Google Play App Download

Tennis News

From around the world

Zhang Blasts Past Halep

Zhang Blasts Past Halep

  • Posted: Jan 01, 1970

MELBOURNE, Australia – World No.133 Zhang Shuai played the best tennis of her career to dismantle No.2 seed Simona Halep on Margaret Court Arena, 6-4, 6-3, in 78 minutes.

The Chinese veteran first came to prominence in 2009 when she became the lowest ranked player to defeat a reigning World No.1 – Dinara Safina at the China Open – but the 26-year-old had never won a Grand Slam match in 14 previous attempts.

Against Halep, Zhang displayed stunning form from the outset, hitting 31 winners and racing out to a 4-0 lead in the opening set before breaking serve in the 10th game to take the early lead.

Though the Romanian appeared to right the ship early in the second, Zhang weathered the storm and remained aggressive to win the last five games of the match to reach the second round.

“Thank you to everyone for supporting me,” a speechless Zhang said in her on-court interview.

“I think today is the best moment.”

For the former French Open finalist, the loss marked another abrupt end to an Australian Open campaign, having lost in back-to-back quarterfinals in straight sets. It is also her earliest exit from a hardcourt major tournament since the 2013 Australian Open, where she also lost in the first round.

Zhang will next play Hobart International champion Alizé Cornet; the Frenchwoman has dropped just six games in her last three matches – including a 6-1, 6-2 win over Eugenie Bouchard in the final of Hobart – and was equally ruthless to open her Australian Open against Bojana Jovanovski, winning, 6-1, 6-0.

Source link

Gavrilova Pulls Off Kvitova Upset

Gavrilova Pulls Off Kvitova Upset

  • Posted: Jan 01, 1970

MELBOURNE, Australia – Playing in the Australian Open under the local flag for the first time, Daria Gavrilova pulled off the upset of the night, shocking the No.6 seeded Petra Kvitova 6-4, 6-4 on Margaret Court Arena.

Gavrilova – who scored wins last year over Maria Sharapova, Ana Ivanovic and Lucie Safarova and was voted WTA’s Most Impressive Newcomer – wasn’t intimidated by the two-time Wimbledon champion across the net. And with the yellow-clad Aussie crowd firmly behind her, the 21-year-old was relentless.

“It was unreal,” a smiling Gavrilova said to the crowd after the win. “I was so nervous in the end… you probably could tell!”

In the second set, Gavrilova surged to a 5-2 lead and actually had a match point at 5-3 on her serve, but her nerves got the best of her and she sent a backhand into the net.

When the match point came again at 5-4, Gavrilova used a different tactic.

“In that last game I told myself, ‘You’re actually down 5-3 and you’re trying to stay in the match,'” Gavrilova said. “And obviously that helped.”

Kvitova did her best to tamp down her surging opponent and silence the raucous Aussie crowd, but her unforced errors got the best of her. The Czech’s reliable groundstrokes and serve became vulnerable: she hit 35 errors to 17 winners and seven double faults, including one when she was serving to stay in the match.

Gavrilova, who began competing for Australia in 2015, was feeling the Aussie spirit even down to her fingernails, which were painted royal blue and featured Australian flag designs.

“You guys are crazy!” she laughed, thanking the crowd who had been cheering and chanting for her all match long. “But obviously good crazy – you helped me a lot. It was unreal, I’m just really proud.”

Gavrilova now stands alone as the single Australian woman left in the draw – Ajla Tomljanovic, Samantha Stosur, Storm Sanders, Priscilla Hon, Maddison Inglis, Kimberly Birrell, Jarmila Wolfe and Tammi Patterson were all defeated in the first round.

With the win, Gavrilova improves to a 4-10 record against Top 10 players and is into the third round of a Grand Slam for the first time. She’s set to play the No.28 seed Kristina Mladenovic in what will be the pair’s first meeting.

Source link

Hingis & Bacsinszky Going For Gold

  • Posted: Jan 01, 1970

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil – Timea Bacsinszky and Martina Hingis staged a stunning comeback on Friday night to defeat Andrea Hlavackova and Lucie Hradecka and keep alive their dream of an Olympic gold medal.

Four years ago in London, Hlavackova and Hradecka won silver and they looked on course for a return to the final when took the first set and surged ahead in the second. However, their Swiss opponents hung doggedly onto their coattails, escaping from a dramatic second set to complete a 5-7, 7-6(3), 6-2 victory.

The turning point came with Hradecka serving at 5-4 in the second set. Having already saved one match point, Hingis fended off another with a ferocious volley that struck Hlavackova in the eye from point-blank range.

Despite a lengthy injury timeout, it was a blow from which Hlavackova and Hradecka were unable to recover. The Czechs lost the first two points on the resumption to drop serve and while they did manage to force a tie-break, it was one that never looked like going their way.

Bacsinszky and Hingis compounded this misery in the decider, rattling off four straight games to complete the comeback.

