ToC Third-Round Focus; Gina Kennedy Rallies Past Rowan Elaraby by Rob Dinerman
photo PSA
Dateline January 22, 2023
--- In a roller-coaster match that featured several dramatic swings in
momentum, Gina Kennedy staged her second comeback win in less than 48
hours, defeating Rowan Elaraby 8-11, 3-11, 11-9, 11-8, 11-2 early
Sunday afternoon at Grand Central Station in the round of 16 of the
2023 Tournament of Champions. Kennedy thereby successfully followed up
on her airtight --- 11-9 in the fifth after losing the third game 11-1
to go two games to one down --- Friday win over Tinne Gilis, a pair of
consecutive-match rallies that were all the more remarkable in light of
how one-sided the scores against Kennedy were in the last games she
lost in each of those two respective matches.
Against Elaraby, who has one of the
smoothest and most graceful games of anyone on the PSA tour, Kennedy
fell behind 6-1 in the opening game, fought her way back into
contention but committed a pair of costly late-game tins when she cut
her drop shot too fine, seemingly out of an awareness of how fleet her
opponent was. Elaraby also jumped out to a big early lead in the second
game and asserted full control throughout the second half of that game,
adroitly mixing angles and lobs and keeping an increasingly flustered
Kennedy off balance and reaching for balls rather than playing them
with the optimal balance and footwork.
It is a tribute to Kennedy’s determination
and mental toughness that she was able to turn around a match in which
she had been out-played in all phases through the first two games.
Crucially, she was able to win the first few points of the third game
--- her first lead of the match --- which restored her confidence and
blunted Elaraby’s momentum. It became close at the end, but at 10-9,
Kennedy pounced on a loose ball up front and nailed a winner down the
open right wall to seal that game. The fourth was somewhat weird, as
Kennedy rocketed to 7-0, mostly on very quick points, only to suddenly
lose her focus and contribute four unforced errors to an 8-1 Elaraby
run to 8-all. At this juncture, in what was in retrospect the defining
patch of the entire match, Kennedy drove a scorching backhand
cross-court winner, hit an out-of-the-blue backhand working-boast
volley that surprised everyone in the building (including a
wrong-footed Elaraby) and nestled a backhand drop shot to rescue that
game.
The fifth was strangely anticlimactic.
After Kennedy won the first five points, Elaraby got on the scoreboard
with a daring backhand drop shot from near the back wall. She then won
a torturous all-court point to draw to 2-3 --- but it was a Pyrrhic
victory, one that left Elaraby in such a fatigued state that she then
faulted on her subsequent serve (launching the ball well over the
right-wall boundary line), thereby self-inflicting a statistical and
psychological wound from which she would never recover. Depleted
physically as well, Elaraby then tinned a backhand serve-return
cross-drop and was unable to properly contest any of the remaining
points, as Kennedy ended the match on an 8-0 run that earned her a spot
in Tuesday’s quarterfinals, where she will face Hania El Hammamy, a
straight-game winner in her round of 16 match against Tomato Ho.
