Tennis News

HOBART, Australia – Eugenie Bouchard battled past fellow former Top 10 player Dominika Cibulkova on Friday to reach the final of the Hobart International, her first WTA final since Wuhan in 2014.

The unseeded Bouchard, who had already taken out No.8 seed Alison Van Uytvanck and No.2 seed Camila Giorgi in the last two rounds, won the first set in just 22 minutes and was up a break four times in the second but ended up having to go to a third to edge the No.3-seeded Cibulkova, 6-1, 4-6, 6-4.

“I’m just happy I got through today,” Bouchard said. “The first set was a great level for me – I can’t remember the last time I played that well. Now the important thing is to keep that consistency. It was hard to keep it up – it’s another lesson I’ve learned, to control my emotions a little bit better.

“I don’t think I held serve in the second set, which is absolutely disgusting – I’m so disappointed in myself for that. But she was really putting pressure on me with her returns out there today.”

The 2014 Wimbledon finalist and former World No.5 has now won six of seven matches to start 2016.

She knew she was feeling good coming into Hobart – she spoke about it in her pre-tournament presser.

“I’m feeling pretty good. I wouldn’t want to play if I was somewhat prepared, so I worked really hard in the off-season to catch up a little bit,” Bouchard said. “I’m just so happy to be back on the court. That’s the most important thing – I’m so grateful and excited to be back playing on the tour again.

“I just love the feeling of playing tennis,” she added. “When you’re forced not to do something you really love, you realize you truly love it, and, for me, I realized how much I truly missed it.”

The other semifinal took place later in the afternoon and lasted 53 minutes, as No.7 seed Alizé Cornet held all seven of her service games and broke five times to beat Johanna Larsson, 6-1, 6-1.

Though Cornet is the higher-ranked of the two, No.42 to No.47, Bouchard leads the Frenchwoman in their head-to-head series, 2-1, winning their last two meetings in a row in straight sets, as well.

Cornet does have more experience in WTA finals though, going 4-5, while Bouchard is 1-3 lifetime.

Simona Halep completed her best month of the 2016 season with a second title in three weeks at the Rogers Cup – knocking out the likes of Svetlana Kuznetsova, Angelique Kerber, and Madison Keys en route to her third title of the season.

“I mean, I’m tired. It’s normal,” she told press after the final. “I had so many matches here, tough matches, also emotional. Was not easy.”

Coming to Montréal after a winning week at home in Bucharest, Halep did double duty in Canada, playing singles and doubles with partner Monica Niculescu – reaching the final of both events with a win over reigning French Open champions Caroline Garcia and Kristina Mladenovic in the latter.

“I had a lot of confidence coming here that I won five matches in a row in Bucharest.

“It was tough to come from the clay court to the hardcourt. But if I have confidence, I can play my game easy and I can win matches.

“Here I won matches with top players. That makes me more, like, happy and relaxed that I have a good level of tennis in this moment.”

Here more from Halep in the latest WTA Insider Podcast:

A good level might be an understatement for the young Romanian, who will ride a 10-match winning streak into the Western & Southern Open, a tournament where she reached the final in 2015. By her side will be coach Darren Cahill, whom she credits with her steady return to the form that took her as high as No.2 in the world.

“It helps me when he’s more relaxed than me; he just shows me that I have a good game and it’s good if I practice everything for the future, not just for the tournament.”

Back into the Top 3 for the first time since February, Halep did more than enough to earn her the mantle of July’s WTA Player of the Month!

Final Results for July’s WTA Player Of The Month

1. Simona Halep (84%)
2. Venus Williams (9%)
3. Johanna Konta (5%)
4. Madison Keys (2%)

2016 WTA Player of the Month Winners

January: Angelique Kerber
February: Carla Suárez Navarro
March: Victoria Azarenka
April: Angelique Kerber
May: Garbiñe Muguruza
June: Serena Williams

How it works:

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

March was packed with plenty of amazing shots – we narrowed it down to the five best.

In the end, it was Caroline Wozniacki’s sneaky lob that took top honors. Taking on Lucie Safarova in the Miami Open quarterfinals, the former World No.1 relied on her full defensive arsenal against the big-hitting Czech veteran. As Safarova approached the net, the eventual finalist pulled off an impressive lob that left her opponent frozen at net.

Click here to watch all of March’s finalists.

Final Results for March’s WTA Shot Of The Month presented by Cambridge Global Payments

1. Caroline Wozniacki (36%)
2. Kirsten Flipkens (24%)
3. Venus Williams (22%)
4. Bethanie Mattek-Sands (10%)
5. Elena Vesnina (8%)

2017 WTA Shot of the Month Winners

January: Agnieszka Radwanska
February: Angelique Kerber

How it works:

Five shots are selected by wtatennis.com
Winner is then determined by a fan vote on wtatennis.com 

MELBOURNE, Australia – What do Ana Ivanovic, Angelique Kerber, and Daria Gavrilova have in common? They all play with Yonex racquets, and all three were present for a special gathering hosted by popular sports brand to celebrate the career of former ATP No.1 Lleyton Hewitt ahead of the Australian Open.

Joined by fellow ATP players in Stan Wawrinka and Borna Coric, Ivanovic, Kerber and Gavrilova were on hand to speak about their goals for the upcoming season, and handicapped their chances at the first major tournament in Melbourne.

Check out some of the best images from the event:

All images courtesy of Yonex Tennis.

The 2017 Aces For Humanity campaign was launched by USANA and the WTA at the BNP Paribas Open and continued at the Volvo Car Open, where every ace hit by a WTA player at Premier-level events translates into a donation to the USANA True Health Foundation, whose mission is to provide the most critical human necessities to those who are suffering or in need around the world.

