WTA Live Fan Access Best Episodes: No.1
In the best episode of this season’s WTA Live Fan Access presented by Xerox, Caroline Wozniacki and Serena Williams put their womance to the test. Who knows who best?
In the best episode of this season’s WTA Live Fan Access presented by Xerox, Caroline Wozniacki and Serena Williams put their womance to the test. Who knows who best?
Serena Williams has been named the 2015 SI Sportsperson of the Year, becoming the first active tennis player since Chris Evert in 1976 to earn the distinction. The annual award honors the athlete, team coach, or individual who, by virtue of performance and character on and off the field, transcended the year in sports.
Serena is the first active female athlete to win the award since the World Cup-winning US Women’s National Team in 1999. She is the fourth tennis player to win the award. Billie Jean King was the first female winner in 1972, followed by Evert in 1976. Arthur Ashe was named Sportsman of the Year in 1994 for his post-career humanitarian efforts.
Read the full tribute by the esteemed S.L. Price here.
All year Williams kept coming, on a path more arduous than anyone knew, and she put together the best season by a woman in a quarter century. “I do want to be known as the greatest ever,” she says. To many she already is. But that’s not the sole reason why we arrive, now, at this honor. It’s also because Williams kept pushing herself to grow, to be better, and tennis was the least of it. The trying is what’s impressive. The trying is why we are here.
Sports Illustrated’s Managing Editor Chris Stone sums it up here:
Sports Illustrated honors her dominance in 2015, when she won 53 of her 56 matches, three of the four Grand Slam events and built the most yawning ranking points gap between her and her closest competitor in tennis history. We honor her, too, for a career of excellence, her stranglehold on the game’s No.1 ranking and her 21 Grand Slam titles, a total that has her on the brink of Steffi Graf’s Open Era Slam record, which Williams will likely eclipse by mid-summer.
But we are honoring Serena Williams too for reasons that hang in the grayer, less comfortable ether, where issues such as race and femininity collide with the games. Race was used as a cudgel against Williams at Indian Wells in 2001, and she returned the blow with a 14-year self-exile from the tournament. She returned to Indian Wells in ’15, a conciliator seeking to raise the level of discourse about hard questions, the hardest ones, really. Williams, S.L. Price writes in his cover story in the Dec. 21 issue, “proffered an open hand. Far past the time that anyone expected it, she demonstrated a capacity for change – innovation if you will. She’s groping for answers and realizing she has much to learn.
Read WTA Insider’s tribute to Serena’s astounding 2015 year, one that saw her endure, embrace, and overcome a multitude of obstacles en route to a magical season.
Serena Williams hosted the second annual Serena Williams Live Ultimate Run on the weekend. How did she do? Which other WTA legend ran the race? Find out right here.
Thanasi Kokkinakis d. Bernard Tomic 3-6, 3-6, 6-3, 6-4, 8-6/R64/Roland Garros
Two sets down to fellow Aussie young gun Bernard Tomic in the second-round in Paris, 19-year-old Thanasi Kokkinakis brought the Court 7 crowd to its collective feet, roaring back and saving three match points to score an unlikely 3-6, 3-6, 6-3, 6-4, 8-6 victory in in three hours and 24 minutes.
In doing so, the No. 84-ranked Australian became the first teen to reach the third round at Roland-Garros since Latvian Ernests Gulbis in 2008.
The 6-foot-5 young guns had already faced off twice in 2015, Tomic emerging victorious on both occasions. But in this dramatic encounter, he would let three match points slip away at 5-2 in the fifth.
“I was going mental in the first two sets when I couldn’t take a break point,” said Kokkinakis. “I don’t know what my conversion rate was [23 per cent/five of 22], but it was driving me insane. But I kept hanging in there. I trusted my fitness, and it paid off.”
“It was an emotional celebration,” Kokkinakis added. “Second time I have come back from two sets to love.”
Kokkinakis had saved four match points in defeating 11th seed Gulbis in the opening round of the Australian Open 5-7, 6-0, 1-6, 7-6(2), 8-6.
