Niculescu And Hsieh Go On Easter Egg Hunt
Hsieh Su-Wei and Monica Niculescu are on a hunt for Easter eggs – who will win?
Hsieh Su-Wei and Monica Niculescu are on a hunt for Easter eggs – who will win?
LONDON, England – Moments after completing another regal performance at Wimbledon, the queen of tennis Serena Williams was rubbing shoulder with a very different type of royalty.
Making her annual homage to the home of tennis, future Queen Kate Middleton was alongside All England Club Chairman Philip Brook to witness Williams’ semifinal masterclass against Elena Vesnina.
And with the applause still rippling around Centre Court, the Dutchess was hot-footing it out of the royal box to get an introduction – and a selfie – with the World No.1.
Serena and Kate ? pic.twitter.com/wzsmKkJJyh
— Shanice Bajin (@SWilliamsFans) 7 July 2016
Zarina Diyas cruised past Shiho Akita 6-2, 6-4 to set up a quarterfinal meeting with top seed Peng Shuai at the Biyuan Cup Zhengzhou Women’s Tennis Open.
CoCo Vandeweghe used her racquet when asked to throw the first pitch for the Tampa Bay Rays.
LOS ANGELES, CA, USA – Serena Williams’ phenomenal week got even more phenomenal on Wednesday night, as she won Best Female Tennis Player at the ESPY Awards for the eighth time in her career, having already been given the award in 2003, 2004, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2013, and 2015.
She was chosen over Angelique Kerber, Flavia Pennetta, and Garbiñe Muguruza for this year’s award.
Williams now has 10 total ESPY Awards – she was also named Best Female Athlete in 2003 and 2013.
Other WTA stars with multiple ESPY Awards are Sharapova (five), Venus Williams (four), Steffi Graf (three) and Monica Seles and Lindsay Davenport (two each). The ESPY Awards started in 1993.
More to come…
Two-time Grand Slam champion Victoria Azarenka has announced the exciting news that she is expecting her first child later this year.
While recovering from the knee injury that sidelined her for Wimbledon, Azarenka and her boyfriend found out they would soon be welcoming a new member to the family.
The former World No.1, who plans to return to the game at some point in the future, made the announcement on Facebook this Friday.
“The WTA Family extends its congratulations to Vika. There is nothing more special than becoming a parent and we look forward to having Vika with her family back on Tour and winning championships next year,” WTA CEO Steve Simon said.
I have some news for you all ☺️ pic.twitter.com/64Kf90tZF6
— victoria azarenka (@vika7) July 15, 2016
GSTAAD, Switzerland – Kiki Bertens upset top seed Timea Bacsinszky on Saturday to end hopes of an all-Swiss final at the Ladies Championship Gstaad.
Two Swiss players have never met in the final of a WTA event, and Bertens ensured this statistic remained intact with a 7-5, 7-6(1) win.
Due to the torrential rain earlier in the week, the weekend began with the completion of the backlogged quarterfinals, Bertens living up to her No.3 seed status by making short work of Irina Khromacheva. However, against Bacsinszky she was made to work considerably harder, coming from a break down in both sets to edge into the third final of her career.
“I think the tournament would have loved two Swiss players in the final – so sorry for that! – but I’m really happy,” Bertens said afterwards. “I think we both played a lot of matches in the last few hours, so physically it’s really tough.”
On the other side of the draw, Viktorija Golubic finally halted the run of teenager Rebeka Masarova, keeping her cool to run out a 6-3, 6-2 winner. Along with the weather, Masarova, who was crowned junior champion in Roland Garros last month, has been the story of the tournament, becoming the first player in nearly four years to reach the semifinals on their WTA main draw debut.
Golubic was also appearing at this advanced stage for the first time and managed the occasion with aplomb, surging into an early lead and never looking back. After fending off the threat of a comeback to take the first set Golubic took a stranglehold of the contest with a break in the fourth game of the second before repeating the trick to close out victory.
“I feel great! It was great to play in an all-Swiss semifinal – and for the popularity of tennis in Switzerland it was also very helpful,” Golubic said. “I enjoyed today, I won two matches and feel amazing. I’m looking forward to tomorrow.
“I really did a good job mentally this week because I had lots of moments where I felt my shots were not quite there. And at these moments it’s hard to perform and not lose yourself, so this is definitely the part of my game I managed best this week.”
wenn es nur Sieger gibt #WTAGstaad #ViktorijaGolubic #RebekaMasarova pic.twitter.com/w7HKrMhIvR
— Ladies Open Gstaad (@WTA_Gstaad) 16 July 2016
BASTAD, Sweden – No.4 seed Annika Beck came through a tight encounter with Sorana Cirstea to secure a second-round spot at the Ericsson Open.
Watch live action from Bastad, Stanford and Washington DC this week on WTA Live powered by TennisTV!
Last week in Gstaad, Beck slumped to a shock defeat at the hands of World No.797 Rebeka Masarova, but bounced back with a 7-5, 7-5 win in her opening match in Sweden.
“It was quite a tough match – I expected it because Sorana is a great player and she had some great results on clay this year,” Beck said. “It was the first time I ever played her but I got some tactics off my coach and I knew what to do.”
In a match of fine margins, Beck’s greater consistency at the conclusion of both sets proved decisive. Having hauled herself back into the opening set, Cirstea looked well set to complete the comeback only to hand back the break with a wayward backhand. Beck duly closed out the set and despite weathering a barrage of winners in the second set, held her nerve to close out victory.
“She was defending really well and made my life really tough out there on court, especially in the second set – she was just going for winners and basically hit all the lines – I was just trying to stay in the match and fight.”
Reaction of @BeckAnnika after defeating @sorana_cirstea in front of Hollywood star Hugh Grant pic.twitter.com/uw9uy7ebOj
— Swedish Open Tennis (@swedish_open) 19 July 2016
Also advancing in the bottom half of the draw were Beck’s fellow seeds Sara Errani and Johanna Larsson. No.2 seed Errani produced a confident display to defeat Cagla Buyukakcay, 6-2, 6-3, while No.8 seed and defending champion Larsson came through her all-Swedish clash against Rebecca Peterson, 7-6(3), 6-2.
Another former champion to advance was Mona Barthel, who was leading 4-6, 6-3, 3-0 when No.7 seed Yaroslava Shvedova retired with a back injury.
No.1 seed Sam Stosur moved into the quarterfinals of the Citi Open after being down a set to Caroline Wozniacki as the Dane was forced to retire due to injury.
How did Agnieszka Radwanska, Petra Kvitova and Eugenie Bouchard feel about glamming up for the Shenzhen Open player party? See highlights from the big night here.