For every ace hit by any player the WTA donates $5, and for every ace hit by a USANA Brand Ambassador, it’s $10.

USANA Brand Ambassadors Caroline Wozniacki, Eugenie Bouchard, Monica Puig and Zheng Saisai hit 10 of the 224 aces in Charleston – raising a grand total of $2,560 throughout the week. Wozniacki hit the most with six aces.

Read more about the campaign here and see below to find out who’s hit the most aces so far!

#AcesForHumanity Fan Giveaway

It’s simple: before each WTA Premier tournament guess how many total aces will be hit.
Next up is the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix in Stuttgart. Last year there was a total of 147 aces hit. It’s now your turn, take your best guess of how many will be hit this year.

How To Enter:
• Follow @WTA and @USANAFoundation on Twitter and before each WTA Premier tournament tweet the number of aces you predict will be hit during the whole tournament (Singles, Main Draw)
• Include the hashtag #AcesForHumanity
• Beijing deadline is April 25 at 11:59pm ET
• The winner will be announced May 1st

Aces For Humanity is a joint WTA and USANA initiative that benefits the USANA True Health Foundation, which provides critical human necessities to those in suffering or in need around the globe.

For full rules on how to enter, click here.

Serena Williams and Maria Sharapova remain on a collision course for a quarterfinal date at this year’s Australian Open. But they’ve still got some work to do before they get there. We preview their Day 5 tilts, as well as some other enticing Friday matchups, here.

Friday, Day 5
Third Round

[1] Serena Williams (USA #1) vs. Daria Kasatkina (RUS # 69)
Head-to-head: First meeting
Key Stat: Kasatkina was just two years old when Serena Williams won her first major.

Russia’s Daria Kasatkina is quickly making a name for herself as a future star on the WTA tour. Just two weeks ago she defeated Venus Williams in Auckland, and the 2014 French Open junior champion has now reached the third round at both Grand Slams she’s played in her career. But on Friday when she faces top-seeded Serena Williams, she’ll encounter the biggest challenge in women’s tennis. Williams, who has erased all doubts about the state of her health by breezing through her first two matches in Melbourne, is hungry to make more Grand Slam magic and very much aware of the potential of Kasatkina. “I don’t think it’s going to be easy,” Williams said of their impending battle. “Any time someone is beating Venus they are more than likely playing really good. So I definitely will be ready for that.”

Pick: Williams in two

[5] Maria Sharapova (RUS #5) vs. Lauren Davis (USA # 103)
Head-to-head: First meeting
Key Stat: Sharapova is going for her 600th career win. 

Like Serena Williams, Maria Sharapova also came to Melbourne with doubts about her health and match fitness swirling. But the five-time major champion has dropped seven games in two matches and looks to be in mid-season form ahead of her third-round showdown with hard-charging American Lauren Davis. Sharapova has never faced the Ohio native before, but at this stage of the tournament the fifth seed is more concerned about dictating with her power strokes than the opponent on the other side of the net. “I don’t think it matters [who I face],” she told reporters after her straight-sets victory over Aliaksandra Sasnovich on Wednesday. “I think my focus has to be on myself and on my game. Just improving and getting better.”

Pick: Sharapova in two

[4] Agnieszka Radwanska (POL #4) vs. Monica Puig (PUR # 52)
Head-to-head: First meeting
Key Stat: Red-hot Radwanska has won 24 of her last 28 matches.

After an impressive takedown of surging Canadian Eugenie Bouchard in the second round things don’t promise to get any easier for No.4-seeded Agnieszka Radwanska. Her next opponent, 22-year-old Puerto Rican Monica Puig, has won 10 of her last 11 matches and is into the third round of a major for the first time since 2013. After surviving a 31-ace onslaught from Kristyna Pliskova in the second round, Puig has stockpiled a pile of the belief that comes with saving five match points and gutting out an improbable win at a major. “I think it’s just about believing that you can come out of a moment like that, that at any moment you can get a second wind and come out of it,” Puig said after her marathon win on Wednesday.

Pick: Radwanska in two

[28] Kristina Mladenovic (FRA # 30) vs. Daria Gavrilova (AUS # 39)
Head-to-head: First meeting
Key Stat: Gavrilova has four Top 10 wins since last March.

They have never met at the tour-level but that does not mean that France’s Kristina Mladenovic and Australia’s Daria Gavrilova don’t have history. They met in the Roland Garros Girls’ Singles final in 2009, and it was Mladenovic who got the win. “We played juniors a lot,” Gavrilova explains. “I actually lost to her at the French Open, I don’t know, ages ago. I was 15. It was in the finals. We have known each other since we were about 12.” Nearly seven years on, both players appear to be on the cusp of big-time stardom. Mladenovic reached her first major quarterfinal at last year’s US Open, while Gavrilova, who exudes fire and infectious enthusiasm for the game, has risen from outside the Top 200 to No.39 in the world in just over a year’s time.

Pick: Gavrilova in three

Around the Grounds: Belinda Bencic will look to advance to the round of 16 in Melbourne for the first time, but she’ll have to get past one of the tournament’s inspirational figures in Kateryna Bondarenko to get there. Bondarenko, who left the tour in 2012 to give birth to a child and didn’t return until 2014, is looking like she never missed a beat… Quietly, No.10-seeded Carla Suárez Navarro is working her way through the draw. The 2009 Australian Open quarterfinalist will face 19-year-old Russian Elizaveta Kulichkova for a spot in the second week… A finalist at last year’s US Open, Italy’s Roberta Vinci is alive and well in Melbourne. She’ll bid to reach the round of 16 in Melbourne for the first time against Anna-Lena Friedsam of Germany.