The clay season is closer to its end than its beginning. Rome is the focus of the tennis world this week, as the stars on both tours gather before taking a week off in advance of the French Open, which starts on Sunday, May 28 in Paris. With just a few matches before France for the top players (the lower-level players will play in smaller tournaments just before Roland Garros), here’s a partial list of WTA pros who need to find a spark. Whether or not they’ll find that spark is another matter.
Karolina Pliskova
The player who made the highest and most pronounced climb in the WTA rankings since last August, cracking the top five after years of languishing in stagnation, is now stuck once again. Karolina Pliskova will probably be a big threat and a leading contender at both Wimbledon and the U.S. Open, but the clay season has abruptly halted her progress. Her serve-dependent game, which needs to win a lot of points quickly and use hitting to overwhelm opponents, simply doesn’t translate to red clay. Pliskova has not been able to go deep in tournaments, and the hardcourt spring – with semifinals in both Indian Wells and Miami (no other WTA player managed that achievement) – is a distant memory. Pliskova needs to find a way to pick up at least some points in the coming weeks.
Caroline Wozniacki
The Dane has lost multiple clay-court matches to Jelena Ostapenko this year. She made the final of the Miami tournament on hardcourts, but as soon as she left the cement, her results have trended downward. Wozniacki is so good at redirecting the ball from neutral and defensive positions, but on clay, she does not have the benefit of being able to alter the flight of the ball as quickly. This enables opponents to remain in good positions to send back her shots, and since Wozniacki is not the biggest hitter, this is why she’s vulnerable on the sport’s slowest surface. Wozniacki will need kind draws and better court sense in order to get through the first week of the French Open, which should be her realistic goal at this point. Getting to the quarterfinals might be asking too much. The fourth round would be a good result.
Angelique Kerber
The situation with Kerber is more dire than with Pliskova or Wozniacki. Whereas those two players have struggled on clay after doing well on hardcourts, Kerber hasn’t been able to get going on any surface in 2017. Kerber learned that the injury she suffered in Madrid was not serious at all, giving her season one of the few doses of hope it has received.
Kerber needs to translate that good news into a decent French Open run which can give her a boost for the rest of her season. Right now, though, Kerber isn’t hitting through the court with the punch and strength needed to keep her opponents off balance. That has to change.
She is going to be one of the bigger names left in the field at the French Open. That means she’s going to be among the favorites in terms of the betting odds. At the same time, she’s someone you’ll want to avoid for the time being. She’s just not playing particularly well.
Johanna Konta
Konta fits the Pliskova and Wozniacki profile. She did really well on hardcourts, beating Wozniacki in the Miami final, but simply can’t get going on red clay. If you take a closer look at the numbers, she was 19-3 on the hardcourts. That’s quite impressive. In terms of clay, though, she is just 1-2 so far. Last season, she was 38-14 on the hardcourts but was just 2-3 on clay. That marked the third straight season that she had a losing record on clay.
Several WTA players could establish a ranking several notches higher if they could translate hardcourt success to clay. Konta is one of those players, but her search for an effective clay game remains unfulfilled. A turnaround could transform the way she sees herself in a very positive fashion. Until that happens, though, she is not worth betting at the 2017 French Open.
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