Flashes of the beautiful tennis that Schiavone has produced throughout her career, but a lot of careless errors (including off normal rally slices) that she would never have done in her prime.
Francesca has had an amazing career, but I will not miss her constant complaining and that grunt at all. She was making faces about balls that she thought were out that were actually inside the lines.
Julia played great today, and it was encouraging to see her step up and close it out when she was getting tight. She's getting closer and closer to the top 100 for the fist time!
It is Francesca's time. She had amazing AO's in 2010 and 2011. Defeated Aga, scared Venus, defeated Kuznetsova. She is the shadow of her former self and it hurts to see her like that.
Congrats go out to Julia on her first ever AO MD victory :yeah:
Franny Hopefully she can muster up a nice run during the clay season. The tour will feel a little less animated next year without her on the courts :crying:
Sad final appearance for Sexa - Really was a shadow of her former self, and I think the feeling of knowing these are her last visits are putting a lot of self inflicted pressure on her. She looked very frustrated missing a lot of routine shots. I hope she can use this time to just have fun and play freely, she's had an outstanding career and needs to go out there with nothing to lose at this stage.