I was lucky to be able to catch the repeat match between Flavia Pennetta and Vera Zvonareva last night. I have to tell you it was the ultimate meltdown ever happened on any WTA or grand slam tennis tournament!
I couldn't find any youtube video yet... probably someone will upload it soon. But in the meanwhile you can find it at the US Open website. Just find under Audio & Video and look for Pennetta vs Zvonareva match on September 6, 2009.
Chris Chase wrote sort of a chronology of what had actually happened in Yahoo! Tennis.
- Zvonareva cried on the court during the second set tiebreak.
- Hysterically cried in the locker room in between the second and third sets.
- Ripped off a portion of the medical tape that was wrapped around her thighs.
- Complained to the chair umpire that the remaining tape left around her thighs prevented her from playing.
- Screamed an obscenity at the chair umpire when she wouldn't give her a medical timeout to fix said medical tape.
- Loudly yelled a compound word/profanity after hitting an unforced error.
- Continued to rip the tape off her leg.
- Smashed her racquet into a post.
- Spent the final changeover sitting in her chair with a white towel draped over her head.
- Lost the third set 6-0.
What was not mentioned by Chris in detail was, when Zvonareva skidded and fell, did the splits, she just sat there on the ground, pounding on her leg with her palm.You can see that in the US Open website.
The scariest part was (also not mentioned by Chris) Zvonareva knocked her head several times while being attended by a trainer. Luckily she did not pull a Mikhail Youzhny that night.
While leaving the court, she something like "I hate the crowd"....
This year's US Open has to be the wackiest of all times, and Zvonareva's behaviour was simply the climax of a truly bizarre week.
