Tennis Atlantic

 Williams/Smyczek To Battle Yet again, This Time For A Ticket To Melbourne

As I predicted earlier in the week (pat-pat), Rhyne Williams and Tim Smyczek will do battle for the third time in post-US Open events, this time in the final of the AO WC. Smyczek has won both previous encounters both on indoor hard courts and they know each other’s games very well. Will the third time be the charm for Williams?

As for how they won today’s matches, Smyczek eased through 6-2, 6-2 over Tennys Sandgren, who never got a foothold in the match, while Williams had a much tougher time, triumphing 5-7, 7-6, 6-1 over Denis Kudla.

Kudla had the edge for the first half of the match, breaking at the end of a long, tiring first set. After routine holds, he broke for 5-3 in the second and looked like he was headed to the final. Meanwhile, Williams was frustrated and looked mentally out of it, but Kudla did not close the deal when given the chance. The second set went all the way to a tiebreak in which Williams finally found enough consistency in his game to take it.

It was a slap-happy match with a lot of forehand errors on both sides, multiple instances of repeated mis-hits, and a lot of visible frustration, including audible monologuing and racket tossing from Williams. They also struggled to hit the drop shot and pretty much resorted to trying to pound each other out from the baseline.

In the third, Kudla checked out and played nowhere near the level he had in the first two sets, gifting the match to Williams in a long, bizarre, momentum swing affair.  Williams-Kudla was also the only three set match of the weekend on both the men’s and women’s side.

—Steen Kirby