They’ll try again, Simone Bolelli and Andrea Vavassori. They will try again, strengthened by the extra year of experience of the partnership which – and this is their only regret – they should have built earlier: who knows how many titles they would have won. On Saturday, in the duel with the Finn Harri Heliovaara and the Australian the English Henry Patten, they will aim for their first slam together, an undertaking that failed last year, defeated in the same Rod Laver Arena by the Australian Matthew Ebden and the Indian Rohan Bopanna .
Today’s semi-final was a very tough test, because the pair formed by the Swede Andre Goransson and the Dutch Sem Verbeek, both born in 1994, is one of the toughest seen in Melbourne in this edition, if only because they eliminated the very favorites of tournament, the award-winning Arevalo-Pavic company. For Wave it will be the third final in a major, after those in 2024 at the Australian Open and Roland Garros. For Simone it will be the fourth, because he won the title here, on the main court of Melbourne Park, ten years ago alongside Fabio Fognini.
Against Goransson-Verbeek I saw a two-sided match, with Vavassori decisive for better and for worse. In the first set the Turin player had difficulty finding rhythm and measure, while in the second and third he contributed, especially at the net, to making the point construction effective, of which his partner is a master. The momentum in favor of the Azzurri’s opponents ends when, after losing the first set (2-6), during the break Andrea and Simone think about how to prevent Goransson from often being deadly on the return. They will explain in the post-match press conference: “We weren’t able to serve like in the previous days. It was important to stop and refocus. So we were able to be more aggressive.” In the second and third sets (6-3 6-4), the Swede and the Dutchman had to suffer the accelerations of the blue couple, without being able to recover the breaks suffered at the start.
The feeling is that Bolelli, 39, and Vavassori, 29, enjoy a maturity and serenity of which they are fully aware. Thanks, they say, also to the results obtained in Adelaide before moving to Melbourne: “It gave us confidence and security to have eliminated, in the final stages of the tournament, Arevalo-Pavic and Krawietz-Puetz, against whom we had always lost lately” . Another explanation is provided by Wave: “We wanted to arrive in Melbourne having played as many matches as possible, in order to collect the useful information to best approach the first slam of the season. Last year we didn’t do it because I was playing the singles qualifiers.” The question is at least as old as professional tennis: can one be equally successful in singles and doubles at the same time? There are exceptions but they are, indeed, exceptional.
The women’s semi-finals
No surprises from the first, albeit very enjoyable, women’s semi-final played in the cool evening on Bass Strait. Aryna Sabalenka, leader of the WTA ranking, leaves Paula Badosa some hope in the opening set (6-4). In the second set the Spaniard, seeded number 11 in the tournament, deludes herself into having countermeasures suitable for her opponent’s game until the Belarusian raises the level of the power of her shots and closes in four and four eights (6-2 ). On Saturday she will play her third consecutive final in Melbourne: she won the first two, beating Elena Rybakina and Zheng Qinwen.
The surprise, however, comes from the comparison between Iga Swiatek and Madison Keys, who from next Monday, at the age of 29, will once again officially be a Top 10 player. At the start, ahead 5-2, the Pole allows the American to make an unthinkable comeback , well recommended from the box by her husband and coach Bjorn Fratangelo. More amazed than scared, the student of Wim Fissette, former coach Kim Clijsters, Simona Halep and Vika Azarenka, reacts and extends to 5-7.
But in those ten minutes of confusion something breaks in Iga’s seemingly perfect mechanism. Madison tries to escape in the second set thanks to her ability to force her opponent, with balls into the corners or to the body, to respond in uncomfortable situations. He succeeds. The WTA number 2, who at 23 years old has already lifted the cups in five slams, goes into total confusion and finds herself down 5-0, then collapses (6-1).
The balance is re-established in the last partial. In the eighth game Keys has two opportunities to serve at 5-3 in favor, which he wastes. Never make this mistake with Swiatek: in the conditions of the wounded wolf, she bites and mangles. As in the first set, in fact, the girl from Warsaw breaks the score at 5-all and, on serve, comes one step away from the final: she has a match point and lets it slip away. We go to the super tie-break, which ends with a narrow 10-8 for Madison. His date with Aryna is already scheduled for Saturday evening.
#Bolelli #Vavassori #serenity #difference
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