I’ve attended the WTA Pattaya Open tennis tournament for the first time and watched quite a few matches during the week.

Checking the draw for the WTA PTT Pattaya Open 2009

Here’s a short analysis of each player that I watched so you can compare it with what you see when you watch a match and perhaps expand your knowledge of tennis and ways to analyze a player.

Let’s start with the Thailand #1, Tamarine Tanasugarn… (WTA rankings are from 9. February 2009)

Tamarine Tanasugarn, WTA #41

Strentghts: Tamarine is an excellent player when it comes to tactics. She can clearly see the weaknesses of her opponents and knows how to exploit them. She pummeled at Mirza’s backhand for example for the whole match and prevented Sania from using her powerful forehand.

Her strokes are efficient although not extremely powerful, she also plays very flat and the ball skids of the hard court very fast and it’s difficult to anticipate the bounce and time the stroke.

Weaknesses: Tamarine is slightly slower now at over 30 years old and finds it difficult to change directions when she is wrong footed. Her serve can work at times, but her second serve can be an easy picking for a top player.

She’s also not comfortable coming to the net although there are many situations when she could do that. Zvonareva, Rybarikova and Mirza showed many times how a late approach to the net works very well when the opponent defends with a slow and high defensive ball.

Vera Zvonareva, WTA #5

Strengths: Zvonareva plays very smart tennis and doesn’t really blow opponents off the court, but outplays them. When you see her play points for a while you find it difficult to pinpoint what exactly makes her so good, but when you look at the score, she’s winning.

In my opinion, it’s a combination of many small things that she does right and many small mistakes that her opponents make but she doesn’t.

Her backhand is very good and she can hit a winner from the baseline almost every time if she can set up for the ball. She is also very good at the net and has a very high percentage of points won at the net because she chooses her approaches very wisely.

Weaknesses: She is a top 10 player so there aren’t any big weaknesses in her game. What she’s missing to be a top 3 or winning a Grand Slam is a weapon. All her shots are good, but she would need a more powerful forehand to win big matches. She might try to take the balls earlier when possible and take time from her opponents in this way instead of hitting harder.

Magdalena Rybarikova, WTA #51

Strengths: Rybarikova is the best women tennis PLAYER that I’ve ever seen play. Note that I said “player” and not hitter.

Rybarikova can play: a one-handed backhand slice, drop shot, can approach the net with a slice down the line, knows how to cover the net (even many top 20 girls are »lost« at the net), can volley extremely well, even from behind the service line when she approaches late, can serve flat (she served 3 aces in one game at some point), wide slice and top spin, and her inside out forehand is a major weapon.

She is a joy to watch and can tactically dismantle any player that doesn’t blow her off the court.

Weaknesses: Her two-handed backhand is solid but not really a weapon. It’s has slight technical weaknesses and this costs her a point here and there when she’s in trouble or is returning a tough serve. You will definitely hear much more of Rybarikova in the future and she will definitely crack the top 20 in the near future.

Caroline Wozniacki, WTA #12

Strengths: Caroline’s technique has no major weaknesses and she plays a very high percentage tennis. She doesn’t really beat opponents with winners (as Mirza or Williams sisters can do), but she forces a lot mistakes from them while at the same time keeps her unforced error count very low.

She is also built perfectly for tennis; is strong, tall but not too tall and still fast enough to defend well if she has to.

Weaknesses: Caroline has been in my opinion trained with too much emphasis on percentages. She is not a player when it comes to outsmarting her opponents. She was jerked around by Rybarikova in their match (which Rybarikova won) and almost every time lost a point when it came to outfoxing the opponent at the net, in defense or when playing short cross court shots.

She is very good in standard rallies from the baseline but really lost if someone plays something new. She also approached the net cross court at very occasion which prevented her to cover the net properly and Rybarikova punished her for that almost every time.

Sania Mirza, WTA #126

Strengths: Sania Mirza is the Andre Agassi of women’s tennis when it comes to hitting the ball in the cleanest possible way. Her forehand is a major weapon. She hits is very flat but her talent and timing save her from making too many unforced errors. (at least when she is on)

She was also very calm and composed in her matches and seemed to finally mature to a point where she really wants to make more of her talent and potential instead of putting on a show.

