Saturday, June 7, 2014

Kasatkina wins French Open junior title

17-year-old Darya Kasatkina of Russia did today what Simona Halep did six years ago--she won the French Open junior championship. Kasatkina, seeded 8th, upset top seed Ivana Jorovik 6-7 6-2, 6-3 in today's final. Kasatkina is the first Russian girl to win at Roland Garros since Nadia Petrova did so in 1998.

The unseeded team Romanian of Iona Ducu and Iona Loredana Rosca won the doubles title. Ducu and Rosca defeated 7th seeds Catherine Cartan Bellis and Marketa Vondrousova 6-1, 5-7, 11-9.

Winning the Women's Legends competition were Kim Clijsters and Martina Navratilova, who defeated Nathalie Dechy and Sandrine Testud 5-7, 7-5, 10-7 in the final.

4 comments:

Eric said...

If you had to rank careers, what order would Hingis, Henin, Venus, Clijsters, and Sharapova be in?

Diane said...

I'm not much into ranking careers and determining "the greatest" and all that. Too many variables involved--era they played in, majors, other tennis accomplishments, struggles they went through, etc. I don't mean to evade your question, Eric, but I just don't think that way. I find that some things cannot be compared and contrasted.

Eric said...

LOL. I posted the comment and was like...oh, I don't think Diane will answer. :)

I'm really interested by this Murray-Mauresmo (M&M!) partnership. I pulled up some Mauresmo video on youtube bc I couldn't recall exactly how she played...I'm not sure what she will add tactically, but I suppose a champion's mentality/perspective is always welcome.

Like, it made more sense for her to help Llodra since he plays a serve and volley game...and has French flair.

Diane said...

Mauresmo, one of my favorite players of all time, had a beautiful game. "Tennis flows from her," one sportswriter said. Her backhand was amazing.

Her grass skills are well known, but she seems to have something else going on. Consider the mental/emotional changes she brought to Bartoli, which took her to the Wimbledon championship. Consider, also, that her last-minute, no-hope Fed Cup B team beat the USA in the last Fed Cup tie.

I think it's pretty established that Murray needs someone to be there for him to help with his mentality and his attitude. Amelie seems to have a kind of "coach" persona that has given her a second career.