Krajicek Serves Up Coleman Vision Crown
By Geoff Grammar - Albuquerque Journal
This story appears courtesy of ABQJournal.com
Heads.
And a little luck.
That was all that seemed to separate Michaella Krajicek from Naomi Broady in Krajicek’s 6-7 (2), 7-6 (3), 7-5 singles championship win Sunday at the Coleman Vision Tennis Championship.
For nearly the entirety of the 2 hour, 43 minute thriller, the only difference between the 26-year-old Krajicek, a former Wimbledon quarterfinalist making a comeback after years of knee injuries, and the towering 6-foot-2 Broady, who had a career-best 31 service aces, was the pre-match coin flip – Broady called “heads” – that allowed the towering 6-foot-2 Brit the benefit of serving first.
Thirty six games later, as temperatures on hard court surface of Tanoan Country Club approached 100 degrees with emotions riding high and exhaustion setting in, neither player had broken serve.
Then, in the 37th game, with the third set tied 5-5, Krajicek caught a bit of good fortune. Trailing 40-15 and clearly growing more and more frustrated with several close line calls that went against her, Krajicek sent a powerful forehand down the line that caught just enough of the tape sitting atop the net to redirect the shot and leave Broady without a chance at a return volley.
“Yes! Be strong, Misha!” shouted Martin Emmrich, Krajicek’s coach and newlywed husband of just more than two months, from just beyond the fence on the northwest side of stadium court. “Be strong!”
Three winning points later, Krajicek had finally broken the serve of Broady, to take a 6-5 lead before closing out Broady, fittingly with an ace of her own, in the next game for the 7-5 third-set victory.
“I was going for a winner and it hit the tape,” Krajicek said of the turning point of the match. “Sometimes, especially when it is as tough and close as this was today, you have to be a little bit lucky sometimes. … I knew the chances were going to be so small, I really got emotional sometimes when I felt like I missed an opportunity.”
The fact that the marathon match even made it to the 2:43 mark was in question toward the end of the second set. With the set tied 6-6, Broady bent over between serves and put her face in her hands and began crying.
She gathered herself enough to win the next point, but then walked back beyond the baseline again. This time she could not collect herself enough to continue without a lengthy medical timeout with a doctor and tournament director treating her with ice bags and fluids, leading most fans to assume she was suffering from either heat exhaustion or altitude sickness.
“I know it’s kind of taboo to talk about in sports because we’re supposed to be mentally tough all the time, or whatever,” Broady said, “but it was an anxiety attack. Right now, I’m exhausted mentally and physically, but what happened out there was an anxiety attack.”
Krajicek, who is a close friend of Broady’s on the tour though the two have never met in a competitive match before Sunday, said she thought it was admirable how well Broady played after the anxiety attack.
“It’s never good to see someone struggling, but I had to just try to focus on myself,” Krajicek said. “She had a lot of people taking care of her so I had to focus on myself. But she was so good the entire match. This was just a really tough one, today. I’m sorry one of us had to lose.”
Krajicek, the second event champion to come out of the qualifying bracket in the event’s 18-year history, collected a winning check of $11,400. Broady took home $6,080.
DOUBLES: The top-seeded doubles team of Paula Cristina Goncalves of Brazil and Sanaz Marand of the United States defeated defending singles champion Anna Tatishvili (USA) and Tamira Paszek (Austria) 4-6, 6-2, 10-3.
The winning duo collected a check for $4,180 while Tatishvili and Paszek split a check for $2,090.
ATTENDANCE: Paid attendance was 1,376 according to tournament organizers. That does not include the more than 200 volunteers who help run the event, which has been played for the past 18 years.