She is also a very good volleyer (she won the Australian Open mixed doubles title in 2009) and has to ability to serve and volley or approach the net normally or late if she chooses so.

Weaknesses: She plays too many backhands in the open stance when she could have hurried up a little bit more, get into a closed stance and hit a more powerful backhand with even more control.

She also plays a very risky game and she would need to really learn from Andre Agassi on how to combine the ability to hit a winner from almost anywhere in the court with playing more high percentage tennis.

For example, when she returns the first serve, she hits back with almost full power. This results in some winners but also many mistakes when in fact she could have blocked the ball back deep and planned her attacks from the baseline.

Definitely a player to watch in 2009. Has the talent and weapons to be top 5 but she would need to really get a good understanding of tennis strategy and probabilities – like Serena Williams is able to do right now.

Ksenija Pervak, WTA #155

Strengths: Ksenija Pervak is another rising player who is not afraid of big names on the WTA tour. In her match against Wozniacki she attacked smart and outplayed her opponent many times with short cross court angles and wrong footing shots.

She is mentally tough and focused to the end. She lost a lead of 5:1 to Wozniacky but still won the set in tie-break. You won’t see this happen many times in the WTA tour…

Weaknesses: Pervak is not a tall player and does not possess extremely powerful strokes. She has to compensate this with her mental game and tactics. Her serve is not technically great and can break down. She also needs to become better at the net (like Rybarikova) to be able to compensate her lack of weapons from the baseline.

Shahar Peer, WTA #48

Strengths: Shahar’s greatest strengths is her positive attitude and the willingness to fight for every point. Even when she lost a set, her body posture did not change, she still walked with a spring in her step and could hardly wait to start fighting in the next set. She has a great forehand and is very fast around the court.

Weaknesses: I noticed her tighten up on a few sitters which she missed. There is some doubt in her mind about those shots and she needs to figure out what it is. Perhaps she was criticized too much in the past for missing a sitter and this fear of failure now comes up when she has an easy ball.

She has no major weaknesses though, just lacks big weapons for top 10. She might learn from Jelena Jankovic or Wozniacki to maximize her percentages in the game – or in other words, improve her aggressive margin ratio.

And for the end, just a few thoughts about the tournament organization; while the staff was kind and ready to help any time, the tournament has two big problems:

1.  The two main courts are one beside another and there is no net or fence dividing them. This results in many stopped and replayed points, because balls from court #1 often stray into court #2 during play and vice versa.

This is extremely frustrating for the players – I’d say that there are at least 5 points per match that need to be replayed because of a stray ball from the neighbor court.

2. The stands for visitors were constructed in a somewhat improvised way and there were supporting columns right in front the spectators – in case you got such a seat. Unfortunately, I got one seat like that on Friday and this is how I was looking at the court:

Can you enjoy a match watching it like this?

The main reason why we – the visitors – came to the PTT Pattaya Open was to WATCH the matches – which means that how we SEE the court is the #1 priority for tournament organizers.

It looks like that they don’t really care about this and are trying to force the WTA tennis tournament into a place that can’t really host such a prestigious event. The constant interruptions because of stray balls and the horrible construction columns obstructing view really made my experience at this tournament a not very pleasant one.

PTT Pattaya Open stands – watching the matches through construction columns…

If the WTA really wants to hold the tournament at Dusit Thani hotel again, then they at least need to separate the courts with a low net that will catch stray balls and find a way to construct the stands without annoying supporting columns. I am sure this can be done with the 21st century construction techniques…

Related posts:


• 4 Tennis Tactics Murray Used To Outplay Nadal
• How Federer Outthought Nadal At The Masters
• Asserting themselves even in the face of defeat
• Why Rafael Nadal Wins Key Points And Big Matches
• 3 Tennis Problems You Need To Solve In The Right Order

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 15th, 2009 at 2:43 am and is filed under WTA Tour. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.