The familiar cry of “VAMOSALLEZDAVAI! was still there, at times. But the French Open 2014 version of Yulia Putintseva was a shadow of her former self.
Here’s a gallery of pics from some of her qualifying matches. She looked quite good in defeating Mariana Duque Mariño of Colombia and Eri Hozumi of Japan in her first two rounds. But she got crushed by Kiki Bertens in the final round.
(If you can’t see this on your iPad, click here)
But Putintseva, whose on-court feistiness makes her matches, well, entertaining, and seemed to be on a pretty good path upwards on the WTA Tour, has definitely stalled out.
It’s easy to forget, because she got out of the junior racket so early, that she’s just 19 – actually just six months out of still being junior-eligible.
But she’s currently ranked No. 210 on the WTA Tour. And she’s currently playing a $25,000 clay-court tournament in Italy – not anything grass-related.
Just over a year ago, her ranking was up to No. 88. At that point, the WTA website published a story about how Martina Hingis was helping her with her mental approach. You don’t hear about that much these days. In fact, you don’t hear much about her at all.
She’s not even on the Wimbledon qualifying list, although her ranking would get her in.
And yet, she looks very fit. And the clever game looks basically the same.
You hate to say it, because it’s really kind of aggravating, but maybe she needs to get a little of THIS back.
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