Thursday, 08. August 2002

 

Nordea Nordic Light Open

Helsinki FIN, 05.08. – 11.08.2002 / Tier IV

KAIA KANEPI — ASA SVENSSON / 58. SWE /

0:6 | 4:6

Kaia lost

In second round of Nordea Nordic Light Open Kaia lost against the 6th seed Asa Svensson from Sweden, ranked No 58, in two sets 0-6 4-6. In first round Kaia showed very confident game against Eva Dyrberg who was ranked 240 places higher than her and her opponent, Åsa Svensson was quite unimpressive against Hungarian Zsofia Gubacsi in her first round match. So Kaia vs Åsa was seen as very intriguing match-up.

Also, after her first win, Åsa said in press conference that she's well aware of Kaia's game - she had practiced together with Kaia in Stockholm couple of years ago and she also watched her first round match. So Åsa was sure that she has to show completely different game against Kaia than in first round.

Unfortunately, either Kaia or her supporters could foresee that Svensson picks her game up where she left it in first round - back then she was very confident in last three games and did no mistakes at all.

Kaia started the match confidently - in first service game she had two breakpoints against Svensson's serve, but Åsa hit two clear winners and helped herself out of trouble. As it appeared later, this first game was the pointer of the balance in this match as Svensson who was almost broken but could save the game, got such an inspiration that she didn't nearly make any mistakes at all in next 10 (!!!) games and forced her game plan to Kaia in very convincing way, for example by very successfully using drop shots.

Despite quite sad final score 0-6, Kaia made quite a few easy mistakes and tried to resist experienced opponent's precise and stable game, but unfortunately, on even scores (30-30) the deciding points went to the best female player in Scandinavia. And all this caused such a one-sided score. Score that would describe the reality a bit better could have been 2-6.

Second set didn't start very positively for Kaia either. Svensson held her first game very convincingly and in next three games, at 40-40, she also got the winning points. By score
0-4 Kaia managed to force her style against the opponent, who was probably already sure of her victory, and due to this pressure Svensson started to make some mistakes.

In fifth game Kaia managed to break Svensson's serve for the first time in the match. She also held her serve despite some difficulties. Kaia managed to get the 7th, Svensson's game again, but unfortunately couldn't hold her own after that. At 3-5, Svensson went to serve out the match, but Kaia had not given up yet - she broke again and scores 4-5 left everything open. At 40-40 on Kaia's serve the Swede showed her experience and won the second set and whole match.

Although Kaia didn't manage to surprise 58th ranked Åsa Svensson yet, certainly this match gave many useful experiences for the future.

As we've done with eye-witnessed games before - here is the point-to-point description of the match.

1st Set, Svensson to serve

K-S 15-0 30-0 30-15 40-15 40-30 40-40 40-A 0-1
K-S 15-0 15-15 15-30 30-30 30-40 0-2
K-S 15-0 30-0 30-15 30-30 30-40 0-3

K-S 15-0 15-15 15-30 30-30 30-40 0-4
K-S 15-0 15-15 15-30 15-40 0-5

K-S 0-15 0-30 15-30 15-40 0-6

2nd Set, Svensson to serve

K-S 0-15 0-30 0-40 0-1
K-S 15-0 15-15 15-30 30-30 40-30 40-40 40-A 0-2
K-S 0-15 0-30 0-40 15-40 30-40 40-40 40-A 0-3

K-S 0-15 15-15 15-30 30-30 30-40 40-40 40-A 0-4
K-S 0-15 15-15 30-15 40-15 1-4

K-S 15-0 15-15 15-30 30-30 40-30 40-40 A-40 2-4
K-S 0-15 15-15 30-15 30-30 40-30 3-4

K-S 15-0 15-15 15-30 15-40 30-40 3-5
K-S 15-0 15-15 30-15 30-30 40-30 4-5

K-S 15-0 15-15 15-30 15-40 30-40 40-40 40-A 4-6