Downhole polka – Newspaper Kommersant No. 167 (7368) of 09/12/2022

The winner of the US Open was the leader of the world classification Iga Sventek, who in two sets coped with Uns Jabir from Tunisia. With her 10th career title, including a third at the Grand Slams, the 21-year-old Polish has proven herself to be unrivaled in women’s tennis. Thanks to the New York triumph, Sventek scored more ranking points than the sum of her two closest rivals – Jabir, who on Monday will rise to second place for the first time in her career, and Estonian Anett Kontaveit.

The ability to play finals is a special quality in tennis. By and large, it is by its presence that one should judge whether this or that player has a truly champion character. Each final is inevitably associated with increased nervous tension, which sometimes involuntarily shakes the hands of even the most proven fighters. And while great champions often describe psychological pressure as a privilege that comes with great victories, in fact, any of them would dearly acquire a secret that makes it guaranteed to avoid it.

The first racket of the world, Igi Sventek, also does not have such a secret. But this cheerful girl, who at the awards ceremony was startled by the thunder of firecrackers that bang behind her at the moment the championship cup was handed over to her from the hands of the legendary Martina Navratilova, learned to cope with herself in the finals better than anyone else in today’s women’s tennis. In 11 title matches, she has already won ten victories in a row, including seven in the last eight months.

Polish psychologist Daria Abramovich, who has been collaborating with Swiatek for many years, is doing a very high-quality job that helped the Polish woman continue her outstanding season.

Having victoriously completed the US Open, she overcame the milestone of 10 thousand rating points, which only five tennis players had previously managed to do. At the moment, Sventek is so far ahead of the rest that on September 12 she will have more points on her account than the sum of her two closest pursuers – her rival in the New York final Uns Jabir, who became world number two for the first time, and Estonian Anett Kontaveit, who fell according to the results of the tournament on the line below.

It is quite possible that such a person as Abramovich is greatly lacking in the Jabir team – a talented, original tennis player who has repeatedly shown strong-willed qualities, but is not always able to suppress her own jitters. Another confirmation of this was the final in New York, after which she sobbed in the locker room. This match became, as it were, a continuation of another important final – at Wimbledon, the second half of which Jabir gave to Elena Rybakina without much struggle. Now, the Tunisian tennis player took only three points in the first three games, and then failed the end of the first set and the beginning of the second, losing six games in a row.

Jabir’s sharp attacking thrusts with little to no spin backhands were impressive but rare.

Including because the Tunisian is more comfortable with a low rebound of the ball, and Shventek, with her various twists, did not give her the opportunity to catch the ideal point of impact.

True, in the middle of the second game the situation gradually leveled off. Swiatek had to win back several break points, and in the 12th game, Jabir stood to the last, and the polka failed to convert the first match point. At the tie-break, of course, in the struggle of nerves, the climax came, and out of a dozen points, the rivals managed to win only three on their serves. The fact that the latter was on account of Sventek, who won – 6:2, 7:6 (7:5) – in almost two hours, was absolutely logical. Even if she, like Jabir, had unforced errors, she eventually accumulated more than balls won by blows right through.

After this unremarkable, but still interesting final, only two major competitions remain on the calendar of the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA). It’s the October 1000 tournament in Guadalajara, Mexico, and the final top-eight contest, which was recently announced to be hosted by Fort Worth, Texas. Russian Daria Kasatkina has a good chance of getting there: she is seventh in terms of points scored this season.

Evgeny Fedyakov