The dream baseball contest between two of the top hard-hitters in WTA
Serena "forever rusty" Williams vs Lucie "rise like a phoenix" Safarova
Will Serena shake off the rust to roll towards her 23rd slam title in chase of making up for lack of calendar slam with more slam titles overall than Steffi?
Or maybe matchpoint defense specialist Lucie Safarova will perform the first ultimate exorcism of 2017?
I think it will be the same like that Bencic-match. Lucie is a great player but too far from her best to trouble Serena. Serena herself will also keep improving after getting more matches under her belt. I also think that Safarova's gamestyle is not uncomfortable for Serena.
She's hardly comfortable for anyone excluding Kvitova, that left hand game combined with windy conditions can be a living nightmare. Someone said on youtube that the only bigger nightmare to play than Safarova and Kvitova in windy conditions would be left-handed version of Radwanska in windy conditions.
Hopefully Lucie wins but I wouldn't mind Serena winning either as she needs to reclaim that No 1 rank ASAP and restore order. I think Serena will win 6-2,3-6,6-3
Same story before every Serena match: slow powerful girls get talked up, "weaponless" girls get dismissed, as though no one's paid attention to the pattern of what type of players can actually trouble Serena.
Sometimes one win can change your whole behaviour on court. If she gets pumped by those 9 saved match points with thinking "9 mps were not enough to beat me, so even Serena won't beat me" and plays inspired game, she has a chance.
Schiavone played out her heart and her mind and defeated Stosur in FO 2010, when in reality Stosur's overall performance should allow Schiavone to win 3 games in this final. Kerber also defeated Serena with "you won't stop me" attitude.
The problem is Safarova is one of those persons that are scared of Serena. It showed when she was outplaying Serena in that FO 2015 Final and suddenly folded like a cheap tent because of fear.
If those girls were paying no respect like 2004-2007 field, Serena would be out of top 5 today.
We've seen Serena play passive or error-strewn tennis many times on big points in recent years, including when trying to close out Safarova in the RG final.
But unlike Wickmayer, even if that happens, what Serena won't do is completely fold and get breadsticked in the decider.
Something wise Henin said after she choked the Miami final to Serena: she wasn't angry at herself for choking the MPs, she was angry with how she reacted to losing the MPs.