Tennis News

It has been a turbulent few months for Agnieszka Radwanska. The Polish No. 1 has been on a disappointing trend of surprise losses and upsets that were anything but normal from one of the craftiest players on the tour. This week in Madrid, she was able to regain some of her long-lost fervor and secured her spot in the second round of the tournament. There, she will come up against Aussie Casey Dellacqua, whom she has only faced once previously on the professional tour. Radwanksa leads the head-to-head series 1-0.

Seeded ninth due to her drop in ranking, Radwanska produced a performance that fans had not seen in months, as she stormed to a 6-4, 3-0 lead against Spain’s Lara Arruabarrena before closing out the match six games later.

“Clay is not really my favorite surface, and every win for me is a good win,” Radwanska said. “I know Spaniards are very dangerous on clay, so I knew I’d have to run a lot today. We had a lot of good rallies. I think we had a really good match, so I’m happy I could win in straight sets today.”

Her opponent, Casey Dellacqua also needed just a pair of sets to advance to the second round of the tournament, as she beat Italian wildcard Francesca Shiavone 6-4, 7-6(5) to set up the rematch.
This is just the second time that these two competitors will cross paths on the professional series, with Radwanska leading the head-to-head series 1-0. The Pole’s victory took place during a Wimbledon encounter last season, which does not add much to their upcoming clay-court encounter. While the Pole should find solace in her solid showing on Sunday, she will have to show consistency if she is to advance on a surface that she doesn’t find overly comfortable.

Following an excellent start to her 2015 season, which included title wins in Dubai and Indian Wells, and most recently reached the semi-final stage in Miami, Simona Halep was dealt a significant blow on Sunday when she was ousted from the Madrid Open in her opening round match.

Faced with the inconsistent game of French No. 1 Alize Cornet, many assumed that Halep would be victorious en route to the second round of the tournament. However, the Romanian played an off-colour match and eventually surrendered the contest in straight sets.

The former finalist at this event, who worked her way through a tough draw last year before she was denied the title by Russian superstar Maria Sharapova, was unable to rework some of that magic this season and once she lost the opening set tiebreak, she seemed to lose the remainder of her motivation. She eventually allowed Cornet to close out the affair 7-6(6), 6-3.

Cornet, who is ranked No. 28 and holds a 10-9 win/loss record so far this season, will come up against Italy’s Roberta Vinci in the second round of the tournament.

Halep was not the only player who was eliminated unceremoniously in her opening round match, as Eugenie Bouchard continued her disappointing trend with yet another first round loss, this time to Barbora Strycova. The Canadian was up 6-0 but still lost the match in baffling fashion, 0-6, 6-3, 6-3 to Strycova.

The bizarre seeded action concluded with yet another untimely upset, as Angelique Kerber had her undefeated clay court run in 2015 snapped unceremoniously following a three set loss to Samantha Stosur.  The German lost the match 4-6, 6-3, 6-3.

Following a disappointing exit in Stuttgart, where she was a three-time defending champion, Maria Sharapova began her run in Madrid in more promising fashion, as she defeated the in-form Timea Bacsinszky to secure her spot in the second round of the tournament. She will next encounter Mariana Duque-Marino for the first time on the professional tour.

Sharapova, formerly ranked No. 2 before suffering her surprise exit in Stuttgart, played a solid opening match at the start of the day in Madrid on Sunday, as she beat Bacsinszky in the rubber match to settle the score. Timea had won their first ever meeting last year but now Sharapova has overtaken her with consecutive victories in their most recent meetings on the tour. The latest ended 6-2, 6-3 after Maria struck 28 winners during the contest.

“Facing an opponent I’d lost to previously in Wuhan in two sets, and someone that’s been playing really good tennis this year, I knew this would be a tough match,” Sharapova said. “There’s no doubt about this and I was ready after having a good practice week,”

In a Herculaen effort late in the day, Mariana Duque-Marino rallied back from a bagel set down against Heather Watson to defeat the British No. 1 following a grueling third set tiebreak. She won the match 0-6, 6-3, 7-6(11) after saving several match points and battling beyond expectations. It was an exciting, albeit rollercoaster affair that brought attention to Court 7. The Colombian will now look to follow up on the momentum when she challenges Maria Sharapova in the second round.