Heading into Rio, an Olympic medal was one of the few prizes missing from Hingis’ resume. Her hopes of winning one were dealt a double blow by the withdrawal or first Roger Federer and then Belinda Bencic. Bacsinszky, though, has deputized ably and on Saturday the first-time partnership will meet Ekaterina Makarova and Elena Vesnina for gold.

Makarova and Vesnina were quarterfinalists in London and have picked up a couple of Grand Slam titles since then. Against Lucie Safarova and Barbora Strycova they needed to draw on all this experience to overcome a slow start and edge through, 7-6(7), 6-4.

Source link

Halep To Play Fed Cup

  • Posted: Jan 01, 1970

CLUJ-NAPOCA, Romania – 2014 French Open finalist Simona Halep had initially announced she would miss this week’s Fed Cup tie against defending champions in the Czech Republic due to a nasal infection that required surgery.

The World No.3 reversed that decision on Tuesday, declaring she will attempt to defend her title at the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships and play at the Qatar Total Open – a tournament she won two years ago – but first, she would indeed take part in a historic home tie for Romania this weekend:

Halep has been a Fed Cup stalwart throughout her career with an overall 12-6 record since 2010, and was instrumental in helping her country achieve World Group status for the first time since 1992. The process took two years for Halep, who played all five ties in 2014 just to qualify for World Group II, and helped lead Romania through a 3-2 win over Spain last February.

Flanked by teammates Monica Niculescu, Andreea Mitu, and Raluca Olaru, Halep will take on a Czech team that has won Fed Cup in four of the last five years, and led by 2015’s championship line-up in Petra Kvitova, Karolina Pliskova, Barbora Strycova and Denisa Allertova.

Check out Halep’s announcement on Facebook.

Source link

WTA Player Of The Month: Kerber

WTA Player Of The Month: Kerber

  • Posted: Jan 01, 1970

Angelique Kerber came into the 2016 Australian Open having never surpassed the fourth round at the Happy Slam. Two weeks later she left with the title, the No.2 ranking, and a great big smile.

The German had one of the toughest roads to a Grand Slam title in recent memory; in her first Australian Open quarterfinal, she dismissed former No.1 and two-time Australian Open champion Victoria Azarenka in straight sets; Kerber had never beaten Azarenka in six previous attempts and had lost to her in the finals of the Brisbane International to start the season. From there, she ended Johanna Konta’s fairytale run into the semifinals and put on a comprehensive performance in the final against World No.1 Serena Williams. Looking to stop the 21-time Grand Slam champion from tying countrywoman Steffi Graf’s record of major titles, Kerber did one better and became the first German Grand Slam titlist since Graf herself at the 1999 French Open.

“I think in these two weeks, it changed a little bit when I won against Azarenka,” she explained to WTA Insider. “I felt, ‘Ok, I can believe in myself.’ This is actually the only way to win a Grand Slam.

“That was the change that I made in the last few days, to go for it and believe in myself and be aggressive and not hope that someone will give it to me. That was also the key to winning the Australian Open.”

A small shift in mindset took Kerber far from the dangerous floater she once was when she burst onto the scene in 2011 to reached the semifinals of the US Open; it took her all the way to a career-high ranking and helped her become January’s WTA Player of the Month!

Final Results for January’s WTA Player Of The Month

1. Angelique Kerber (41%)
2. Serena Williams (28%)
3. Agnieszka Radwanska (21%)
4. Victoria Azarenka (10%)

Angelique Kerber

2015 WTA Player of the Month Winners

October: Agnieszka Radwanska
September: Flavia Pennetta
August: Belinda Bencic
July: Samantha Stosur
June: Serena Williams
May: Serena Williams
April: Angelique Kerber
March: Serena Williams
February: Simona Halep
January: Serena Williams

How it works:

Four finalists are selected by wtatennis.com
Winner is then determined by a fan vote on wtatennis.com 

Source link

Puig Talks Olympics With Telemundo

  • Posted: Jan 01, 1970

MIAMI, FL, USA – Before heading off to Puerto Rico next week for her big Olympic welcome, Monica Puig made a stopover in her hometown of Miami for a quick cuddle with her new dog Rio and the first leg of her media whirlwind.

While in town the gold medalist, who made history for her country by becoming the first Puerto Rican athlete ever to win a gold medal hit Telemundo’s Miami studios for her first televised interview since her big win in Rio.

“I’m still super emotional,” Puig told the morning talk show Un Nuevo Día. “I don’t even know how to talk about it because I still feel like I’m living a dream.”

“It’s been a long year with a lot of sacrifices, but everything’s worked out well for me so I can’t complain.”

Puig also shared the meaning of her social media rallying cry, the hashtag #PicaPower. The tag comes from the saying “picar piedras,” meaning “to break rocks” and is Spanish slang for working long and hard at small tasks for small rewards.

“You’ve got to break a lot of rocks to accomplish what you want,” she said.

Puig was joined on the show by Grammy-winning merengue singer Elvis Crespo, who surprised her by dedicating a rendition of the iconic song “Qué Bonita Bandera” to the island’s new national hero.

The singer even performed an ode to her Olympic feat to a merengue version of “La Borinqueña,” Puerto Rico’s official anthem, which was heard at the Olympics for the first time ever last week.

