Biggest Disappointments of the Year.

Dinara Safina gets my vote for biggest disappointment on the womens side.  You may ask how can the current #2 player in the world be a big disappointment?  Its not necessarily the results and how far she got into this years tournaments, its how she lost while being on the biggest stage.  Safina made it to the Australian Open final, just to be smashed by Serena Williams.  She followed that up with another final appearance at the French Open, and she played scared in losing to Svetlana Kuznetsova.  A few weeks later she made it to the semifinals of Wimbledon and got beat by Venus Williams.  Now for anyone else these are great accomplishments, but the ultra talented Safina, basically choked, and lost all confidence in herself.  At the U.S. Open the then #1 seed Safina had to get lucky to beat a couple chumps and lost in the 3rd round to Petra Kvitova a player she has no business losing to in a Grand Slam event.  It looks like she is mentally not there, to go along with the injured back she now has.  It may be a difficult year for Dinara in 2010.  She has the talent and drive to be probably the best woman on the planet, but it just seems she clams up and just folds during big pressure matches.  Thats what makes it so frustrating and disappointing.

 

This may be a surprise, but the little known Latvian, Ernests Gulbis is my biggest disappointment for this past year.  The 21 year old was labeled as one of the "next big things", in mens tennis.  In 2008 he came onto the scene as this young kid who could just hit the piss out of the ball.  He would just blister his ground strokes.  In the summer of '08 he gave Andy Roddick all he could handle during a night match at the U.S. Open.  This match is what set him up for being a player to look for in 2009.  This is when the disappointment starts.  In 2009 Gulbis never made it past the 2nd round in any of the 4 Grand Slams.  Making it to the 2nd round of the Australian Open, French Open, and Wimbledon.  Gulbis lost in the 1st round of the U.S. Open.  Not only did he struggle in the Grand Slam events, but he didn't do much in any of the smaller tournaments as well.  For someone with as much talent as Ernests Gulbis, this type of play isn't acceptable.  The kid has all the talent to be atleast a top 15 player.  Maybe Gulbis lacks motivation or just needs to mature a bit.  I do know he comes from a very wealthy family, so maybe he doesn't have the love or want to push himself to the next level.  Seems like he is just a young kid doing this, to do it.  And that explains why his ranking plummeted to a current #90 in the world.  Getting busted for soliciting a prostitute in Sweden, didn't help an all so disappointing season.  Gulbis better get his shit together or this time next year he may be getting "the fork".