Go to any theme park in the world and you will find a thrilling, hair-raising, heart-pounding roller-coaster designed to give you a thrill before your previous meal makes a stunning reentry into your life.
Sam Stosur is another type of roller-coaster.
Like the variety found in a theme park, this roller-coaster can lead to physical illness in the form of stress headaches or damage to the foot that you end up planting smack bang in the centre of your telly when the frustration reaches dangerously high levels.
True to form, Stosur’s opening two matches at the Brisbane International fit the bill of roller-coaster rides.
Stosur has admitted she finds playing at home difficult. The word ‘home’ doesn’t merely designate the bright lights of BrisVegas or other Australian cities, but could also include a dusty outcrop in the middle of nowhere. The pressure is ubiquitous.
The pressure of performing at home is immense and to attack Stosur for this is grossly unfair. Overcoming these pressures, while not insurmountable, must be very difficult.
The foundations of the Sam Stosur roller-coaster can be found in the pressure she finds playing in Australia. This pressure is compounded by the Australian swing being at that the start of the tennis season. Stosur needs match practice to build on momentum, and even coming off such a short break this is difficult to achieve.
Watching her opening two matches, it was clear that one of the biggest effects a lack of momentum has on her game is the damage it does to her serve.
Her opening match, on Monday, against Slovakian Jana Cepelova was a case in point, as too was her loss of nine games in a row against Spanish player Carla Suarez Navarro.
The turning point in Stosur’s second set comeback against CSN came when she was serving at 1-4. Stosur found some form with two aces and lifted for the rest of the set, winning it convincingly in a tie-break.
Stosur may have lost this match, going down 4-6 in the third, but at least she salvaged something from what was shaping up as a car wreck.
Returning to Monday’s match, another foundation of the Sam Stosur roller-coaster was also clearly present.
While finesse of touch is disappearing from tennis on both the men’s and women’s sides of the game, there are moments when fans of the men’s game are still treated to a pirouetting Roger Federer with a delft touch of hand.
Against Cepelova, Stosur seemed intent on unnecessarily smashing the casing off the ball on important points that required a nice touch rather than extreme power.
In fact, if attempting to unnecessarily smash the fur off the ball when it really isn’t required were an Olympic sport, Monday’s performance proved Stosur would be the Michael Phelps of it.
Thankfully for the sake of the balls, such opportunities didn’t present themselves against Suarez Navarro.
But the constant desire to exert extreme power when something much more delicate was required was frustrating to watch. Far too many points that were hers for the easy taking were coughed up.
A further pillar in this roller-coaster’s foundations is firmly embedded in her renown for losing the plot out on court. Another issue that can be reigned in but not easily.
This raises the question of whether she should make greater use of on-court coaching.
As a slight purist, this rule is a little agitating. For many, the beauty and challenge of tennis is its solitary and individual nature. A player should work through the mental challenges as much as the physical ones on their own.
Nevertheless, it is in the rules of the WTA for coaches to come onto court and advise their charges, and when in Rome perhaps Stosur should use this rule to her advantage.
Some coaching on Monday may have saved Stosur having to play an extra set. In yesterday’s match, some coaching may have prevented her losing nine games in a row. The Australian simply took too long to change her tactics against CSN.
A visit from her coach may also help her to focus, rather than overthink her game.
Coaches are not allowed on court during Grand Slams and the argument that working through on-court problems on your own is good preparation for the four majors is a relevant one. But using this rule during smaller tournaments may also be beneficial if it acts as a reference point for the matches that don’t allow it.
Watching Stosur over the last two days has been an emotional roller-coaster for her fans.
Monday ended in a stress headache and the telly is still counting its blessings it didn’t have a foot through it early in the third set. Although Tuesday night had glimmers of hope in the second set, it still repeated the up-and-down journey of a flimsy old cart riding on a rickety frame.
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