If anyone deserves a thread in the new Romanian Forum, it is this girl. Monica Niculescu is currently ranked 205 in the World but will be very close to her career high of 188 when the rankings after Wimbledon come out. She is not yet 20 years old and so she still has plenty of time to get that ranking up and become a fixture within the top 100.
Personally I for one hope very much that she does. Monica is an exceptional unique talent in the tennis world as anyone who has seen will attest. Almost certainly she has the most unusual game with the top 200 (okay she 205 right now but I'm quite sure she won't be out the top 200 again for a very long time).
Describing her playing style is not easy but I will try. Both her forehand and backhand are played sometimes with one hand and sometimes with two. When she hits with two hands it usually means she is going for more pace whereas when she hits with one hand it usually means she going for an offpace shot of some kind often with underspin. She hits some very strange slices that I really couldn't begin to describe. She is also an exceptional volleyer with amazing improvisational skills and has great touch on dropshots and a nice lob. Quite simply she has so many shots at her disposal that one never knows what is coming next. It must be very hard indeed to get any sort of rhythm against her. This is just one attempt to describe the strange unusual play of Monica Niculescu but it would certainly be fun to read other descriptions of her game within this thread.
Monica is a player who should have the support of everyone who loves Women's tennis but gets tired of loads of women with the same style just wacking the ball back to each other as hard as they can. For fans who love slice and touch shots, who prefer the artistry of Fabrice Santoro to the ball bashing of most of the modern game, Monica Niculescu is the girl for you.
Lets support her in this thread, because tennis will be so much richer with someone with her unique and special skills in the mix.
italianca era o paine de mincat,dar monica a jucat mizerabil primul set,ma disperat cu mingile alea plouate si trimise in mijlocul terenului,italianca statea acolo ca un plop asteptind sa cada mingea..hai bafta pt. setul 2
da a facut mai multe greseli decit ca de obicei,dar sa fim seriosi italianca nu e o jucatoare agresiva,nici nu are lovituri puternice,monica a avut multe sanse sa o desloce din centrul terenului,si sa o plimbe putin.nu spun ca trebuia sa joace la linie,1.5 m.stinga,dreapta era de ajuns ..castiga fara prob. monica daca cont. sa joace asa,ma tem ca la sfirsitul anului nici in top 40 o sa mai fie.
Monica should win this one if Madrid really is that fast. LDL only had scrubs to beat in Q who squandered a gazillion of BPs and I don't see any weapons in her game that could troble Nics, to be honest, not to mention that her serve works better on faster courts anyway.
Well I hope the court is fast for Monica's sake. But it is a huge advantage getting into the main draw with a couple of qualie wins under your belt. And LDL is the kind of player I can see giving Monica a lot of trouble on clay. She will certainly get a lot of balls back and I can see LDL winning the battle to keep the error count low. On top of that Monica's results the last couple of months have been poor.
In short, to be completely honest, I'm not optimistic about this match. But Monica is sometimes a hard player to predict what she will do and I would never doubt her ability to surprise me.
EDIT: You didn't mention she wasted SPs as well...
It takes a certain shit to outchoke LDL, of course it has to be one of my compatriots to fulfill all the requirements to do so.
And even though this is clay we are talking about such a scoreline is inexcusable. So many aces this week, it rather plays like an idoor court and getting bageled by Lourdes on such a fast surface...
I'm honestly and seriously surprised it was that close. Return was working very well today judging by stats, service is a big joke on slow courts as expected (held only twice the whole match).