Nick Kyrgios d. Andreas Seppi 5-7, 4-6, 6-3, 7-6(5), 8-6/R16/Australian Open
His 7-6(5), 5-7, 7-6(5), 6-3 Round of 16 shocker against Rafael Nadal at Wimbledon in 2014 was indeed a grand introduction to the ATP World Tour for Nick Kyrgios. But it was at the 2015 Australian Open that the 19-year-old Greco-Malaysian-Aussie truly stepped into the spotlight when he stormed back from a two-set deficit to defeat Andreas Seppi 5-7, 4-6, 6-3, 7-6(5), 8-6, becoming his home-nation Slam’s breakout star.
An electric, filled-to-capacity Hisense Arena crowd roared in delight as Kyrgios saved a match point to secure his second-ever Grand Slam quarter-final in only his seventh major tournament appearance. He became the first Australian man to reach the elite eight at the event since Lleyton Hewitt in 2005.
Kyrgios, who became the first teen since Roger Federer in 2001 to reach multiple Grand Slam quarter-finals, would call it “the best feeling I ever had”.
“This is actually the most nervous I’ve ever been, going out against Seppi in the fourth round,” said Kyrgios. “When I saw I had finally won the match it was incredible.”
The turning point came early in the third set, when Kyrgios scored an all-important break in the second game to stem the tide.
“That just established that I wasn’t going to go away,” he said. “I was just going to compete till the very end. I started playing really well in the third set. I knew if I could just hang on some way and take it to a fifth set, it’s anyone’s match.”
“I just played a couple bad games at the beginning of the third set,” said Seppi, who a round earlier had dispatched 17-time Slam champion Federer. “I missed three easy forehands for the break. He played a little bit more relaxed after that.”
Donald Young d. Viktor Troicki 4-6, 0-6, 7-6(3), 6-2, 6-4/R32/US Open
It was only fitting. How better to bid farewell to the aging 6,000-seat Grandstand, an intimate venue unlike any other in the sport. Where else in tennis can you so easily shuttle back and forth between show courts (Grandstand and Louis Armstrong Stadium)? What other court features a walkway upon which fans can look directly into a player’s eyes as they toss the ball skyward on serve? Over the years, the one-of-a-kind venue has played home to some of the US Open’s most thrilling matches, and the Donald Young vs. Viktor Troicki affair — the last official singles match to be played on the court before its scheduled demolition — will rank right up there with the very best.
The left-hander had already battled back from a two-sets-to-love deficit in the opening round, shocking 11th-seeded Frenchman Gilles Simon 2-6, 4-6, 6-4, 6-4, 6-4. On the brink of defeat once more, the American brought the rowdy and decidedly one-sided home crowd to its feat as he fought his way past the Serb with aggressive shotmaking and never-say-die attitude.
Young, 26, needed three hours and 33 minutes to clinch the win. He had two match points on his racquet at 5-3, but sealed the victory in the following game with a down-the-line forehand winner.
“Showing you can fight and come back is a great feeling at the end of the day. It was 90 per cent you guys, 10 per cent me,” he told the crowd, which chanted “U-S-A” throughout the match. “I am so happy to be able to do it in front of you guys. Thanks for the support. It definitely did [feel a bit like Davis Cup]. I was on the other end of a match like this earlier this year in Scotland against Andy Murray, so to have you guys 100 per cent for me felt amazing. I really appreciate that.”
A sparkling new 10,000-seat Grandstand will be unveiled on the grounds of the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in 2016, while the old facility — a remnant of the 1964 World’s Fair — will serve as a practice facility until its demolition.
Coming Tuesday: The Two Biggest Grand Slam Comebacks of 2015
Who took your favorite Selfie of the year? Who made you LOL and warm your heart with a big Aww? Click here to vote!
LOS ANGELES, CA, USA – Maria Sharapova and friends lit up Centre Court at the UCLA Tennis Center on Day 1 of aptly-named exhibition event Maria Sharapova & Friends, presented by Porsche.