Source link

10 Things: St Petersburg & Taiwan

  • Posted: Jan 01, 1970

Five Top 20 players are in action this week in two WTA events that are being staged for the first time.

Here’s 10 Things To Know about St. Petersburg and Kaohsiung!

1) St. Petersburg has four Top 20 players in the draw.
No.11 Belinda Bencic, No.16 Roberta Vinci, No.18 Caroline Wozniacki and No.20 Ana Ivanovic are all in action this week at the St. Petersburg Ladies Trophy.

2) This is the first edition of St. Petersburg Ladies Trophy as a WTA Premier event.
The event was previously held six times as an ITF tournament (from 2003-2008 and in 2015) and this year marks the first time in 25 years that WTA tennis returns to St Petersburg, Russia.

3) Bencic leads the pack in Russia…
For the first time in her career, Belinda Bencic is the No.1 seed at a WTA tournament at St. Petersburg. Her previous highest seeding was No.3 in Washington DC last year.

4) … While another 18-year-old is hoping to make big moves.
Daria Kasatkina is one to watch in St. Petersburg: She’s the second youngest player in the main draw and is coming off her joint-best result at a Grand Slam after reaching the 3rd round at the Australian Open, where she knocked out No.29 Anna Karolina Schmiedlova for the biggest win of her career.

5) Bencic and Wozniacki could face each other in the semifinals.
No.3 seed Caroline Wozniacki, who took a late wildcard into St. Petersburg, is on a semifinal collision course with Bencic, who beat her four times in 2015. See how the draw breaks down here.

6) A former World No.1 headlines in Kaohsiung.
And with 48 WTA titles to her name, No.1-seeded Venus Williams has more titles than the entire Taiwan main draw put together!

7) The Taiwan Open in Kaohsiung is the first WTA event in Taiwan.
Taiwan’s first taste of WTA tennis came back in 2012, with Taipei hosting a WTA 125K Series event from 2012 to 2015.

8) Elizaveta Kulichkova is one to watch. 
Kulichkova enters the Taiwan Open following a string of career bests: at the Australian Open she reached the 3rd round of a Grand Slam for the first time and scored her career best win over No.25 Andrea Petkovic.

9) The Taiwan Open is one out of a record nine WTA Premier and International tournaments hosted on the Chinese Mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan…
The other eight are the China Open in Beijing, Dongfeng Motor Wuhan Open, Guangzhou International Women’s Open, Prudential Hong Kong Tennis Open, Jiangxi Women’s Tennis Open in Nanchang, Shenzhen Open, Tianjin Open and WTA Elite Trophy Zhuhai.

10) Check out all the best live action this week on WTA Live powered by TennisTV.
And learn how you can follow it all right here.

 

Source link

Kerber Moves Past Mladenovic

  • Posted: Jan 01, 1970

CINCINNATI, OH, USA – No.2 seed Angelique Kerber began her quest to become World No.1 in earnest on Wednesday, dispatching the always dangerous Kristina Mladenovic, 6-0, 7-5, to reach the third round of the Western & Southern Open.

Watch live action from Cincinnati this week on WTA Live powered by TennisTV!

“It wasn’t so easy to come to a tournament with just one or two days to prepare, and first rounds are always tough,” she told Andrew Krasny during her on-court interview. “But I was trying to play my game, and it’s so nice to be back in Cincinnati; I have great memories from the last few years, and the fans are amazing. It’s just so nice to be back here on the Center Court.”

Kerber arrived in Cincinnati fresh off her run to the final of the Olympic tennis event – where she became the first German woman since Stefanie Graf in 1992 to medal in tennis.

“It was really special, one of the really special weeks in my career so far. Winning a medal was a dream; when I was young, I was the Olympics at home and to go back home with a medal right now is an incredible feeling. I had an incredible week there.”

The World No.2 ultimately showed few showed few signs of fatigue against Mladenovic, who was playing her second match of the day after Tuesday’s rain interrupted her first round match against Kateryna Bondarenko. While both players hit 18 winners, it was Kerber’s consistency that won the day, with 20 unforced errors to 44 from the Frenchwoman, who was a game from forcing a deciding set before the German clinched the match in one hour and 15 minutes.

Up next for Kerber is the unseeded and looming World No.20 Barbora Strycova; the Olympic Bronze medalist in women’s doubles will be playing with Co-No.1 Sania Mirza for the first time this week in Cincinnati, but has been equally impressively in singles this season. Surviving a topsy-turvy first set against No.14 seed Samantha Stosur, Strycova saved a set point in the first set tie-break – and needing six of her own – to ultimately beat the Aussie, 7-6(11), 6-3.

Kerber leads their head-to-head 4-1 but the two have split their 2016 meetings and Strycova won their most recent encounter at the Mutua Madrid Open.

It’s an important week for the reigning Australian Open champion and Wimbledon finalist; should she win the Western & Southern Open title, she would end Serena Williams’ 183 straight weeks atop the WTA rankings and become the top seed at the US Open, the final Grand Slam tournament of the year.

Source link