Busy day at clubgowi and we have a minimum eight previews for subscribers across two newsletters, there were five in the first email which I sent a little while ago, with two tennis write ups and three football previews and you can read one and a half of those below and I might publish another on here later today. The follow up newsletter will focus on the Saturday "morning" J-League fixtures and today marks the start of another very busy weekend at clubgowi, the 52 week per year service.
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WTA Tennis: Eastbourne:
Agnieszka Radwanska - Sloane Stephens
I was very pleased with my preview of the Sloane Stephens - Heather Watson match on Wednesday .....
Heather Watson leads the h2h 4-1, but there have only been two recent meetings and Sloane Stephens took the last of those just a few weeks ago, winning 2&4 at Roland Garros and even that scoreline doesn't do justice to the superiority of the American player in that match, she dominated all stats and the defeat could have been even more emphatic. I spoke about Stephens and how she looked a lot happier ahead of her meeting at RG with Serena Williams ......Sloane Stephens is a complex individual and often seems unhappy on court and has been accused of "giving up" in minor events, she has the all round game and athleticism to be a top ten player at least and most tennis watchers cited her as the next big thing when she burst onto the scene as a teenager, the new "Serena" tag was a bit of a curse she had to live with and her game has not quite kicked on as all would have hoped, she is top 30 instead of top 10 right now, which is where she should be. There have been signs that she is starting to get things back on track, she took Serena close in Indian Wells and has not been troubled at Roland Garros, where she had a lot of success as a junior, through three rounds. She seems a little happier off court, both with her love life and with coach Nick Saviano who looks a better fit for her, she was with him as a teenager and it has been a bit of a return to basics over the last six months and I feel we are starting to see the fruition of this and also perhaps a return to 100% fitness, SS has had a few issues in recent years and was troubled especially by a left wrist injury for some time, this is the first year since her breakthrough that she has really be able to work flat out ahead of the big summer slams . This is the fourth straight year she has made R4 in Paris and after sticking close to Stosur, Sharapova and Halep in each, she can perhaps take it up a notch and run Serena even closer, Williams has not been as formidable on serve through the first week, making a lot of df's and at the very least, I see Stephens taking seven games.
That was all over in terms of the handicap early , with Stephens winning the first set 6-1 , before Serena took it in the third, but she was mighty close to going out in straight sets, but as we know, Serena likes to live on the edge ! Stephens has won two matches here already and looked very solid against Carla Suarez Navarro yesterday, who is always a tough opponent. SS was again fast out of the blocks ( taking the first set 6-1) and her second serve was in very fine shape.
Watson admitted to being nervous in her three opening matches on grass, saying that she felt real pressure in front of her home crowd and more anxious than at any time in her career, she has managed to win two, but lost the opening set in two and the other went to a tie break and with Stephens making a very nice habit of starting quickly, this could get away from Watson almost before it has begun. The British player has already given up 23 break points here and I am strongly in the Stephens side of the court.
That played out almost exactly as thought/hoped and Stephens was 4-0 up within minutes and the match effectively over as a contest. I said before that Stephens is a "complex" character and she can often look almost disinteretsed, but she is right at the top of her game at present and is as good an athlete as pretty much any other woman on tour and perhaps more importantly, she seems very happy with her coach and life right and was extremely relaxed yesterday and gave the media a lot of time after her quarter final was awarded as a walk over, with Daria Gavrilova defaulting. I do not feel that is always an advantage, but maybe after playing Roland Garros , going deep here and with Wimbledon starting on monday, it is no bad thing.
Agnieszka Radwanska is very comfortable on grass and has served us well at Wimbledon where she has a wonderful record, she has shown her first real ( top 5) form in 12 months on the return to the surface this last month, but this will be her 8th game on grass and she did run out of steam in her Wimbledon quarter final following her last deep run at Eastbourne and now that she is 100% match fit, maybe she might feel subconsciously at least, that she doesn't need to go any further. Having said that, a tournament win , her first in 45 weeks would be a big confidence boost, but it might be on her mind, if she has realistic dreams of winning the grand slam event and I feel she is a very legitimate contender for the Wimbledon title. She has a losing record this year against shorter players and at 1.7m Stephens fits into that category and Agie lost to diminutive Monica Niculescu at Nottingham in the semis. I expect this to be close and will suggest............1.25 units Sloane Stephens +3.5 games 2.09 Pinnacle Sports/ Sportmarket Pro.