The highlight of the day was the hostess herself, Sharapova, taking on American rising star Madison Keys – and the five-time Grand Slam champion and former World No.1 squeaked by, 6-7, 6-1, 11-9.
Sharapova spoke about how excited she was about the new exhibition event. “I’ve been coming here to practice for so many years and felt part of the community here,” she explained. “I wanted to give the tennis fans in Los Angeles something back and support professional tennis in the United States.”
Elsewhere, Mardy Fish outlasted Andy Roddick in a men’s singles match, 7-6, 4-6, 12-10, Keys and Fish beat Roddick and Laura Robson in mixed doubles, 6-4, and, in a celebrity mixed doubles match, the all-female team of Sharapova and Chelsea Handler outdid all-male team Roddick and Will Arnett.
And that’s not all – Sunday’s schedule sees Sloane Stephens face Shelby Rogers, Kei Nishikori play Jack Sock, Sharapova and Nishikori play Robson and Sock, and Sharapova and Handler play another celebrity mixed doubles match. Find out where you can watch it all live on the Tennis Channel.
A part of the proceeds from the weekend will go to the Maria Sharapova Foundation – read more here.
And here are some of the best photos from Maria Sharapova & Friends, all courtesy of Porsche:
LOS ANGELES, CA, USA – Madison Keys says the decision to end her partnership with coach Lindsay Davenport was driven by her need for a full-time coach who could commit to tennis’ grueling week-by-week schedule.
Speaking ahead of her appearance at the Maria Sharapova & Friends exhibition on the campus of UCLA on Saturday, Keys confirmed the split was a mutual one.
“I got to a point where at this point of my career I wanted someone to be able to be there every single day and be there at the tournaments,” Keys told WTA Insider. “Lindsay was obviously such a huge help last year. We did so much and she helped me so much. We just kind of went as far as we could. We’re still close and we still talk.”
Davenport’s coaching role grew out of an off-season training block that evolved into something more. But given her family commitments as well as her commentating duties, the three-time Slam champion could not travel with Keys full-time. Had she been able to, Keys said they would still be working together.
“It wasn’t like we had some big blow out fight and we hate each other,” Keys said. “That’s not the case. Obviously we want to still work with each other. She just has so much. Our tennis travel is insane. A mother of one wouldn’t be able to do it. A mother of four who has commentating and all of the other stuff? It just became a lot.”
Keys will go into the 2016 season with former ATP pro Jesse Levine as her full-time coach. Levine reached a career-high ranking of No.69 in 2012 and the two have known each other for years from training at the Evert Tennis Academy in Boca Raton, Florida. The idea for the partnership came from Keys’ agent Max Eisenbud, who used to represent the Canadian.
“He had to flatten out his forehand for me because my arm is going to fall off,” Keys said, laughing. “I can’t hit above my head like Rafa. I’m like, ‘Please stop. I’m not a dude. My arms will fall off my body.'”
As for Davenport, she may not be in Keys’ coaching box, but she’ll always be in her corner. “She’s always said if you ever need anything call me, let me know,” Keys said. “Always there for you.”
On the International Premier Tennis League’s last night in New Dehli, the four women who nabbed headlines on Friday were equally on song Saturday, as Belinda Bencic, Karolina Pliskova, Agnieszka Radwanska, and Sania Mirza went 4-0 in the two matches played.
First up was Pliskova, who won a 6-4 set of mixed doubles with Dustin Brown; the fire-and-ice pair needed 27 minutes to fend off Kirsten Flipkens and Leander Paes. Bencic, by contrast, needed no time at all to dispatch Flipkens, 6-1, in just under 20 minutes in women’s singles. Pliskova and Bencic’s OUE Singapore Slammers ultimately won an otherwise closely contested 24-22 match against the Legendari Japan Warriors. The Slammers remain in second place overall.
