From Adele To Rihanna, Say Hello To WTA Stars’ Grammy Favorites
From Adele’s speech to Beyoncé’s show-stopping performance, check out WTA stars’ favorite Grammy moments and which tracks would earn their award nod, right here!
From Adele’s speech to Beyoncé’s show-stopping performance, check out WTA stars’ favorite Grammy moments and which tracks would earn their award nod, right here!
MONTRÉAL, Canada – Reigning Australian Open champion Angelique Kerber acquitted herself well in her first hardcourt match since Miami; despite a second set wobble, the No.2 seed stood tall in the end to defeat unseeded Mirjana Lucic-Baroni, 6-3, 4-6, 6-3 in the second round of the Rogers Cup.
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“It was a really tough match. She played really strong and tough, and I knew it would be a tough match. But I was trying to keep focusing until the last point, and staying in the match. I’m really happy about my first match here.”
Playing just her second match since after reaching the Wimbledon final – having pulled out of the Ericsson Open due to an elbow injury – but played the crucial points well against an in-form Lucic-Baroni on Wednesday night.
“I knew she was playing well, but I was trying to focus on my game. It was a good match.”
Getting out to a quick 5-2 lead in the opening set, Kerber was suddenly confounded by the Croatian No.1, who broke serve in the opening game of the second and never looked back to force a decider.
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“In the second set, she played great and won the important points. I wanted to come back strong in the third set and play my game.
Conserving her energy well throughout the one hour, 38 minute match, the World No.2 didn’t face a break point in the final set, breaking serve on her second opportunity – ultimately clinching the match on her own serve at love.
“It’s just great to be here. I love to play here in Montréal. The fans are amazing; it’s always full and they always stay until the end!”
Up next for Kerber is No.17 seed Elina Svitolina, who outlasted Canadian wildcard Francoise Abanda, 7-6(2), 7-6(3) early on Wednesday. Svitolina is currently working with Justine Henin, who appeared as her on-court coach during the match.
“It was my first match on hard court after a long time. It was not so easy.” – Angelique Kerber pic.twitter.com/mG745ZuMyW
— Coupe Rogers (@CoupeRogers) July 28, 2016
DOHA, Qatar – Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova was the only winner on Tuesday at the Qatar Total Open, moving through a rainy Valentine’s Day to dispatch former World No.1 Jelena Jankovic, 6-1, 6-4, and advance into the second round.
“It was quite a long day, but I’ll take it,” she said after the match. “I’m happy to be one of the first ones done today, and it’s a nice present for myself, as well.”
Pavlyuchenkova came in hot after a run to the Australian Open quarterfinals, completing a career set of last eight appearances at major tournaments. But stormy weather threatened to cool off the big-hitting Russian, who was set to open play against Jankovic, one of the most dangerous qualifiers in recent memory.
“I haven’t such a good start to a season before, but it’s exciting, and I’m just trying to take it tournament by tournament.”
Court floor being dried in order to resume the matches of the @WTA #Qatar_Total_Open! Keep following us for more updates! pic.twitter.com/IEGFVI5wIe
— Qatar Tennis Fed. (@QatarTennis) February 14, 2017
Jankovic had to battle through three rounds of qualifying for the first time since 2004 (Filderstadt), but after a year full of injuries, the 2008 US Open finalist discussed the need for more matches to help ease her back into competitive play.
“I’m feeling good but I need to get my game up there and of course my confidence and just being comfortable in the matches, being in those situations all over again, match in, match out, day in, day out, compete and fight and find my way,” she said on Monday.
Even with multiple rain delays, the Serb ultimately had few answers against Pavlyuchenkova, who hit 23 winners to just 14 unforced errors while Jankovic went 0/5 on break point opportunities.
.@NastiaPav has come out swinging after the rain delay! @QatarTennis pic.twitter.com/f7suGTINVJ
— WTA (@WTA) February 14, 2017
“I didn’t do much,” Pavlyuchenkova said of how she spent the time between play. “I was just talking with my coach, and some players as well. But I tried not to expend too much energy so I could keep as much as I could for the court. I don’t know how i managed, so I’m happy to finish this match.
“I guess I was calm,” she continued later on in a post-match interview, “and that’s the main thing, to accept the weather conditions. We were both in the same position, waiting for play to resume. I just tried to do my best.
“I haven’t done so well in the past at this tournament. I’ll try to go as far as I can and hopefully I can show some good tennis and have a great result.”
