7-5, 7-6(6)
Justine and Elena, for 2 hours and 55 minutes, put on, according to some, THE GREATEST WOMEN'S MATCH OF THE LAST 5 YEARS IF NOT OF ALL TIME. To me, it was a good WTA match, with high drama, that Justine won. There was tremendous shotmaking by both players, shows of guts and courage to battle back, and a lot of nerves and stupidity that created the drama. Like I said, a good WTA match. But Henin/Pova at SEC 07 it was not. It wasn't even Serena/Lena SW19 09.
Justine was impressive in her net play. She approached the net around 40 times and won a crap load of points there. She's clearly getting ready for Wimbledon. But the other part of her game that she'll need for Wimbledon is her serve, and that wasn't there. She struggled mightily with her toss and with her serve generally, throwing in 4 DFs in her first service game alone. Her inability to serve out a game kept Lena in the match. The frightening thing is that if she was serving well, this would have been a 63 63 win.
Perhaps the most impressive thing about Justine's performance was her focus and intensity. It never wavered. She always looked like she believed (even when she was looking at Carlos for coaching advice -- which he gave) and in the end, that's what won her the match. Well, that and Carlos' coaching advice from the stands. Which was plentiful.
All that said, still can't stand her, don't enjoy watching her play, and really, if I didn't have to write about her for the rest of the year, I could care two shits about her.
Too bad it won't be this one.
