After some usual straight set victories, the women’s matches became exciting after all. The all-Russian Sharapova/Petrova match was great because of the shots they traded. There were too many errors, but then there were too many great, powerful shots too.

Women’s game is no more lobbing the ball over to the 3/4th of the other court and repeating till an error causes a point to be taken. It is now a powerful serve followed by quite a few powerful strokes in the rallies. This is exciting to watch, but only after the quarter-finals. In earlier rounds, the lower-ranked players are just not good enough for the higher-ranked players.

The second match, which was even more exciting to watch was the Clijsters/Venus match. I have not seen Clijsters play before so I was amazed at the splits that she kept pulling off at the baseline, and even more amazingly, the quickness with which she would get back on her feet and run the ball down on the other corner! I thought she listlessly lost the first set, which was hers to win. She fought hard to win the second set and tightened up her game in the final set to close it out.

Interesting match up next - Sharapova/Clijsters. Will be quite a watch!