2007 French Open Ladies Final Preview
Posted by Aaress Lawless on Jun 8, 2007 | Print | Email | Bookmark | Free Subscription
The task looms almost impossible in the face of Ana Ivanovic, but she is determined to go out tomorrow confident that she will do her best and attempt to deny world number one Justine Henin her third consecutive and fourth overall French Open title.
Ivanovic played her way to the final in an impressive fashion with wins over Maria Sharapova and Svetlana Kuznetsova, but she will need to play the best match of her career if she wants to upset Justine Henin.
With three of the past four Roland Garros trophies safely tucked away at home, Justine is headed into the match as the clear favorite. She is not only attempting to tie Monica Seles’ record of three straight titles, but also continue her run of 33 consecutive set wins in Paris.
The only chink - you can’t even call it a weakness - in Justine Henin’s game is her first serve and Ivanovic needs to get as many good returns in as possible, especially off of her forehand side. Justine attacks so well that Ivanovic will have her work cut out for her just holding serve, but if she can take advantage of Justine’s mediocre first serve, Ana may stand a chance of pushing the world number one into a third set.
My Pick: Justine Henin wins her fourth Roland Garros title - in straight sets.
The women’s final will be aired on NBC at 9:00 am ET on Saturday.
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Alsacienne | Jun 8, 2007 | Reply
Aaress, help!
I am stuck in Michigan… work work work so I had no time to even worry about watching RG but now for the final I don’t find a TV schedule. What channel is RG on???
Thanks, Alsacienne
Aaress | Jun 8, 2007 | Reply
No problem!!! The final will be aired on NBC at 9AM ET tomorrow.
I meant to include that in the preview, but completely forgot until you mentioned it.
Chris | Jun 8, 2007 | Reply
I just want a three-setter. The past two Wimbledons have had three-setters and the 05 AO, but that’s it since ‘05.
I want something competitive. Help me out here, Ana. :help:
Henin will get her third straight RG, but I’m begging for some competition from Ivanovic.
Aaress | Jun 8, 2007 | Reply
Very true Chris - Justine’s dominance is amazing, but it still makes for a few routine finals.
Nothing makes my day more than a long three set thriller - kind of like the Wimbledon final between Venus and Lindsay in 2005.
Alsacienne | Jun 8, 2007 | Reply
THANKS Aaress
I really hope for Ana to win but don’t think she has a chance. I haven’t seen her play but JuJu ist just too good.
By the way what do you guys think of Drew Lilley’s “live updates” on the RG site? Very excellent if you ask me! Really enabled me to enjoy and relive the RG day that I had missed while being at work
Aaress | Jun 8, 2007 | Reply
Drew Lilley has been excellent over the past several days - he really has helped keep fans informed of everything, not to mention his great sense of humor.
Plus, it was extra nice to have someone blogging the tournament live for the tournament, especially during the early days when the rain kept halting the play, with no official word on when the covers were going to come off.
I wish all of the major events would host something like that - especially Wimbledon and the US Open, because so much of the tournament takes place during our work hours in the US.
TTC’s live feed was also handy - did any of you use it?
Chris | Jun 9, 2007 | Reply
I used the TTC feed for Wozniacki/Dechy, Hantuchova/Medina Garrigues, Peer/Kanepi, Dementieva/Kerber, a few other matches. Generally, I disliked they kept changing the courts around and should have kept the matches to the same ones. I would have seen more matches I wanted to see that way.
I’m glad to see TTC will cover Australia next year. I mean, it’s my least favorite slam by far (I never liked it for some reason), but it should be nice to see extensive coverage. It’s finally becoming the channel it should be.