source: http://indecentxposure.com/grind/6fb925d7adf6eecf33fe489e17e70af16b6881cd/
(An excerpt from Half-Volleys, Stories from the US Open Qualifications)
"...I’ll end today’s segment with my favorite story of the day – watching Michelle Larcher de Brito argue, cry and fight her way through her first-round qualifying match against Ekaterina Dzhehalevich.
De Brito was already down a break in the final set when I arrived on Court 11. What drew me in at first was the oddity of her grunt (or scream, to be more accurate). While players like Azarenka and Sharapova are known for their grunting, de Brito takes it to the next level. Her grunts are high-pitched squeals which often vary in volume and were rarely timed with the impact of the ball against her racquet. While Vika or Maria may exhale loudly upon contact, which in theory enhances the power of their strokes, Michelle instead holds her breath and waits until the ball is over the net to let our her shrieks. It seemed constricting and ineffective, as evidenced by her trailing in the deciding set. I thought back to when I first saw her name in a Tennis Magazine article, she was 15 then and was proclaimed to be the next best thing out of Bollettieri’s. Seeing her in person today, I wondered what all the hype was about.
Nothing comes easy for Michelle. At 5 foot 5 inches, she doesn’t have the effortless power or the long reach of other Bollettieri phenoms - she gets no free lunches. Every point needed to be earned with an aggressive string of shots hit near or inside the baseline. Her instinct is to retreat, but she wills herself to move in, time and time again. Her misses are punctuated by shrill screams, delivered while bent-over toward the court. Her winners are accompanied by an equally high-pitched “Come-On” she perfected in Bradenton along with her backhand and forehand. In the middle of the set, still a break down, Michelle grinds her way to a break point. She seemed to be back in the match as Dzhehalevich pulls a backhand wide, but a questionable overrule erases that ray of hope.
“Are you serious right now?” She barks at the chair umpire. “Tell me that the ball was on the line.” She dared the umpire.
“It was on the line,” he said.
“Shut up…” she muttered while walking back to the baseline. Then, she began to cry.
At that point, more and more people were gathering around the court to watch this train-wreck of a match unfold. Dzhehalevich, grunting louder than de Brito now, holds on and is a game away from the match at 5-3. Meanwhile, de Brito is borderline hysterical. Her world is collapsing around her, it seems. She cries, weeps and lets out sighs of despair – during points. Somehow she forces herself inside the court often enough to hold one more time, putting the pressure on her opponent to serve it out at 5-4.
While de Brito and Dzhehalevich were pulling up and holding back on their strokes, across the walkway on Court 10, ATP pros Bradley Klahn and Diego Junquiera were trading topspin missiles and serving lights-out. Their ball-striking and decision-maker had no traces of nerves, they were playing a cleaner and better version of tennis. Yet I stayed on Court 11, where serves were being hit at 110KPH rather than 100MPH, because I felt emotionally compelled to see this match through. Klahn and Junquiera may as well be flawless, emotionless robots designed specifically to trade ground strokes and volleys. On the other hand, with every swing and every grunt, I could see fear, resentment and inadequacy on the faces of Michelle Larcher de Brito. Four more points; if she’s crying now, then what is she going to do once she loses? At 30-all, the large crowd gathered around the court was 2 points away from finding out.
All of a sudden, though, it was Dzhehalevich who got tight. It started with an errand overhead which gave her opponent a break point, followed by a feeble double-fault which turned the 5-4 lead into a 5-5 stalemate. Just like that, the momentum of the match completely changed. De Brito began taking balls off the rise, grunting ever louder, and started to take initiative in the rallies. She won 3 straight games to take the final set 7-5.
Even though I had no part in the contest, I was emotionally drained and felt as if being a part of the audience gave me a deeper understanding of what it means to suffer and to be human. As she signed autographs for the horde of fans gathered around Court 11, Michelle’s tears were gone, replaced with a smile. After the match, I told her that watching her play gave me goose bumps. Her smile grew bigger still.
This particular episode makes me wonder whether we’re looking at women’s tennis from the wrong perspective. There is no question that the woman’s game is inherently weaker than the men’s game. Weaker serves, weaker athletes; weaker competition. Yet, what I saw today made me consider that, perhaps, overcoming weakness is a greater show of strength than having no weakness in the first place. ATP players are too good; too perfect. I cannot fathom Roger (Federer) and Novak (Djokovic), and how they make tennis look so impossibly easy while I struggle to get 3 decent shots over the net in a row. What I can relate to, however, is the day-in-day-out struggle of WTA players with their opponent, their environment and most importantly, themselves. That I can identify with.
Imagine a WTA commercial where Maria Sharapova talks about serving 25 double-faults in a match; where Li Na talks about quitting tennis for 2 years at the peak of her youth due to burnout; where Sabine Lisicki talks about crying for hours after yet another tennis injury. It is something to be proud of? Not really. Yet once a non-believer realizes that these moments of intense weakness are followed by great exploits (Maria’s career Grand Slam, Li Na’s French Open triumph, Sabine’s many comebacks), he’ll be a fan for life. I believe we watch sports as much for the drama and the emotional roller-coaster, as we do for the quality of the spectacle. Maybe someone out there will agree with me."
