Coaching contributes to Sharapova, Kuznetsova
wins Slipping Nadal loses to Berdych
By Chris Bowers and Ron Cioffi,
Tennisreporters.net
Cynthia Lum
Maria Sharapova called on hitting
partner Michael Joyce to get her out of a "desperate" situation.
FROM THE ZURICH OPEN – Maria Sharapova is through to the semifinals
of the Zurich Open, the last Tier 1 event of the year on the Sony Ericsson
WTA Tour, but found herself having to deny that she had fallen victim
to a bout of desperation.
The accusation was largely of her own making. The Zurich Open is witnessing
the latest in an experiment begun in Montreal in August whereby players
can consult their coach – or a person they have designated as their
coach – at the end of each set. Sharapova has been a vehement opponent
of the scheme, and said on Tuesday that she’d “have to be
desperate” to call for her coach mid-match as that would signal
to her opponent that she was in trouble.
It therefore raised a few eyebrows when, after a tough first set against
the rising Israeli Shahar Peer on Thursday night, Sharapova summoned her hitting
partner Michael Joyce onto her bench for a consultation. When asked about this
later, she said she just wanted to refresh herself about aspects of her game
plan agreed with Joyce in advance.
“But you did call
for him?” the questioner repeated.
“Yeah, I did,” replied Sharapova neutrally.
“But you said you'd only call for your coach in the middle of a
match if you were desperate,” asked another questioner. “So were
you desperate?”
“Ah, that’s a good point, you’ve caught me on that one,” admitted
Sharapova, and giggled nervously. After a further consultation with Joyce in
her 6-4, 6-3 quarterfinal win Friday against the 17-year-old Swiss Timea Bascinszky,
she explained, “If the rule gives me a choice, I may as well use it,
but if they ask me if I like it, I’d say 'Bag it.' I don't
support it. I haven’t from the beginning. It’s like electronic
line calling – if it’s there, you may as well use it even if you
don’t like it, it would be stupid not to. But personally I don’t
like it.”
One of the points Sharapova was keen to make was that a coach is hardly
going to tell her anything earth-shattering, but in the closest of Zurich’s
quarterfinals, Svetlana Kuznetsova admitted that something her coach
Stefan Ortega had told her after the second set of her match against
Martina Hingis had in fact made her play somewhat differently than she
would have done without his input.
Kuznetsova had overpowered Hingis in the first set, at which point Hingis
summoned her old friend Radim Valigura. ”I was feeling a little
lonely out there,” Hingis admitted, and the impression the two
gave was that they were having a good social chat rather than a consultation
about tactics. But something worked, Hingis came out much more strongly
in the second set, and promptly won it 6-1.
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