fcielitecompetitor.com, fciwomenswrestling2.com, femcompetitior.com, grapplingstars.com, fciwomenswrestling.com Carine06-from-UK-Amanda-Anisimova-Wikipedia-hoto-credit-Editorial-use
January 20, 2022,
The Third Round of a Grand Slam is a time for show downs.
Player A surprisingly made it through the first two rounds. Many did not expect her to be there. Is she for real or is she ready to come back down to earth?
The Third Round will absolutely reveal that.
Very few qualifiers and top players on the downward slide, who have not been playing well lately, will be found there.
In this year’s 2022 Australian Open, unfortunately Samantha Stosur, Sofia Kenin, Sloane Stephens, Angelique Kerber, Belinda Bencic, Gabine Muguruza and Coco Gauff, huge names in the professional tennis world, are all out.
Then there are the top players that you expect to make it to the third round. If they are not there, something went horribly wrong.
Naomi Osaka, Madison Keys, Maria Sakkari and Ash Barty, giants ready to stomp or be slayed are primed and ready for the Third Round.
Who are the players to watch, those who are rising stars but still have found it challenging in previous Slams to compete into the second week?
Let’s take a look.
Of prime interest to us is America’s Jessica Pegula.
Previously Femcompetitor Magazine analyzed not only her game but her life schedule and she appeared to be distracted, especially partnering in running a successful business.
Too, she is the daughter of a famous tycoon so how motivated can she really be? An argument could be made that playing for money, a major motivator for many players financially struggling on the tour, is not the main motivation.
Then there was the issue of her game. Her strengths.
Recently Jessica has had early round success at the Slams. At the 2021 French Open, she made it to the third round, at the mighty US Open, in 2020 and 2021 she survived into the third round.
The expectations may be higher here because last year at the Aussie Open she propelled into the quarter finals.
Toiling on the tour since 2011, it wasn’t until 2018 that Jessica reached her first WTA singles final at the Tournoi de Québec in September as a qualifier.
Thus, what she has achieved recently are major movements.
Next up for Jessica is Spain’s Nuria Parrizas Diaz, in some ways, a player with a similar story to Jessica’s.
She has a career-high ranking of world No. 63, which she achieved on January 17, 2022.
The similarities? There are at least two. She is ascending and it has taken her a very long time to get here.
Jessica is 27 and Nuria, often called Párrizas Díaz, is 30.
Ms. Díaz started playing tennis when she was six years old. Until the age of 14, she trained in her hometown. At that age, the Andalusian Tennis Federation awarded her a scholarship to train at their facilities in Seville and compete throughout Spain in the children’s and cadet tournaments.
She was off to a great start.
At the age of 16, she began to play in the Futures tournaments, both nationally and internationally. Párrizas Díaz then relocated to live and train in Barcelona, at the Hispano Francés Academy.
Now the differences start to creep in.
Due to a lack of professional support, she decided to return to Granada where she continued training and attending ITF tournaments, until she was 22 years old when she went to train in Italy.
A major shoulder injury caused her career to come to a halt when she was among the top 300 in the WTA rankings.
At 24 years old, the doctors suggested to Párrizas Díaz to retire from tennis. However, she managed to recover, and despite not having sponsors, she looked for a way to compete professionally.
Here, money might be a motivator.
Since her return in 2017, she won about a dozen ITF tournaments and also played in club leagues in Spain (Stadium Casablanca), Italy (Rocco Polimeni) and Germany (Esslingen).
In 2019, Párrizas Díaz decided to go back to training in Valencia to boost her career.
She had a good year, already settled in $25k tournaments and above of the ITF Circuit, where she managed to add two titles of that level, the first of this level and get very close to the top 200.
In January 2020, Párrizas Díaz participated in her first Grand Slam after years and years of struggle.
She played in the qualifications at the Australian Open.
In July, she won her first and biggest WTA title to date at the WTA 125 Swedish Open in Bastad defeating Olga Govortsova. As a result she reached a career-high of No. 108 on 26 July 2021.
In August, she won her biggest ITF title, the 100k 2021 Koser Jewelers Tennis Challenge in Landisvile, USA. As a result she entered the top 100 at world No. 96 on 16 August 2021.
Finally, she qualified for a Grand Slam main draw at the US Open for the first time in her career.
Based upon that, you can see that the stakes are high for both players and while thus far, their matchup is not headline news, to both of them, a victory here, to get past the third round at a major Grand Slam is huge news.
We see Jessica as the favorite.
The question for us is, will Jessica actually break through and win a Major?
For that to happen, it is not about being distracted. Her skillsets must improve.
What is major headline news is Naomi Osaka’s showdown in the Third Round with America’s Amanda Anisimova, who after a few years of inconsistent play is currently streaking.
Given Naomi’s recent struggles, yes she easily made it through the first two rounds but those victories came against talented players she was expected to defeat.
Amanda recently defeated the number 22 seed in Belinda Bencic.
In just two sets.
That was not expected.
In our minds this is a huge showdown.
And test.
For Naomi.
Yes, tennis may no longer be fun but if you want to keep those sponsors, you better win anyway.
As usual, it really will be up to Naomi. In our estimation, she is the most talented and powerful player on the tour and when she is mentally tough and plays her A game, we feel she can beat anyone.
Serena is long back in Naomi’s rear view mirror with decreasing automotive speed.
Naomi is after all the defending Australian Open champion, which she won in 2021.
That seems like such a long time ago.
Given what happened during the rest of the year, with her request to decline speaking to the media and her absolute meltdown in her loss against the eventual 2021 US Open finalist, Leylah Fernandez, who was eliminated in the first round by a Wild Card entry here Down Under, along with taking some time away from tennis (but tweeting about her boyfriend and wonderful vacation), the big question for us is, if things don’t go her way, early on, in her match with Amanda, which Naomi will we see?
The odds makers are predicting Naomi to win.
It’s early, but in 2022, this is the Third Round show down we have been looking forward to.
With excitement, joy and anticipation.
We hope Naomi is as well.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuria_P%C3%A1rrizas_D%C3%ADaz
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Tennis_Federation
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