This marks the first time that Sharapova and Mariana Duque-Marino will cross paths on the WTA Tour. While the qualifier produced a strong showing in her main draw opener against Watson, Sharapova is an entirely different beast and will be merciless in her dissection of the Colombian qualifier.

It was not the most outstanding of weeks for world No. 2 Roger Federer, but he was still able to secure his 85th career title on Sunday afternoon at the TEB BNP Paribas Istanbul Open.

The 17-time Grand Slam winner won his third title of the season following a straight sets victory against Pablo Cuevas. Federer stormed through the firsts set in 33 minutes but was slowed in the second set, where he fended off set point and required five match points to down the Uruguayan. In the end, he handed Cuevas his first defeat in an ATP World Tour final.

“It’s been a tough week; four tough matches,” said Federer. “I thought the final was my best one. I’m very happy. I’m very proud to be the first champion here at the first-time tournament here in Istanbul. In Turkey, I’ve had a wonderful week. On and off the court, I was able to visit the city a little bit, meet a lot of people, enjoy the crowd support and experience Turkey.

“It’s been crazy, in a good way, and I hope I can do it again one day. Right now, I’m just happy I was able to win the tournament. It’s always the best feeling for an athlete to be the champion at the end of a long tough week.”

Prior to his first meeting with Federer, Cuevas was undefeated in ATP World Tour finals (3-0) and on his way to a fourth. However, he was simply unable to secure his second title of the season. Instead, he took home 42,100 Euros for his effort.

“It’s difficult to face Roger, not only because of his game but also to stay focused on the game and not get distracted,” said Cuevas. “It was a very good experience for me, and I think it will help me in the future.”

In an all-Czech final at the J&T Banka Prague Open, Karolina Pliskova was able to reign supreme in front of her local crowd after defeating Lucie Hradecka.

However, the win was not an easy one for Pliskova, who had to rally back from a set down to earn the victory. She dropped the opening set but came back to win the match 4-6, 7-5, 6-3.

“It was very tough to play a Czech girl in the final in front of a Czech crowd,” Pliskova said after the match. “Lucie and I are good friends, we practice a lot together at tournaments, and we played Fed Cup together twice, so we know each other pretty well. I didn’t want to beat her, but I had to!

Pliskova withstood 17 aces from Hradecka and fired eight of her own to earn the victory. The win marked her 28th on the WTA tour this season – a tour high. This is her first title of the year.

“I’m just happy she was playing really well in the first set. In the second set I was serving at 5-3 and I didn’t make it, so I’m happy I could win the second set in the end anyway. In the third set she was playing really fast and serving really well, so it was tough, and I was having some emotions.

“But I’m just happy that I stayed calm in the end and I was able to make it today.”

Earlier in the day, the doubles final saw Belinda Bencic and Katerina Siniakova beat Kateryna Bondarenko and Eva Hrdinova in straight sets 6-2, 6-2.

Roger Federer moves into the top seed but will have it far from easy against an in-form Nick Kyrgios or Daniel Gimeno-Traver. Kyrgios had done very little on clay but made his first final while Federer comes in off a title at the new Istanbul tournament, defeating Pablo Cuevas for the trophy. Federer is a three times winner of the Madrid Masters tournament, although the first of those came when the event was played on an indoor hard court.

John Isner is the seed projected to play Federer in round three but will need to see off Adrian Mannarino for the third time in four meetings first before facing the winner of Thomaz Bellucci and Jeremy Chardy. Bellucci qualified after winning a third set tiebreak against Federico Delbonis. Isner notably has a win over Federer on clay, in Davis Cup action in 2012.

Jo-Wilfried Tsonga will look to bounce back from a disastrous straight sets loss to Marcel Granollers in Barcelona when he takes on Lukas Rosol in round one. He is 2-0 against the Czech, without losing a set. The most recent of those was last year where Tsonga won 6-2 6-2 6-3 in Davis Cup play. Jack Sock or Pablo Andujar await the winner. Andujar followed up his surprise run to the Barcelona final by having to withdraw from Munich down 1-4 in the opening set of his second round match.