The Valentine’s Day victory reminded her of another from a few years ago at the Abierto Monterrey Afirme, where she fielded a proposal from an excited fan.
“I’d won a quarterfinal match in Monterrey, and he got on one knee with a ring. That was the last thing I expected, but it’s nice.
“At least somebody wants to marry me!”
Up next for the Russian is No.3 seed and reigning BNP Paribas WTA Finals Singapore presented by SC Global champion Dominika Cibulkova.
.@NastiaPav edges Jankovic 6-1, 6-4!
Meets @Cibulkova in @QatarTennis Second round! pic.twitter.com/CK4wbLJFTP
— WTA (@WTA) February 14, 2017
Simona Halep neutralized Karolina Pliskova’s big serve in her 6-3, 6-3 win Thursday to reach the Rogers Cup quarterfinals.
During the match, Halep won 51% of return points that were put in play against Pliskova, the WTA ace leader, who has won 62% of her service points this season.
SAP Coaches View shows Halep moved in when facing Pliskova’s second serve, playing 48% of them from inside the baseline. She won 62% of second serve points in the match, including 22% of points which she returned from inside the baseline.
Halep took advantage of her opportunities to break Pliskova. She won 57% of the games in which she held a break chance, breaking four times in seven games.
This performance is in keeping with how Halep has played all season. She stands second on the WTA for return points won in 2016 at 49%.
The SAP Coaches View combines scoring information direct from the chair umpire with tracking data from HawkEye to allow for an in depth look at five different aspects of a match. Each tracking option can be filtered to narrow the focus to specific situations within a match, such as break points. This information is available directly to coaches in real-time during a match on their SAP tablet and also available to them online after matches.
“Return of serve” tracking shows where each service return was struck, differentiating between first and second serves, with an emphasis on how many serves are returned from inside the baseline. This data can be filtered by a particular score.
Halep returned to a second straight Rogers Cup quarterfinal thanks to her return game.
A spotlight interview with Samantha Stosur on her illustrious career thus far.
BRISBANE, Australia – Martina Hingis and Sania Mirza won their 10th WTA doubles title together in Brisbane and have now won 26 matches in a row – the longest doubles winning streak in 22 years.
Saturday’s final was a tight affair early on, as Hingis and Mirza’s opponents in the final, Angelique Kerber and Andrea Petkovic, rebounded from a 2-0 deficit with four games of their own to build a 4-2 lead. But the No.1-seeded Swiss-Indian combo flipped the script completely from there, rattling off 11 of the last 13 games of the match to get by the German wildcard pairing in straight sets, 7-5, 6-1.
“They’re obviously very good players, so we knew we had to come out and play our best,” Mirza said. “We let the lead go a little bit after 2-0, and we were both trying to find our form again on the court. It was big we broke on the deuce point at 6-5, and after that the tide really changed in our favor.”
Though she came out on the losing end, Kerber still made history – she’s the first player in the tournament’s history to reach both the singles and doubles finals. She was runner-up in singles too.
“It wasn’t my night tonight. I lost two finals,” she said at the trophy ceremony. “But it was still a great week, and congratulations to Sania and Martina – you are the best, good luck in Melbourne!”
And so, Hingis and Mirza’s winning streak lives on – at 26 matches in a row it’s the longest doubles winning streak since Gigi Fernández and Natasha Zvereva won 28 matches in a row together in 1994.
Hingis and Mirza also hit double digit WTA doubles titles together – Indian Wells, Miami, Charleston, Wimbledon, US Open, Guangzhou, Wuhan, Beijing and WTA Finals in 2015, and now Brisbane.
Even more impressive? Hingis and Mirza are actually 10-1 in WTA doubles finals together.
They’re playing again this week coming up, at the Apia International Sydney – again as top seeds.
“Every match at the beginning of the season is a good match, just trying to get that confidence going,” Hingis said. “It’s great we already have this Brisbane title in our pockets, and we’re really looking forward to Sydney. We’ll get a couple days off before we play and then we will start again.
“I always have such great support in Australia so I really look forward to the next tournaments.”
#Hingis/#Mirza with their hardware! Their 10th tournament title together ?????????? #BrisbaneTennis pic.twitter.com/eRsqqDOod8
— Brisbane Intl (@BrisbaneTennis) January 9, 2016
MONTRÉAL, Canada – No.10 seed Madison Keys edged past Venus Williams in a tight three sets to snap up one of the last quarterfinal spots in the Rogers Cup.
