Top seeds cruise through Australian Open singles semis
Riviere, Virgona, Fahey and Van Der Zwalmen progress to singles finals
Camden Riviere, Steve Virgona, Claire Fahey and Lea Van Der Zwalmen have all booked their spots in the Australian Open open and women’s finals with straight-sets victories in their respective semi-finals at the Royal Melbourne Tennis Club on Saturday.
The first of the four semi-finals played was between second seed Lea Van Der Zwalmen and third seed Tara Lumley. Despite it being her first tournament in over half a year, Van Der Zwalmen was looking strong right from the beginning, playing with extreme precision on her line and length, pushing the ball tight into the backhand corner. Then, when she felt that Lumley was sufficiently out of position, punishing a ball across to the forehand side. She also had plenty of opportunities to show off her quick hands as she adjusted to the bounce of the Melbourne court. Lumley kept her serve to her drag and side wall, but couldn’t keep it tight enough to prevent Van Der Zwalmen placing the ball exactly where she wanted.
Lumley had to wrestle control of the rallies if she wanted to make progress. As the match developed, Lumley was more willing to throw in a faster paced ball, which did catch Van Der Zwalmen out a few times. She got the crowd going with a brace of grilles to take her second game of the second set, but was otherwise a comprehensive all-around performance by Van Der Zwalmen as she earned her spot in Monday’s final.
The first of the open semi-finals was between World Champion Camden Riviere and the fourth seed Lewis Williams, playing in his second Open semi-final. The two had never previously played a singles match before, so Riviere began the match treating his opponent with respect by taking playing the first phase of the match with the intensity of a World Championship in order to put him off his game. Once the lead was established, Riviere played with freedom and ease on the Melbourne court, dancing around and hitting shots nobody else in the world can execute. Yet even still, the crowd remained firmly on Williams’s side, cheering loudly when he won each of his three games. As he has done on so many occasions, Riviere battered his opponent into a sense of inevitable resignation. The World Champion progressed to the final untroubled.
Claire Fahey was intent on putting on the most dominant display of the day in her women’s semi-final match against Saskia Bollerman. Bollerman couldn’t find an effective way past Fahey’s defenses, not helped by a lack of match practice owing to the hand injury that kept her out of the French and British Opens. Fahey shut down Bollerman from the service end, with the Dutchwoman unable to provide much more than scooping balls back off the Fahey serve. Fahey was a brick wall at the service end, meaning Bollerman’s only way to recover the serve was to wait for hazard chases or hit galleries. Her only game of the match was won with an unforced error as Fahey tried to beat a hazard into the galleries but hit the net instead. Otherwise, Fahey was nearly flawless, but even so she seemed frustrated with any marginal inaccuracies that were part of her game. She progressed through to her 10th Australian Open, keeping her unbeaten record in Australia in tact.
The last match of the day was also the most anticipated, with a keen Melbourne crowd keen to see if Nino Merola could repeat the magic from his quarter-final against Nick Howell in his semi-final match against Steve Virgona. Merola was not afraid to take on the game from the off, striking the dedans at the rate of once per game through the opening phase of the match. In response, Virgona was relentless in testing out Merola’s tambour play, putting ball after ball onto the angled wall to catch Merola out on the volley. Though it wasn’t necessarily pretty, Merola was happy to scrap around and fend off whatever Virgona threw his way, trying to manoeuvre a tactical advantage to counteract Virgona’s natural talent and ball striking. Though Merola got off to a better start, Virgona pushed ahead, holding on to take the first set as Merola was left to rue a few missed opportunities.
The second set was evenly fought, as Virgona wasn’t able to break away for the first six games. Each time he pulled a few points ahead, Merola seemed to be able to battle back to stay in touch. But it was like an elastic band that wore thinner and thinner each time it was stretched. It finally snapped at 3-all, as a few tight calls and lucky bounces seemed to break his way. With a lead on the scoreboard established, Virgona went in for the kill, finally able to play with freedom as Merola’s patient play slowly evaporated. Virgona won seven straight games, winning the second set in the process. At 0/4 down in the third, Merola threw caution to the wind and focused more on hitting his targets, After hitting a few of each, he was able to push Virgona again, saving match point in the 5/2 game, but when Virgona saw a ball on the side penthouse in the 5/3 game he did not need to think twice, slamming it into the base of the tambour and taking a well-deserved win.
Riviere and Virgona are set to play off in the final on Monday, as are Fahey and Van Der Zwalmen. Play continues with the Australian Open doubles semi-finals on Sunday.
Match results:
12:00 PM: Tara Lumley (3) lost to Lea Van Der Zwalmen (2) 1/6 2/6
1:00 PM: Camden Riviere (1) def Lewis Williams (4) 6/0 6/1 6/2
2:30 PM: Claire Fahey (1) def Saskia Bollerman (4) 6/0 6/1
3:30 PM: Steve Virgona (3) def Nino Merola (7) 6/4 6/3 6/3
Order of play for Sunday (all times AEDT):
12:00 PM: Tara Lumley & Xanthe Ranger (3) vs Lea Van Der Zwalmen & Katherine Carney (2)
Followed by (approx 1:00 PM): Nick Howell & Steve Virgona (1) vs Nino Merola & Henry Henman (4)
Not before 2:30 PM: Claire Fahey & Saskia Bollerman (1) vs Jo See Tan & Penny Lumley (4)
Followed by (approx 3:30 PM): Lewis Williams & Levi Gale (3) vs Camden Riviere & Chris Chapman (2)