(Pic for Forty Deuce by Love All)
Ok, y'all seem to hate "Latisha". So I'm going to go with Chevy Nova and Pavs. The kid is so rad she gets two Forty Deuce nicknames.
Tignor has picked up on Chevy Nova's awesomeness. This kid is going to be gold for soundbites. She's like a cross between Dina's candidness and Ana's charm:
The most noticeable difference, at first glance, between then
and now is Pavlyuchenkova's height. By sight, she appears to have shot up 2 to
3 inches. Apparently, that isn't true. In her press conference, she's asked if
she's grown in the past year.
Pavlyuchenkova responds, her eyes widening as she goes,
"I thought so, yes. Compared to my coach, every time I walk, I'm like, Look,
I grew up. And we go to measure and it's the same height. I'm like, No? How
come?
"And the medical checkup here," she went on (we've
got another chatterer on our hands), "they measured the length of my legs.
They grew up 2 centimenters. The legs are growing but not me. It's a
miracle." (Fortunately she's a funny chatterer.)
Taller or not, Pavlyuchenkova is
hitting harder and with infinitely more accuracy than she did last year
at Wimbledon. Once a rally gets
underway, she inevitably backs the slighter Radwanska behind the
baseline. There
are times when Radwanska is forced to bend both legs to meet the ball
as it
skids toward her, like a hockey goalie stopping a slap shot from center
ice.
Pavlyuchenkova's shots are much heavier than Radwanska's.
You can hear the difference: The Russian's come off her strings with a thick
thud. She gets all of the ball, as they say in baseball. Like most other young
women players, her backhand is more reliable. She begins with a long,
Davenport-esque loop. The result, like Lindsay's so often was, is a
devastatingly flat and penetrating ball.
If her backhand is reminiscent of other new WTA stars, her
manner is less intense and temperamental than, say, the personality of her
fellow breakout performer this week, Victoria Azarenka. That's not to say that
Pavlyuchenkova doesn't get
frustrated. When she makes an error, she can spin toward her coaches with as
much disbelieving fury as the next millionare girl. But where Azarenka is lean
and wiry and perpetually ready to be enraged, Pavlyuchenkova is husky and stolid. Her steps around the court aren't
light, but she pushes off with power. After a crucial miss today, she makes a
face of modest disgust—"Ugh"—but doesn't take time to berate herself.
"I think I'm getting more confident,"
Pavlyuchenkova says when asked about how she turned around the result from last
year's match with Radwanska. "I think five or six times is enough to learn
how to play against her. Well, if you're not stupid."
Recent Comments