The "summarize Maria's season" thread.

2010 is over. It's off-season. And I thought of this a couple of days ago.
For me, this season SCREAMS "missed opportunities". :shrug: I'll try to give some short comments on all the matches Masha lost but could have won this year.

Starting off at the AO. R1 vs Kiri 7-6 3-6 6-4.
Maria goes up a break fast in the first set and had numerous chances to win it but then fucked up in the TB.
Won the second set quite swimmingly but lost momentum yet again in the third. Came back from 5-2 down eventually (I think) to mess it up at 4-5. Not taking anything away from lil' Masha though, she played a tremendous match.
W/UE count: 45/66. DFs: 11. BP conversion: 5 out of 16. :help:

Indian Wells. R3 vs Zheng 6-3 2-6 6-3.
Maria barely scrapes through her second round against Dushevina. And plays a close to horrid match against Jie.
Loses first set easily, but claws back in second. Breaks early in the third set to take a small but normally decisive lead. Then the serve and ground game falls apart and Maria chokes her lead. :confused: Although later was revealed she had an elbow injury. Now imagine if she would have won this match and went deeper in the draw, this could have lead to aggravating the injury and being out for longer than "just" 2 months.

French Open. R3 vs Henin 6-2 3-6 6-3.
Henin comes out firing, Maria plays subpar which results in a easy first set for Henin. Masha then shows her fighting spirit and plays her (in my opinion) most intense, aggressive and impressive set of the entire year. Charging the net full of confidence, basically OUTPLAYING Henin on her own favoured surface and Maria's worst. Maria takes the second set having great momentum but the match gets suspended due to the darnkess. Maria comes out firing the next day to make an early break. She leads 2-0 and has nothing less than 4 break points to go up 3-0. But squanders them all and ends up losing. Disappointing loss.

Birmingham. Final vs Na Li 7-5 6-1.
There is nothing much to say about this one. IIRC Maria led 5-3 in the first set but fell apart once Na went into utter destruction mode. The second set was a complete fail on Maria's part, looked like she stopped trying after Na raised her game a couple of levels.

Wimbledon. R4 vs Serena Williams 7-6(9) 6-4.
Maria gets broken in her second service game of the match but battles back and reclaims the break. They charge towards the TB where Maria has at least 2 set points but fails to take advantage yet again. A DF at 7-7 gives Rena the much needed opportunity to win the set and take definitive command of the match. Poor second set from Maria - comparable to the second set vs Li 2 weeks earlier.

Cincinnati. Final vs Kim Clijsters 2-6 7-6(4 6-2.
IMO most painful loss for me and most likely for Maria as well.
Clijsters plays subpar and Maria charges into a 6-2 5-3 lead playing decent tennis. Squanders 3 match points before the rain spoils the party and ruins Maria's momentum. Very close to finally winning that big match aginst the top player but this one throws Maria even deeper down the confidence pit.

US Open. R4 vs Caroline Wozniacki 63 64.
Windy conditions. Maria struggles on her first service game but manages to hold. Wozniacki does eventually break for a 4-2 lead. Maria then gets it together and breaks back immediately, takes a comfortable 40-15 lead in her next service game. But then the serve COMPLETELY falls apart. As if you ruin a house of paper by just slightly blowing your breath. Maria hits 4 DFs in a row and literally gives Woz the set. Onto second set where Maria has some early opportunities to go up a break but wastes them, yet again. Wozniacki takes an inevitable lead by breaking Maria's serve and serves out the match easily. Despite being praised for her great attacking play by desperate Wozniacki fans, Maria was 32/36 for her winners/UE count, hits 9 DFs and is 1 out of 9 in her BP conversion. Enough said.

Tokyo. R1 vs Kimiko Date-Krumm.
Didn't see the whole match so there's only one thing I can say about it.
Defending champ Maria lead 3-2 40-0 in the third set but chokes like a stripper on a dildo.
Although there were reports of Maria having a cold and not being able to train on a normal, frequent schedule.

the good thing is that she never lost 2 times with the same rival

basically she could have won all those important close matches that she lost this year...proving that her biggest issue right now is lack of confidence, which translates into her shaky serving performances. And we all know - when her serve goes AWOL, all of her game falls apart. Get it together Masha, please...

I would describe this season as dissapointing. Never really did well in the Slams and also it was fustrating too, with the injuries.

And I agree with you on the Clijsters loss being most painful. That one was hard to get over and forget. And the unfornutate part is not only did it crush us, it crushed Maria too as she wasn't really the same after that.

She said it herself, it was a mediocre one. Though as long as she is on court and not injured I am more than happy.

If a couple of matches had gone her way, I would consider her season to be a success. Particularly her matches against Henin, Serena and Clijsters.She was up a break and 40-0 in the henin match,had sps in the serena match and mps against clijsters.Overall, her season was mediocre and there were some absolutely horrific matches aswell like the one against kirilenko and wozniacki.:o

semi-crap.

Bitter-sweet.

Hopefully the proof of the pudding will be in the eating.

(rande!) :)

Mixed bag.

There were some good points too. :p

Mixed bag.

There were some good points too. :p
Do share.

Do share.

She won her first title on red clay for starters. :D

You can't finish the year in the Top 20 with a 100% crap season. :p Of course there's room for improvement. I have faith for 2011. :banana:

She won her first title on red clay for starters. :D

You can't finish the year in the Top 20 with a 100% crap season. :p Of course there's room for improvement. I have faith for 2011. :banana:
She won Strasbourg. Even on clay she is capable of achieving much more than that.
Maria was actually pretty lucky to finish the year inside the top 20 because she was out of it until some players ahead of her lost a chunk of points.

She won Strasbourg. Even on clay she is capable of achieving much more than that.
Maria was actually pretty lucky to finish the year inside the top 20 because she was out of it until some players ahead of her lost a chunk of points.

OK it was a crap season. :lol: Even when she made finals of events she was hardly ever playing really good tennis (kind of like Clijsters but with less success :o). But I don't think it's panic time yet. If she has another crap season in '11 then it's time to panic. :tape:

OK it was a crap season. :lol: Even when she made finals of events she was hardly ever playing really good tennis (kind of like Clijsters but with less success :o). But I don't think it's panic time yet. If she has another crap season in '11 then it's time to panic. :tape:
I know. Maria just needs to train frequently, hard and will need some luck for once to stay healthy. She has SO much points up for grabs in events like AO, IW, Miami etc. It's hard not to see her back in the top 10 if she stays healthy during that part of the season.

I really hope she isn't injured during the clay season again, as she could pick up so many points during that time.

And I know clay is her worst surface, but I actually think she can play really well on clay (after all, her best slam result in the past two years is at the French Open). And I do think she's capable of winning the French Open.

It was poopoo caca shit.

Yay for 2011 :cheer:

well said Jack and 'Renka

You forgot Beijing to Vesnina. :D

Poova hogged up 2010 :ras: the only positives i saw was RG, Wim and cincy.

You forgot Beijing to Vesnina. :D
I wasn't sure if Maria was ever in a winning position in that match (plus I didn't see it), so I left it out. :p

the fact is maria supposed to win the matches against both belgians and the similar thing is the belgians saved by the rain. unfortunate for poor maria.