Wow, thank you for uploading the full match. This was a classic! Big effort from Venus to get to the finals of her first clay court tournament. She is great on all surfaces, to be fair. But she played surprisingly well on clay, especially this early on. She'd get to the quarterfinals of the French Open a few weeks later as well, only to lose to Hingis again. Both of those losses to Hingis taught her a lot, I believe. In fact, after these two losses in 1998 to Hingis, their very next meeting happened to be on clay, a rematch of the previous year's Rome final, which Venus won. Hingis was a great teacher, not just to Venus, but to the tennis community as a whole (and I guess, by extension, Melanie Molitor was a great teacher to the tennis community at large). I believe Hingis taught the Williams sisters how to play big matches, and how to incorporate more than just raw athletic talent into their game, giving them that extra variety needed to take over the tennis world. Together with Davenport, Capriati, Pierce, and other power players of the time, they all really flourished once they added the "Hingis elements" to their powerful games. Of course there are other factors involved, but the entire tennis community at the time had a thing or two to learn from Martina. It's not always just about power and athleticism. A relaxed intelligent game with anticipation, soft hands and variety can win an awful lot of matches. Thanks again for this full match. I love Martina so much.