Tomas Berdych made the final the year of the disastrous blue clay experiment, losing in three sets to Federer. While he may still need to beat the Swiss and Rafael Nadal to get there, the withdrawal of Djokovic opens up a route to the final if he can compete at a high level. Estoril title winner Richard Gasquet is the likely first round opponent for the Czech who has a losing head to head against Gasquet, on clay and overall. He will look to even those up at 2-2 and 6-6 to move into the third round.

In losing to Fabio Fognini in Barcelona, Rafael Nadal saw the Italian add his name to a very small list of players who have defeated Nadal twice on clay – both of which came in the same year. Doubts remain over Nadal’s ability to compete at the very top level and with each bad loss, it feels like he is nearing closer to the end. However, it would take some effort from the rest of the draw to ensure he doesn’t at least make the final here. He has made it on five of the six occasions since Madrid became a clay event, with the one failure on blue clay. The early rounds of the draw don’t seem too troubling with Simone Bolelli and Bernard Tomic seemingly the best to offer in terms of denying him a quarter final spot.

Once he makes it there, there are plenty of tough outs for Nadal. Fognini is unseeded here but might fancy his chances against Grigor Dimitrov, given that the Bulgarian was defeated fairly easily against a handy clay player in Pablo Cuevas in Istanbul. Stanislas Wawrinka will be the expected quarter finalist though and if they meet, will face Nadal for the first time since the Australian Open final. It was there that Wawrinka ended a 12 match, 26 set losing streak against Nadal.

Kei Nishikori would likely have won this tournament last year had his body held up, but it didn’t and he would be forced to retire in the third set of the final against Nadal. The fourth seed will hope to complete the job this time and has a handy route to the final with both Federer and Nadal not a possible opponent until the final. While not playing Nadal, his route to the semis is laden with his countrymen. An opener against Ernests Gulbis or David Goffin doesn’t look as frightening as it would have done 6-9 months ago. Roberto Bautista-Agut has not beaten a top 10 player in his last 10 attempts and is a life time 3-16 against the top 10. Bautista-Agut begins against the wildcard of choice from the Romanian tournament owner, Marius Copil. Thanasi Kokkinakis is a potential round two opponent for Bautista-Agut. The young Australian is now an impressive 13-0 in qualifying matches on the ATP tour this year.

Istanbul finalist Pablo Cuevas will look to continue his good form but has a tough ask in round two should he defeat Albert Ramos. The Uruguayan is set to play David Ferrer, who made the semi finals last year. After a stunning start to the year, Ferrer has begun to slow down and disappointingly faltered to Pablo Andujar in the Barcelona semi final. Another of Ferrer’s five losses on the year was to Nishikori, who was a winner in straights at the Australian Open. Fernando Verdasco and Guillermo Garcia-Lopez will seek to make it an all-Spanish round three match with Ferrer but it is likely that Marin Cilic will make it there instead. The ninth seed needs a good run after a shock loss to Victor Estrella last time out in Barcelona.

With the bump up to second seed, Andy Murray could be set for one of his unlikely runs on the surface he finds less than preferable. However, weather issues in Munich have meant his bid for a first clay title have been delayed until Monday which disturbs his preparation coming into this event. That final is against Philipp Kohlschreiber, who could be his first opponent if the German extends his head to head over Alejandro Falla to 6-1 in round one. Gael Monfils remains as unpredictable as ever but should make it 4-0 against Viktor Troicki in his opener to move closer to a round three with Murray. They last met at Roland Garros last year in a bizarre match that ended 6-4 6-1 4-6 1-6 6-0 in Murray’s favour.

If Murray falls early, look for Milos Raonic to continue his rivalry with Kei Nishikori if they both make it as far as the semi final. However, Raonic has not played for a month since withdrawing from Monte Carlo and Juan Monaco will be a tough test to begin for the Canadian.  Feliciano Lopez rounds off the seeds – he is 2-3 against Raonic while a potential quarter final with Murray would appear to be one sided on paper, given Lopez is an ugly 0-10 against the No.2 seed.