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Keys has looked dominant in all of her matches so far in Montréal, her first tournament since her run to the fourth round of Wimbledon. Although she went into the match against Williams trailing 2-1 in their head to head, she had the added confidence of splitting their last two matches on hard courts – both of which were three-set battles.
“I’m excited,” the 21-year-old said yesterday at the prospect of playing Williams. “It’s always tough playing her.She’s obviously a great player.
“She did well last week, so it’s going to be a tough match. But I’m looking forward to it.”
Williams started out shaky in the opening set as her service woes reared their head once again. She’s struggled with normally trusty shot all tournament long, and in the first few games barely managed to crack the 90 miles per hour mark. Keys, a strong returner, took advantage of the lapse and stayed aggressive to take the opening set 6-1 in just 20 minutes.
“Her first serve was definitely slower than normal,” Keys acknowledged after the match. “But it was funny, her second serve was a lot slower, but because of the court it was bouncing a lot higher than normal. So while her first serve was a little easier to return, her second serve was really tough.”
Williams looked in trouble again in the second set as she quickly went down a break, but the 2014 champion shook off the disappointing start. Keys allowed more errors to spray from her racquet as Williams backed up her vulnerable serve with pinpoint groundstrokes – especially off of the forehand wing. She dominated the tiebreak to force a deciding set.
But after the enormous effort it took to get back on course, it just didn’t look like Williams had any more left in the tank for the final set. She couldn’t maintain her level, allowing Keys to get back to her attacking ways. Keys broke early on in the set and relied on her serve to keep her nose ahead until she took the match 6-1, 6-7(2), 6-3.
She’s set to face Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova in the next round, whose monumental effort against Agnieszka Radwanska earned her a spot in the quarterfinals.
“It’s going to be a tough match,” Keys said of her always-aggressive Russian opponent. “She’s always tricky because she definitely fights till the end and she’s going to hit a lot of winners.
“I think it will be similar to today, you know, kind of deciding when to just get the ball back in a good, neutral spot, or when to kind of pull the trigger and be a little bit more aggressive.”
Dominika Cibulkova takes on Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova in the second round of the Qatar Total Open.
MELBOURNE, Australia – After winning the biggest title of her career at the WTA Finals at the end of the 2015 season, Agnieszka Radwanska made a big declaration – that she would do everything in her power to win a Grand Slam title in 2016 (check out the full interview with CNN Open Court here).
But Radwanska hasn’t just been talking the talk of a future Grand Slam champion – she’s been walking the walk, big time. Since losing early at the US Open she’s been doing a heck of a lot of winning, capturing four of the six tournaments she’s played – Tokyo [Pan Pacific], Tianjin, the WTA Finals in Singapore and Shenzhen this past week – and putting together a more than impressive 22-4 record.
And by winning Shenzhen, Radwanska also secured a rise from No.5 to No.4 on the WTA Rankings, meaning she’ll have a Top 4 seed at the Australian Open, which, in turn, means she won’t have to play Serena Williams until at least the semifinals – a good break given she’s 0-8 against the World No.1.
But the question remains: Why could the Australian Open be Radwanska’s first Grand Slam title?
Well, there’s actually a very good reason Radwanska could make her breakthrough at the Grand Slam of the Asia-Pacific – she’s won 10 of her 18 career WTA titles in the Asia-Pacific**:
2016 – Shenzhen
2015 – Tokyo [Pan Pacific], Tianjin, WTA Finals [Singapore]2014 – Montréal
2013 – Auckland, Sydney, Seoul
2012 – Dubai, Miami, Brussels
2011 – Carlsbad, Tokyo [Pan Pacific], Beijing
2008 – Pattaya City, Istanbul, Eastbourne
2007 – Stockholm
Radwanska was asked why she always does so well in the Asia-Pacific during her week in Shenzhen.
“That’s a good question – I’m not sure!” she replied. “I’m always feeling good on the court here, and I’m always playing great tennis. And you can’t ignore the results – that’s really a lot of tournaments.
“Hopefully there will be even more tournaments to play in the Asia-Pacific in the future!”
Many would pick Wimbledon to be Radwanska’s best major – she reached her first Grand Slam final there in 2012, after all – but she’s been to the quarterfinals or better at the Australian Open just as many times as at Wimbledon (five). Her best result in Melbourne was the semifinals back in 2014.
Can the World No.4, a former World No.2, go all the way this time? Stay tuned on wtatennis.com!
** The general definition for Asia-Pacific is East Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia and Oceania
Simona Halep takes on Karolina Pliskova in the third round of the Rogers Cup.