Flashback to 2005 WTA Championships

Amelie Mauresmo and Mary Pierce

Laurie’s Tennis Articles continues to look at previous championships of the new millennium and this week looks at the 2005 edition in Staples centre Los Angeles.

The 2005 WTA championships was the final edition to be held at the Staples centre after a four year stint.  Unlike Madison Square Garden which was seen as a successful period for the championships; the problem with the Staples centre was not only was the stadium extremely vast, the court appeared at best medium slow.  In today’s tennis a slow indoor court is not an issue but in the early 2000s it seemed strange to hold such a prestigious event on a court where the ball was not really coming through quickly.  However, with the Americans dominating the WTA tour at the majors, it was sensible to hold the event where big crowds would be guaranteed.  Even so, Venus Williams missed three of the four editions; Serena Williams didn’t qualify in 2003 and was injured in 2005.  Lindsay Davenport failed to win there and Jennifer Capriati made the semifinal in 2003 but lost to Clijsters.  In fact, in the early 2000s it was very much the Europeans vs the Americans, with Hingis, Henin, Clijsters, Mauresmo, Dementieva in one corner and Venus, Serena, Capriati, Davenport and Seles in the other. 

By 2005, the Europeans were starting to take over.  In 2004 Russian players won three of the four majors on offer; Henin had four major championships to her name and won the 2005 French Open. Clijsters won her first US Open and dominated the hardcourts in North America winning Indian Wells, Miami, Stanford, Los Angeles and Canada.  Meanwhile Mary Pierce was the comeback player of the year making two major finals and won tier 1 titles in San Diego and Moscow.  Amelie Mauresmo was getting closer and closer at Wimbledon; the 2005 WTA championships would be the turning point in Mauresmo’s career and prove the catalyst for major success in 2006. 

The format of the championships had also changed since 2000.  There were now two groups of four in an eight women field with a round robin format, following the ATP Masters event.  The Black group saw Kim Clijsters, Mary Pierce, Amelie Mauresmo and Elena Dementieva.  While the green group contained Lindsay Davenport, Maria Sharapova, Nadia Petrova and Patty Schnyder.  Henin pulled out with a hamstring injury before the event. Venus Williams was an unused alternate and Serena Williams finished the year ranked number 11.

In the black group, Mary Pierce came out like a train against Kim Clijsters, who was clearly taken aback by the constant attack and promptly lost the first set 6:1.  Clijsters re-asserted herself in the second set and was probably seen as the favourite to take the match but Pierce was having none of it and claimed the victory in a third set tiebreak.  Pierce then defeated Dementieva in one of the grudge matches of the year; Dementieva still feeling aggrieved Pierce took a lengthy time out during their US Open semifinal which halted her momentum, even though Dementieva got some revenge in the Fed cup victory in Paris two weeks later.  Mauresmo would also lose to Pierce but got the better of Dementieva and Clijsters in straight sets to finish second in the group behind Pierce.   

In the green group, Davenport and Sharapova were the two big favourites although Petrova and Schnyder gave good accounts of themselves.  Ultimately, neither were going to dislodge Davenport and Sharapova from the semifinal places.  Petrova did beat Sharapova but Sharapova beat Davenport (in three sets) and Schnyder so both Davenport and Sharapova won two out of three matches with Sharapova topping the group thanks to her win over Davenport.

On semifinals day, we had two great match ups on paper in Davenport vs Pierce and Mauresmo vs Sharapova.  Davenport and Pierce played a similar game, a mixture of old school and new school.  New school in the power game and old school in having a strong serve where they didn’t get broken often, trying to cut down on errors and moving forward when the opportunity arose.

Not surprisingly, the match was very close with two tiebreaks and two breaks of serve where Pierce broke early but failed to serve out the first set.  It was a high quality match with quite a few aces from both players (14 from Pierce); Pierce took the match to reach her second WTA final after losing in straight sets to Jana Novotna in 1997; best of five back then!

The second semifinal saw Amelie Mauresmo take on Maria Sharapova.  Their games matched up well.  To this day, I am not sure how to describe Amelie Mauresmo’s game, an interesting mixture of counterpuncher and puncher. A player who was capable of playing the best serve and volley on tour but would spend so much time scurrying around the baseline being sent left and right by her opponents.  Mauresmo seemed to enjoy defence and soaking up pressure.  Sharapova had the groundstrokes but was troubled by Mauresmo’s slices and all court play.

Mauresmo won the match after taking the first set on a tiebreak and racing to a 5:1 lead in the second set, almost blew it but sneaked through 6:4 in the end. 

The final on Sunday afternoon was a special occasion between two French players.  Mary Pierce had beaten Amelie Mauresmo three straight times including in the quarterfinal of the US Open and round robin stage of the championships; but Mauresmo would get revenge in the final.  The beauty of the round robin format is that a player can be beaten in the round robin stage and gain revenge in the final.  In 1994 Becker beat Sampras in the round robin stage and then lost to Sampras in the final.  The same thing happened to Becker in 1996 when Sampras beat him in one of the greatest indoor finals.  In 1999 Agassi beat Sampras easily in the round robin and then was soundly beaten in the final.  Just a few weeks ago, Halep gave Serena a hiding in the round robin only to get a taste of her own medicine by Serena in the final.

Mauresmo was never going to give Pierce a hiding especially as Mary went into the match as the favourite.  It was a high quality and tensioned filled final; Pierce took a close first set 7:5 after getting a break late on.  The second set saw Mauresmo rush to a quick lead but couldn’t see it through, Pierce broke back and the set went to a tiebreak which Mauresmo took.  The interesting thing was that Pierce who was so in control of her forehand was starting to make strange mistakes, Mauresmo’s hustling and defending seemed to have an effect on Pierce while Mauresmo herself was really going for her shots and backhand in particular. Mauresmo played a strong tiebreak and deserved the set.

In the final set, Mauresmo again got an early break but was pegged back to 3:3 but broke late on at 4:4 to serve for the match.  With it about to the biggest win of her career, we knew it wouldn’t be easy and Mauresmo promptly went 0:40 down.  However, Mauresmo found new grit and won the match winning five points in a row. 

We knew Mauresmo had the talent and she finally won a major event.  I recall writing back in December 2005 that with Mauresmo winning the tour championships, it will be the platform to win a major tournament the next season, of course she went on to win two.  I based that view on Jana Novotna who won the Masters in 1997 and went on to win Wimbledon in 1998.  The victim in 1997 was also Mary Pierce.  You have to feel for Mary who took defeat with amazing grace but 2005 saw her lose the French Open, US Open and tour finals. 

The final capped another great year for womens tennis; with Venus’ amazing win at Wimbledon and Clijsters’ dominance on hardcourts, the WTA final capped it off nicely.