The Billie Jean King Cup qualifiers took place throughout the world this past weekend. The nations that have advanced are Belgium, China, Kazakhstan, Italy, the Czech Republic, Spain, Great Britain and Ukraine. The aforementioned nations will be competing in Shenzhen, China in September.
In qualifying action this past weekend, it was one serve in particular that made tennis headlines. In the match between Canada’s Bianca Andresscu and Kazakhstan’s Yulia Putintseva, we could have seen the absolute worst serve on match point in the history of professional tennis. What was even more remarkable is that it came from a major champion.
In Andreescu’s 7-6, 3-6, 7-6 loss, it was match point that needs the proper criticism. Andreescu not only missed her serve, she missed it by a gigantic margin. It is like she had a colossal brain fart and completely forgot what rectangle she needed to serve the tennis ball into. The serve was even wide to the right on the rectangle straight in front of her and had no chance of getting into play either.
I have watched tennis for nearly 40 years, and I have never seen any serve like this–either on match point or throughout the match. What happened was simply stunning to the 2019 United States Open champion.
It is not just me that is reacting to what I saw. Dzevad Mezic of Tennis World called Andreescu’s serve a “brutal serve mishit,” and Jules Hypolite of Tennis Temple called Andreescu’s serve “a shocking double fault: Andreescu cracks under pressure.”
Andreescu has a history of mental and physical injuries. It will be interesting to see how she responds to what happened on the weekend.