Mirza and Radwanska won by identical scores to their Slammer counterparts. Playing for the Micromax Indian Aces, Mirza and Rohan Bopanna won their mixed doubles set, 6-4, against Kristina Mladenovic and Daniel Nestor. Mladenovic reemerged in women’s singles; despite showing off some of her signature flashy play, dropped a 6-1 set of women’s singles to Radwanska, who ended her WTA season on a high by winning the BNP Paribas WTA Finals Singapore presented by SC Global. In first place overall, the Aces defeated the OBI UAE Royals, 30-19.
Check out some of the best tweets of the night:
“@MirzaSania:'Gol gappa' tasting&guess what?They loved it,ok except @KikiMladenovic ? @rogerfederer @NickKyrgios pic.twitter.com/9MnOIZRy5l”???
— Kristina Mladenovic (@KikiMladenovic) December 12, 2015
This is also what happen when you have friend like @DreddyTennis, @BelindaBencic. ✌️?#Slammers pic.twitter.com/Hq8YClgXdR
— #TeamBelinda (@FanOfBencic) December 12, 2015
No worries, it will be “3rd time lucky” ? @BelindaBencic @KaPliskova.? pic.twitter.com/BOZO7H61bj
— #TeamBelinda (@FanOfBencic) December 12, 2015
Another win for @KaPliskova and @DreddyTennis ,more used to the mix dub game,better team work!#Slammers pic.twitter.com/7aBdCEMmQI
— KaPliskova Fans (@kpfanclub_CN) December 12, 2015
@KikiMladenovic, ladies and gentlemen. #IPTL2 pic.twitter.com/EDK1JYlUO0
— Noémie. (@Saschatard) December 12, 2015
Thank you Delhi for such a massive atmosphere! DUBAI WE ARE COMING HOME @UAERoyals ??? pic.twitter.com/S6U19jtriP
— Kristina Mladenovic (@KikiMladenovic) December 12, 2015
Close shave! #Tenfie #BreakTheCode @Charlymoya @marcelomelo83 @BelindaBencic @NickKyrgios @KaPliskova @DreddyTennis pic.twitter.com/3lsBJdVtGg
— IPTL (@iptl) December 12, 2015
Watch Challenger Hot Shot Countdown
Young Guns Make Their Mark
The ATP’s next generation proved to be a dominant force throughout the 2015 ATP Challenger Tour season, with nine teenagers racking up a total of 13 titles – a significant increase from six winners last year.
The four teenagers in the Top 100 of the Emirates ATP Rankings – Hyeon Chung, Borna Coric, Thanasi Kokkinakis and Alexander Zverev – all hoisted trophies. Chung became just the second Korean to crack the Top 100 with his second of four titles in Savannah in April. Coric dominated on the South American clay of Barranquilla, notching his second career crown, while Kokkinakis prevailed at the prestigious event in Bordeaux for his maiden title. Zverev’s bid for the ATP Star of Tomorrow Award presented by Emirates, as the youngest member of the Top 100, was bolstered with a run to the title on home soil in Heilbronn.
Three American teens – Jared Donaldson, Taylor Fritz and Frances Tiafoe – finished in the year-end Top 200 of the Emirates ATP Rankings, with Donaldson prevailing in Maui in February and Fritz joining an elite club in winning a pair of titles at age 17, in Sacramento and Fairfield. Also, when Fritz defeated Donaldson in the Sacramento final, it marked the first all-teenage title match on the ATP Challenger Tour since 2007. A second such final would follow a month later, with New York’s Noah Rubin turning in the comeback of the year from 3-6, 1-5 down in Charlottesville, topping countryman Tommy Paul.
Read Features: Donaldson | Fritz | Tiafoe | Rubin
In addition, 19-year-olds Elias Ymer and Karen Khachanov tasted Challenger glory in Caltanissetta and Istanbul.
