Frenchwoman Camille Pin provided the biggest scare thus far on the women’s side by pushing top seed Maria Sharapova to a tough, three-set victory on Tuesday at the Australian Open.
I said earlier today that Camille Pin would have to play the match of her life in order to get just one set off of Maria Sharapova. Whether or not she counts this as one of the best matches of her career still remains to be seen, but today’s loss marked the first time since August of 2005 that she had taken a set off of a player inside the top fifteen.
Maria Sharapova passed up an opportunity to adjust to Australia’s summer climate at Sydney’s Medibank International, and her only warm-up event for the Grand Slam was two weeks ago in Hong Kong.
The extreme heat did contribute to Sharapova’s off-game, but you cannot completely blame the weather for her sloppy performance. To make matters worse, she appeared to have some type of cramping or strain in her right side towards the end of the third set and she did call the doctor and trainer out onto the court. It’s not yet know whether this was due to exhaustion or a new injury, but I’m sure it will be addressed in her post-match press conference.
I cannot remember the last time I saw Sharapova struggle this much, and for one of the cleanest hitters in the women’s game, sixty-five unforced errors is far from normal. After losing the second set 4-6, she quickly raced to a 5-love lead in the third set. Instead of holding serve for the bagel win, she lost her momentum and allowed Pin to come back to 5-5, before finally closing out the match on her fourth match point 6-3, 4-6, 9-7.
Sharapova’s tough win today proved that she is not invincible, and if Camille Pin, who is ranked at No. 62 in the world, is capable of pushing the top seed around, one can only wonder what will happen to Sharapova once she runs into a seeded player.
She has a few more rounds to get herself acclimated to the heat and clean up her performance, before setting up a potential fourth round meeting with Serbia’s Ana Ivanovic.
That was a very good match. What’d you think of Camille’s performance? You think she only pushed Sharpie that hard due to how poorly Sharapova played or commendable for getting everything back?
Pin got herself many new fans after this match, and I’m definitely including myself in there. I hope she builds from this match and wins more.
By the way, by good I mean entertaining. It was error after error, but great match still I thought.
Just saw the end…I think Camille started losing when i turned my TV on…
But er serve waas that good! Sharapova vas like 3m in side the court and ould easilly return….
Definitely a great match from Pin’s perspective, and probably, one of her best performances ever. Hopefully, she can learn from her errors, such as succumbing to nerves just two points away from the win, and keep moving up the rankings.
By no means am I trying to demean Pin’s performance, but if Maria had been playing at even 70% of her normal form, there is no way that the match would have gone into three sets.
I’ve not looked at the serve stats, but I’m willing to venture that Pin did not fire one serve over 88mph in the third set. Pin’s serve is pretty much the tennis equivalent of a powder puff, but she deserves huge kudos for staying focused and being willing to fight, even when down love-5.
A lot of players would have started making mental notes on flight reservations at that point.
Oh, I agree it was definitely entertaining – especially once the third set leveled at 5-5. I still can’t believe Camille won five straight games. Wow.
Ah Nexty, you missed a good match. You should have seen Sharapova’s face once Pin recovered and leveled the third set from down-love five. Maria should have scored a bagel, but instead walked away with a 9-7 win. Crazy.
Yes, Maria was way inside the court on Camille’s serve and that in fact often played to Pin’s advantage once Maria’s forehand started going wild. She was putting way too much power on her returns and kept overhitting the baseline.
Heat or not, changing your racket when your opponent is serving at 30-15 for the match is gamesmanship in my book…this isn’t the first time Maria has succumbed to gamesmanship, either, so I’m not willing to let it go. Congrats, Maria, but neither should the #1 seed be stretched so far in a first round match, nor should she succumb to such gamesmanship. Take a page out of Roger’s book for the proper sportsmanship as a top player, please.
I agree with what you said about gamesmanship Jayasree. That is the main reason i’m NOT a Sharapova fan. I really wanted her to lose today to teach her a lesson for being so arrogant and only playing an exhibition tourney to warm up. Serena to win! (in my dreams)
I know…I woke up too late!
…I guess she really deserved…By the way, i was reading an article in a frenche tennis magazine that talked about late french revelations like sevrine Bremon or Marc gicquel or who ever…
I’m quite sad for Camille
camille was one of them..and when she was young she was really the best of her categorie… so i think that thing about the serve has something to do with her actual ranking ( i think she’s 77 no?)……
may be it’s not the case, I haven’t seen her playing that much but something that i really noticed was that she cannot serve that fast..The rest of her game is as far as i noticed, correct
Nexty,
Pin’s at No. 62 right now, just a step back from her career high of No. 61.
I had a chance to look at the serve stats for yesterday’s match and my hunch was confirmed; her fastest serve during all three sets was just around 85-86 MPH or 138 KPH.
Like the article you mentioned said, she’s been on the Tour for a long time, and like Bremond, she’s a late bloomer, but I’m not convinced that she’s going to get much higher on the rankings because of that serve.
Venusfan – Welcome to On the Baseline! Thanks for joining in the conversation!
Yeah and that’s quite sad….
I thought she endend the year at 77…sorry :p
GAH! Sharapova’s match almost killed me I was SOO nervous! And it felt like most of the crowd wanted Pin to win… so naturally, me and my mates went crazy yelling for Maria. SO GLAD SHE WON!
Sorry, Nexty, my bad – I thought you meant Pin’s current ranking.
She did end the 2006 season outside of the top seventy at No. 76.
You definitely got your money’s worth yesterday Brant!
Did you sit through Lleyton’s five setter too?
Sure did… wooo
Thanks for welcoming me! thats real nice! lol.