper Ruud.
Both Thiem and Wawrinka suffered serious wrist and knee injuries, which sidelined them for a year, and each has only recently embarked on their ATP Tour comebacks.
Thiem had to come from a set down to rally against Paul. Buoyed by a jubilant Viennese crowd and using his swashbuckling one-handed backhand, he won a victory worthy of a Strauss “Blue Danube” encore.
It was, in fact, an “ode to the onehanded backhand”, also unleashed by one of the best perpetrators of that shot, Stan Wawrinka, in Basel, who equally did retired compatriot Roger Federer and the Swiss spectators proud in using his trademark weapon (the single-handed backhand) to perfection by dispatching current World No 3 and two-handed backhander, Ruud.
Veteran Bulgarian, Grigor Dimitrov, once known as “Baby Fed” for modelling himself on the Swiss icon and his one-handed backhand – particularly the slice variation thereof – kept the theme flowing in overcoming yet another top-ten player and conventional two-handed backhander, Andrey Rublev, in an equally magic match.
Championship matches come and go on a weekly basis, but it is not every day one is privileged to witness a moving showdown, restoring a former giant of the game to the pinnacle of yesteryears glory, wielding that singularly majestic weapon.