June 17, 2011
SAMANTHA Stosur may have to do something she has never done before if she is to make it to the second week at Wimbledon - beat her nemesis and former champion, Maria Sharapova.
Australia's leading players have all been handed mountains to climb in their bid to make inroads at Wimbledon this year. And Stosur has drawn a potential fourth-round showdown against Sharapova at the southwest London venue.
The Russian has won all eight encounters against Stosur, including victory only last month in Rome on clay.
Stosur, who has never reached the fourth round at Wimbledon, has been in impressive form on grass this week in the lead-up tournament in Eastbourne.
She defeated last year's Wimbledon finalist Vera Zvonareva in a marathon match to suggest she may be finally ready to get her act together on grass.
Her coach rates her fighting win over Zvonareva the best grass court victory of her career. David Taylor also lauded Stosur's improved mental approach following the 4-6 7-6 (7-4) 6-4 quarter-final win in just under three hours. It may be her weakest surface but the Australian showed true grit to rally from a set and 4-2 down in the second-set tiebreak to conquer the world No 3.
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Taylor said the 2010 French Open finalist had made a much better fist of the short transition time from clay to grass ahead of Wimbledon this year.
"Her attitude has not always been as good as it should be but this week her attitude has been good from the first point of the tournament," Taylor said.
With Zvonareva three points away from a straight-sets win, Stosur reeled off five successive points on the way to victory in tricky conditions.
"The most significant thing was that she was mentally very good against last year's Wimbledon finalist," he added. "Vera just beat Serena (Williams) the day before and a girl like Vera is known to be mentally tough and Sam was mentally tougher today."
Stosur will open her campaign in SW19 against world No 262 Melinda Czink of Hungary on Monday. Jarmila Gajdosova, who reached the fourth round at Wimbledon last year, has a potential third-round showdown with world No 1 Caroline Wozniacki.
Gajdosova has lost both matches against Wozniacki, their two meetings both coming on hard courts. However, the Danish player has never made a deep run at Wimbledon - she has never made the quarter-finals at the third grand slam of the year.
Gajdosova will meet former top 25 player Alona Bondarenko in the opening round, the world No 105 from the Ukraine on the way back from knee surgery.
The former Slovakian could possibly meet compatriot Anastasia Rodionova in the second round.
Jelena Dokic meanwhile, has drawn former French Open champion Francesca Schiavone.
American John Isner and France's Nicolas Mahut were improbably drawn to face each other in the first round, in a repeat of their marathon 183-game epic at last year's championships.
Isner and Mahut slogged their way into tennis history last year when their first-round duel became the longest match in tennis history, a gruelling 11-hour and five-minute game over three days.
When it was over, Isner had clinched a 6-4 3-6 6-7 (7/9) 7-6 (7/3) 70-68 first-round victory.
Twelve months later and the two journeymen are set to do it all over again.
Isner is adamant that the records set in last year's match will never be broken.
"It won't happen again," he said. "Not even come close."
Meanwhile, since last year's duel Isner and Mahut have become firm friends.
"Honestly, before Wimbledon, we'd never said one word to each other," Isner said of Mahut.
"Now we text each other quite often and I've got to know that he's a really class act and a really good guy."
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