Sunday, April 15, 2007

Through rain and high winds, the JJ Express rolls on

Attempting to serve during a windstorm at the Family Circle Cup final today, Dinara Safina yelled at the wind to stop blowing. She did a lot more yelling throughout the relatively brief match, as her opponent, Jelena Jankovic, handled the wind skillfully. Jankovic kept the ball in the court and waited patiently for the errors to come off of Safina's racquet, which they did, over and over. And even when Safina kept the ball in play, Jankovic's returns were just too good. She won, 6-2, 6-2, and is the new Family Circle Cup champion.

It was nothing short of amazing that the championship match started on time. Rain and high winds took power out in the Charleston area and blew trees onto cars on Daniel Island, where the stadium is located. Just as amazingly, there was only one rain delay, and it lasted less than five minutes.

Conditions were much worse for the doubles championship, with the wind howling and debris blowing all over the court. Peng Shuai and Sun Tiantian narrowly lost the first set, 5-7, but in the second set, they could no longer handle the conditions, and were run over, 6-0.