Sara Errani is a very polarizing player on the WTA Tour, to say the least. The about her, win or lose, on places such as Tennis Forum and Twitter are vile and make her out to be a talentless bum. However, what she has achieved in career has been outstanding and she is and exemplifies how I expect a professional tennis player to act. So, after the biggest title of her career in Dubai a couple weeks back, and as she gets ready to begin the WTA event in Monterrey today, just days after competing in the Doha doubles Final, I take a look at Sara Errani's illustrious career and retort a lot of the complaints I hear about her game.
Sara, currently the number 15 in the world from Bologna, Italy, has had a career that the vast majority of the WTA would envy. Ranked as high as number 5 in the world during the 2013 season, Errani has constantly placed her in the upper-echelon of the women's game. And she has not done this by occasionally having a big run in a larger tournament, but rather, more impressively in my opinion, consistently fighting for points, week-in and week-out.
This is evidenced by Errani's 19 WTA singles finals and nine victories. And these victories are spread out over the years too, proving that Sara didn't just "peak" for a year or two and then disappear into the shadows. While four of her titles did come in 2012, Errani has also won as early in her career as 2008 and as "late" (considering she is 28) in her career as Dubai last month (which was also her first WTA Premier Title). Sustainability towards of the top of the women's game is Errani's forte, despite almost always facing players with much more powerful games than she has.
However, at least in my opinion, Errani's greatest singles accomplishment was a tournament in which she lost: the 2012 French Open. Sara Errani made the singles Final of this tournament, coming within one match of a major title. And while she ultimately lost to Maria Sharapova 6-3, 6-2, the way she reached the Final was very impressive.
In the First Round, Errani could have easily given in to Casey Dellacqua's powerful lefty game, but after losing the first set, fought back to win the match in three sets. And in the Third Round, facing former French Open champion Ana Ivanovic, Sara was steamrolled in the first set 6-1. However, Errani's fighting spirit willed her through this match, winning a tight second set and ultimately pulling out the match in the three sets. I believe this match to be a pivotal one in Sara's career, because it ultimately proved she was a contender and not just another journeywoman going through the motions in her career, proving that her game, and fierceness, would take her above much of the competition.
Errani went on to soundly defeat two-time major champion (and also a French Open winner) Svetlana Kuznetsova in straight sets, including a 6-0 first set before going on to beat Angelique Kerber in straight sets in the Quarterfinals (also now a major winner). Then, in the Semifinals, Errani withstood a strong push in the second set (6-1) by defending US Open champion, winning that match in three sets too before her loss to Sharapova in the Final. But, when you look at Errani's run to the Final of that French Open, it looks even better in hindsight than at the time, with Kerber also winning a major. In total, of the six matches she played to reach the Final, Sara took on four major champions and beat them all (before eventually losing to Sharapova). That's pretty darn impressive.
I don't want to limit Errani's accomplishments to only singles, however, as her doubles feats might even top what she's done in singles. On the doubles court, Sara has 25 titles and has been in a doubles final 39 times! This includes a 5-3 record in grand slam doubles finals with her former doubles partner Roberta Vinci! In fact, Errani has the "grand slam" in doubles, meaning that she has won all four major titles at least once, with a victory in Melbourne occurring twice! Errani has won at least one title in doubles every year, starting in 2008, through 2015. So, when we judge Errani's career, it would be foolish to only look at her singles game when making judgment, as her doubles career has been more than impressive.
So, what do the critics have to go on, knowing all that Sara has accomplished. Let's break it down. One major critique against her is that her serve is so weak, so somehow this shows how weak the WTA Tour is that opponents can't be destroying Errani every match, given her serve. And to that, I would respond with this: Yes, there are many club-level players who can serve harder than Errani, but doesn't that just show good Errani is defensively and on returning serve, rather than demonstrating a "weak era" or somehow a knock on Errani?
It's amazing watching Sara somehow get back neutral when an opponent whacks what seems to be a great shot on Errani's serve. And when Errani is broken, I like to say that a break of serve in an Errani match is a like a hold against anyone else because the breaks just occur so often. In just Sara's final three matches in Dubai, she broke her opponents' serve a total of 18 times in 7 sets! That is an insane number of breaks. In fact, against Madison Brengle in the Quarterfinals, she broke serve 10 times in the match! If Errani is able to stay near the top of the WTA with her serve, it says more about the other aspects of her game than her serve itself.
Another reason why Sara is picked on by critics is because they somehow don't like her attitude, the same attitude that I see as a major reason why Errani has had so much success of her career. Like I just said, Errani has a very poor serve, both on her first serve and her second serve. At five-foot five-inches, it is also very hard for her to generate much power on her groundstrokes either. So, Sara has to make up for this deficit in other ways. One way is through her actual play, using lots of top spin, her superb defensive abilities, net play, and ability to use the entire court to her advantage. However, these tactics would be greatly compromised if it weren't for her gritty attitude. Sara needs to be so tough on court in order to fully engage herself to play the game that got her near the top of the women's game.
You see, other players have the physical abilities to use their serve to get through a service game or blast a few groundstrokes when needed to get out of trouble. Errani, however, doesn't have these luxurious and needs to play with that chip on her shoulder, that realization that the opponent might be physically talented than her, but that she is mentally tougher, in order to gut through the matches. Because, if she played with this "all smiles", "pretty girl" attitude that it seems as if many of her detractors want to see from WTA players, there's no way she would pull out matches like in the Quarterfinals of Dubai, where she was down 4-1 and a double break in the third set. So, to suggest that someone doesn't like Sara's on-court demeanor is ridiculous, as it is a major reason why she has been so successful over the years.
And yet another criticism of Sara is that her game is only applicable to clay, that she is a "one-surface wonder". Now, while she is certainly not great on grass, she was golden-setted by Shvedova at Wimbledon after all in 2013 , Errani did reach the Third Round of Wimbledon in both 2010 and 2012. For someone who can "only play on clay" that's pretty good results at a grass court event and demonstrate that, despite Errani not being at the peak of her game on grass, she can still tough out matches on her worst surface.
Now, that might not convince the detractors, but Errani's results on hard courts might. For starters, Sara has won two WTA singles tournaments on hard court, including recently winning her only WTA Premier-level victory in Dubai. In total, Sara has made the Final of seven singles tournaments on hard courts. As mentioned earlier, Errani has won three doubles majors on hard courts, and ten hard court doubles tournaments in all (and has 17 doubles finals in total on hard courts). And if that isn't enough, Errani is 3-1 in grass court doubles finals.
I have yet to even mention Errani's superb performances in majors on hard courts. In Melbourne, Sara made the 2012 Quarterfinals and hung tough with Petra Kvitova in the Quarterfinals. And in New York, Errani made the Semifinals of the 2012 tournament, losing to the 2012 champion, Serena Williams, in the semis. Given all of her credentials off of hard, which I've just listed, I don't know how anyone could possibly conceive the argument that she is only good on clay courts. Is clay her best surface? Yes. But, is her game only effective on clay? Absolutely not. Errani has proven many, many times, that she can adapt her game to hard courts and even win some on grass.
And yet, with all of this said, detractors will still take swipes at the Errani. They moaned and groaned that Errani didn't have to play a tough opponent during her title run in Dubai, somehow "forgetting" that the reason why she didn't have to play higher ranked opponents is not because they weren't in the draw, the field was very strong, but rather, because they lost early, something totally out of Errani's control.
I think it's time everyone, whether they like her style of play or not, respect and appreciate Sara Errani for what she has accomplished during her time playing on the WTA Tour.
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