fciwomenswrestling2.com Femcompetitor.com, grapplingstars.com, fciwomenswrestling.com fcielitecompetitor.com Rena-Schild-Shutterstock-photo-credit-Editorial-use
January 22, 2024,
During any Grand Slam, whether you are surging or exiting, stories are being made.
In our opinion, the exits are far more telling than most of the movement forward into the next round.
Some players, even when they win, are expected to move on to the next round.
It is not big news.
In this year’s tournament, we expect Coco Gauff, Aryna Sabalenka and Iga Swiatek to keep moving forward. Yes, it is news, but not major news. However, if one of them gets flattened in an early round, that is major news.
Iga Swiatek was eliminated in the third round.
That is huge news.
She survived established stars in Sofia Kenin and Danielle Collins but falls to the number 50th ranked player in the Czech Republic’s Linda Noskova in three tough sets. Let’s place Linda’s massive upset in perspective.
Sofia Kenin won the 2020 Australian Open Grand Slam title.
Danielle Collins finished as a finalist at the 2022 Australian Open.
Ms. Noskova, to this date, has never won a WTA singles tournament title.
The exits are a huge story.
Stories like the world’s number five ranked player in America’s Jessica Pegula.
We have written about the trials and tribulations of Jessica so much that we’ve decided not to do it here. She is number five but we feel with an asterisk. Why? She hasn’t remotely come near winning a Grand Slam, especially on the hard courts. She can never get past the quarters. How can you be the fifth best player in the world, there are four Grand Slams in a year, and in any of them, you can never play your way into the semi-finals?
Never.
So, when Jessica fell to France’s Clara Burel 4-6, 2-6, in the 2nd round, we were not shocked.
Look at the score. Would you say Jessica put up a hard fight? Was she playing with a sense of desperation? Urgency? Was she going to grind her way back into the match during the second set?
What would you say?
By the way, according to the WTA website, Clara is ranked number 51 in the world. Not bad but typically not giant slayer material. We could understand the upset if Clara was a former highly ranked player who got injured, played hurt, lost a lot of matches and slid in the rankings.
But she didn’t.
She is only 22 years old.
What happened to Clara in the next round?
She got thumped by fellow countrywoman Oceane Dodin, 2-6, 4-6.
Hey, at least in the second set, unlike Jessica, she put up somewhat of a fight. By the way, what is Oceane’s ranking?
Number 95.
Are we painting a picture?
What gives?
Most of the media outlets that we researched that covered the 2024 Australian Open, acknowledged Jessica’s defeat but didn’t seem to spend a lot of time on it. No in depth analysis. Didn’t try and get inside of Jessica’s head or what is going on with her and her coach or her star doubles partner in Coco Gauff, especially since the duo reportedly broke up after Jessica’s loss.
Something is going on inside of Jessica’s head and we’ll probably never know what it is.
But it is intriguing.
Even Jessica appeared to be fairly nonchalant about the loss. No excessive sobbing like Naomi Oasaka during her previous fall from grace.
The script on Jessica, and we have tried to avoid that pathway, as the daughter of the Buffalo Bills football team’s owner, and often posted as the richest person in tennis (yes, man and woman), is that she is too distracted (business ventures) and too rich (not hungry).
What is the truth, who knows, but it doesn’t look good.
Her professional career began in 2011, and currently, she is 29 years old.
Recent postings have fellow American Danielle Collins indicating she is ready to retire at 30.
At what point is Jessica going to make her move?
Since she can typically compete in to the fourth rounds at the Slams, her rankings have stayed steady. She was once number three. But after this debacle, it is going to slide.
Why is that significant?
Stay in the top ten and at the Grand Slams, in the first round, you will most likely meet, respectively speaking, the Clara Burels of the tennis world, or players with an even lower ranking.
Let your rankings slide?
Then you get to experience what Naomi Osaka did in the first round. Who was her opponent?
Number one Iga Swiatek.
Noami was ousted in two sets.
You try and protect your rankings for a reason.
If Jessica thought it was going to be hard getting to the semi-finals of a Grand Slam before, imagine what it will be like now? Who will she face in the first round at this year’s 2024 US Open?
Jessica Pegula is a fascinating case study. Can you be incredibly wealthy and stay hungry? Does an NFL owner really care about getting to a Super Bowl when his team, even at 500, secures massive advertising revenue, sells a ton of tickets and merchandise?
There is something to be said for being hungry.
Like Maria Timofeeva. Have you heard of her? She has done something at this Australian Open that Ons Jabeur and Jessica Pegula could not do.
Make it into the fourth round.
By the way, she sent the legendary Caroline Wozniaki packing in the second round.
Who is she?
Maria is a Russian professional tennis player.
Ms. Timofeeva has career-high WTA rankings of No. 122 in singles and No. 179 in doubles. She has won one singles title on the WTA Tour along with five singles titles and six doubles titles on the ITF Circuit.
But at this year’s Australian Open?
When ranked No. 170, she qualified for the 2024 Australian Open making her Grand Slam debut.
She defeated Alize Cornet, former Australian champion Caroline Wozniacki and tenth seed Beatriz Haddad Maia to advance to her first fourth round on her Major debut.
Talk about creating a story that tennis fans would like to read about.
So, for now, this story was primarily about Jessica because we sense her window of opportunity is closing and, from a distance, she doesn’t appear to be fighting with all she has to stop the bleeding. She toiled so long at the lower levels, when she finally made it to the big leagues, we hoped she would fight harder to stay there.
Will 2024 be a cautionary tale for Jessica?
For now, the story of Maria Temofeeva is continuing.
Going forward.
And if she keeps playing this way?
It truly is just beginning.
And a huge story.
~ ~ ~
OPENING PHOTO Rena-Schild-Shutterstock-photo-credit-Editorial-use fciwomenswrestling2.com Femcompetitor.com, grapplingstars.com, fciwomenswrestling.com fcielitecompetitor.com
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Timofeeva
https://www.fciwomenswrestling2.com
https://www.fcielitecompetitor.com/
https://fciwomenswrestling.com/