2015 TEEN TITLISTS
Player |
Tournament |
Age |
Taylor Fritz |
Sacramento |
17 years, 11 months |
Taylor Fritz |
Fairfield | 17 years, 11 months |
Alexander Zverev |
Heilbronn | 18 years |
Jared Donaldson | Maui | 18 years, 3 months |
Hyeon Chung | Burnie | 18 years, 8 months |
Borna Coric | Barranquilla | 18 years, 9 months |
Hyeon Chung | Savannah | 18 years, 11 months |
Hyeon Chung | Busan | 18 years, 11 months |
Thanasi Kokkinakis | Bordeaux | 19 years, 1 month |
Elias Ymer | Caltanissetta | 19 years, 2 months |
Karen Khachanov | Istanbul | 19 years, 3 months |
Hyeon Chung | Kaohsiung | 19 years, 4 months |
Noah Rubin | Charlottesville | 19 years, 8 months |
Cervantes’ Spellbinding Run
Inigo Cervantes turned in a Challenger campaign for the ages, securing a 50-win, four-title season with an undefeated run at the ATP Challenger Tour Finals. The Spaniard saved two match points in defeating Daniel Munoz-de la Nava for the title, becoming just the third player to claim 50 match wins in a single season. Cervantes entered the Top 100 for the first time with a run to the Montevideo final the week prior and finished with a year-end position of No. 72.
“These numbers show how excellent my year was,” Cervantes said. “Two years ago, I was in a wheelchair without being able to play tennis or walk because of two hip surgeries. Now I have my best ranking. Next year I’ll have even bigger goals and I hope to get better and better.”
The 26 year old won four titles from six finals this year, prevailing in Ostrava, Vicenza, Marburg and the season finale in Sao Paulo, while finishing runner-up in Eskisehir and Montevideo.
Top 100 Takeover
Ten players enjoyed jumps of at least 60 spots into the Top 100 of the Emirates ATP Rankings this year, and all won ATP Challenger Tour titles. Cervantes experienced the biggest leap, soaring 180 spots from a 2014 year-end position of World No. 252 to No. 72. India’s Yuki Bhambri posted a 40-15 season, rising 156 spots to a career-high World No. 88. Cervantes’ countryman Munoz-de la Nava also catapulted from outside the Top 200 to a year-end No. 75 position, behind a 46-18 campaign and a trio of titles. Chung, Kokkinakis, Taro Daniel, Marco Cecchinato and John Millman also made their Top 100 debuts, with 33-year-old Munoz-de la Nava becoming one of the 14 oldest players to do so for the first time in the history of the Emirates ATP Rankings.
Read Munoz-de la Nava feature
Milestone Men
Whoever said that the best things in life come in threes was clearly thinking of the 2015 season on the ATP Challenger Tour. Since its inception in 1978, only Ruben Ramirez Hidalgo had etched his name in the record books as a 300-match winner on the circuit. For more than three years, the Spaniard stood alone. Until now.
On 13 May, Yen Hsun Lu entered the exclusive club with a second-round victory in Seoul. Ten days later, it was Paolo Lorenzi‘s turn to make history with a quarter-final win in Eskisehir (Turkey). The party didn’t stop there, with Lorenzi’s countryman Filippo Volandri breaking through exactly one month later in Milan. All three players were honoured with on-court ceremonies after securing their milestone wins.
Read tributes: Lu | Lorenzi | Volandri
In addition, Lu added to his record title haul with his 22nd Challenger crown at the $125,000 event in Ningbo, China. Dudi Sela also reached a titles milestone with his fourth triumph in Vancouver, adding to crowns in 2005, ‘08 & ‘10. The Israeli is just the fifth player to win at least four titles at a single tournament.
Challengers Honoured In London
The ATP Challenger Tour’s finest had their moment in the spotlight during the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals. Throughout the 2015 season, nine tournaments on the circuit were honoured with 25-year commitment awards and the celebration culminated with a group dinner in London. These events have exemplified a steadfast dedication to growing the game and creating a strong foundation for players to develop their skills at the Challenger level. They are Aptos (U.S.A.), Cherbourg (France), Furth (Germany), Istanbul (Turkey), San Luis Potosi (Mexico), Segovia (Spain), Sevilla (Spain), Tampere (Finland) and Winnetka (U.S.A.).
Tour Tidbits