Belinda Benic- Caroline Wozniacki
Caroline Wozniacki is a former winner and now four time semi finalist here at Eastbourne and clearly feels very comfortable in the surroundings and the playing surface here is much more to her liking than the grass at Wimbledon and we will doubtless talk about that next week. She has taken a little while to get into matches this week, losing her opening set to Svetlana Kuznetsova and here three opening service games to Andrea Petkovic yesterday, before running away with both from that stage on, she has returned like a dream and is making very few errors, at least once she is into her match, game plan and groove, but as I just said, it is taking a little time.
We discussed Belinda Benic is some detail ahead of her match with Eugenie Bouchard on Wednesday ..........
Belinda Benic is just 18 yo, but has a very experienced head on her shoulders and a shrewd tennis brain, she has been groomed as the new Martina Hingis and has the former #1 in her camp , along with Hingis' mother, we discussed this last summer, ahead of a meeting with Daniela Hantuchova ..........
Hantuchova arrives here as defending champions, with a lot of ranking points to protect and it seems odd to see her as underdog in betting facing a 17 yo, who has only just broken into the top 100 and only made her senior tour debut on grass yesterday, but Belinda Benic is no ordinary 17 yo. If you believe the hype, she is the next big thing and an old head on very young shoulders.
The Swiss players has been groomed for stardom since she was four years old, she made her big breakthrough in 2013 taking the Junior titles at both the French Open and Wimbledon and seeing off Taylor Townsend , who made plenty of headlines in the Roland Garros main event this year, in both.That secured her the #1 ranking, but means little on the main tour, however, she came through qualifying at the Australian Open, beat veteran Kimiko Date-Krumm in the first round, before losing to eventual champion Li Na in the second. Sometimes you learn more about players in defeat and I liked what I saw there, it was a big stage and the youngster was blown away in the first set 6-0 in a little over 20 minutes, most would have given up then, but future champions don't and the Swiss Miss took the second to a tie breaker, which could have gone either way.
A decent Spring campaign has seen Bencic move into the top 80 and obviously a return to grass will hold no fear, nor will a return to Wimbledon. She actually played two tournaments in Japan on grass at the end of 2013, winning seven matches and making a final and semi. Yesterday she made her WTA debut on the surface and saw off another top teenager, albeit one almost a year older in Donna Vekic, in straight sets. Vekic made the final here last year, losing 7-6 6-4 to Hantuchova and if Benic can follow up today, it will really highlight her grass court potential. I wanted to say it will make eveyone sit up and take notice, but everyone who has seen her play, already has and her ability is no secret to the tennis world. She has been compared to Martina Hingis and whilst tennis has moved on since her heyday, they are tactically from the same mould, Bencic is a highly intelligent player and tactically astute way beyond her years.
Tennis great Chris Evert has seen a lot of her in Florida and said :"She's very focused mentally, emotionally very composed and I just thought from day one: 'She has it.'"
Mother of Hingis , Melanie Molitor has worked with Bencic since she was seven years old and said that the teenager is relentless in preparation and sacrifice and can out think opponents."We've put much emphasis on discipline and versatility. I think it makes a big difference that she is versatile and can rely on all these shots on the court.
Bencic is the worst kept secret in tennis, you do not have 11 sponsors before your 16th birthday, without having the X factor.
I have seen quite a bit of Bencic over the last fortnight and she is clearly ready for the big breakthrough, she made the final in 's-Hertogenbosch and saw off defending champion Madison Keys in straight sets yesterday to record her seventh win on grass already this year and is battle hardened and ready to rumble ! I do have to say, that Keys' body language was terrible and I would need to see her win comprehensively before backing her against anyone right now, she looked and talked ( to her coach) like a loser almost from the third game onwards and we really need to keep an eye on her next week. Keys has the game to win Wimbledon, but needs to get her head right, but that is kind of where this preview started and I have got distracted !
Bencic is very much of the Hingis mould and is a naturally clever tennis player, but I have also seen huge improvement in her serve, if I tell you that she made 85% of first serves yesterday, you would probably think she was "dolly" serving some of those, but they were big and well placed and she won 83% of FS points. Courts should be a little faster today and there should be a few cheap points for both players.
Bouchard retired in the second set, but Bencic was well on top at the time and she followed up with a three set defeat of local girl Johanna Konta, who has been in the form of her life, yesterday. Bencic was very focused after drooping the opening set and won the next two for the loss of only three games.
She has met Wozniacki twice before, both on hard courts, the Dane won the first 0&0 which would have been devastating for the youngster, but she took the second 4&4 in Indian Wells this spring and that tells you something about the improvement she has made, but more about her mental fortitude. She claims that grass feels natural to her game and that she is "just" able to play on it, despite her success here in the past, I do not........... the rest of this preview is available only to subscribers to the full clubgowi newsletter service.
Good Luck.