(An excerpt from Half-Volleys, Stories from the US Open Qualifications)
"...I’ll end today’s segment with my favorite story of the day – watching Michelle Larcher de Brito argue, cry and fight her way through her first-round qualifying match against Ekaterina Dzhehalevich.
De Brito was already down a break in the final set when I arrived on Court 11. What drew me in at first was the oddity of her grunt (or scream, to be more accurate). While players like Azarenka and Sharapova are known for their grunting, de Brito takes it to the next level. Her grunts are high-pitched squeals which often vary in volume and were rarely timed with the impact of the ball against her racquet. While Vika or Maria may exhale loudly upon contact, which in theory enhances the power of their strokes, Michelle instead holds her breath and waits until the ball is over the net to let our her shrieks. It seemed constricting and ineffective, as evidenced by her trailing in the deciding set. I thought back to when I first saw her name in a Tennis Magazine article, she was 15 then and was proclaimed to be the next best thing out of Bollettieri’s. Seeing her in person today, I wondered what all the hype was about.
Nothing comes easy for Michelle. At 5 foot 5 inches, she doesn’t have the effortless power or the long reach of other Bollettieri phenoms - she gets no free lunches. Every point needed to be earned with an aggressive string of shots hit near or inside the baseline. Her instinct is to retreat, but she wills herself to move in, time and time again. Her misses are punctuated by shrill screams, delivered while bent-over toward the court. Her winners are accompanied by an equally high-pitched “Come-On” she perfected in Bradenton along with her backhand and forehand. In the middle of the set, still a break down, Michelle grinds her way to a break point. She seemed to be back in the match as Dzhehalevich pulls a backhand wide, but a questionable overrule erases that ray of hope.
“Are you serious right now?” She barks at the chair umpire. “Tell me that the ball was on the line.” She dared the umpire.
“It was on the line,” he said.
“Shut up…” she muttered while walking back to the baseline. Then, she began to cry.
At that point, more and more people were gathering around the court to watch this train-wreck of a match unfold. Dzhehalevich, grunting louder than de Brito now, holds on and is a game away from the match at 5-3. Meanwhile, de Brito is borderline hysterical. Her world is collapsing around her, it seems. She cries, weeps and lets out sighs of despair – during points. Somehow she forces herself inside the court often enough to hold one more time, putting the pressure on her opponent to serve it out at 5-4.
While de Brito and Dzhehalevich were pulling up and holding back on their strokes, across the walkway on Court 10, ATP pros Bradley Klahn and Diego Junquiera were trading topspin missiles and serving lights-out. Their ball-striking and decision-maker had no traces of nerves, they were playing a cleaner and better version of tennis. Yet I stayed on Court 11, where serves were being hit at 110KPH rather than 100MPH, because I felt emotionally compelled to see this match through. Klahn and Junquiera may as well be flawless, emotionless robots designed specifically to trade ground strokes and volleys. On the other hand, with every swing and every grunt, I could see fear, resentment and inadequacy on the faces of Michelle Larcher de Brito. Four more points; if she’s crying now, then what is she going to do once she loses? At 30-all, the large crowd gathered around the court was 2 points away from finding out.
All of a sudden, though, it was Dzhehalevich who got tight. It started with an errand overhead which gave her opponent a break point, followed by a feeble double-fault which turned the 5-4 lead into a 5-5 stalemate. Just like that, the momentum of the match completely changed. De Brito began taking balls off the rise, grunting ever louder, and started to take initiative in the rallies. She won 3 straight games to take the final set 7-5.
Even though I had no part in the contest, I was emotionally drained and felt as if being a part of the audience gave me a deeper understanding of what it means to suffer and to be human. As she signed autographs for the horde of fans gathered around Court 11, Michelle’s tears were gone, replaced with a smile. After the match, I told her that watching her play gave me goose bumps. Her smile grew bigger still.
This particular episode makes me wonder whether we’re looking at women’s tennis from the wrong perspective. There is no question that the woman’s game is inherently weaker than the men’s game. Weaker serves, weaker athletes; weaker competition. Yet, what I saw today made me consider that, perhaps, overcoming weakness is a greater show of strength than having no weakness in the first place. ATP players are too good; too perfect. I cannot fathom Roger (Federer) and Novak (Djokovic), and how they make tennis look so impossibly easy while I struggle to get 3 decent shots over the net in a row. What I can relate to, however, is the day-in-day-out struggle of WTA players with their opponent, their environment and most importantly, themselves. That I can identify with.
Imagine a WTA commercial where Maria Sharapova talks about serving 25 double-faults in a match; where Li Na talks about quitting tennis for 2 years at the peak of her youth due to burnout; where Sabine Lisicki talks about crying for hours after yet another tennis injury. It is something to be proud of? Not really. Yet once a non-believer realizes that these moments of intense weakness are followed by great exploits (Maria’s career Grand Slam, Li Na’s French Open triumph, Sabine’s many comebacks), he’ll be a fan for life. I believe we watch sports as much for the drama and the emotional roller-coaster, as we do for the quality of the spectacle. Maybe someone out there will agree with me."
) because from the first point of a 250 tournament through the final she shows the same competitive spirit.
