Puig Reflects On Olympic Gold
An interview with Monica Puig after winning the gold medal at the Olympic tennis event in Rio.
An interview with Monica Puig after winning the gold medal at the Olympic tennis event in Rio.
The third edition of the BNP Paribas WTA Finals Singapore presented by SC Global featured first-time champions in singles and doubles, a new year-end singles World No.1 in Angelique Kerber and the crowning of Sania Mirza as the top doubles player of the year. The 2016 Finals also set records off the court thanks to an unprecedented increase in social media engagement.
Dominika Cibulkova’s unexpected run to the final on her tournament debut was experienced by more fans than ever. Compared to the 2015 tournament, Facebook video views were up 571%, engagement on WTA-operated social media platforms increased by 247% and wtatennis.com referrals from social media improved by 167%.
The upsurge in engagement was driven by a ‘social first’ content strategy featuring on and off-court action, humorous player videos, match reporting, opinion editorials, innovative design and behind the scenes video on Facebook Live, Instagram Stories and Snapchat. The best-performing content pieces included the moment Cibulkova won title, a Facebook Live fan Q&A with Indian superstar Mirza, Svetlana Kuznetsova’s on-court haircut and live coverage of the iconic photoshoot, draw and gala dinner.
The increase in exposure was not just limited to web platforms with the 2016 Finals yielding a 4% increase in global TV household reach compared to 2015, thanks to increased exposure in Russia, Germany and Austria.
In addition to Cibulkova’s upset victory over Kerber, Olympic gold medalists Ekaterina Makarova and Elena Vesnina broke Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Lucie Safarova’s 18-match winning streak to lift the Martina Navratilova WTA Finals Doubles Trophy. Mirza finished as year-end World No.1 doubles player for a second consecutive season. Mirza has held the No.1 ranking for 83 consecutive weeks.
Melissa Pine, Vice-President of WTA Asia-Pacific and Tournament Director of the WTA Finals, said, “The Road to Singapore this year has been yet another exciting race to the finish line and the tennis action at the WTA Finals has truly reflected the top quality level of play among the greatest eight of 2016. We are thrilled with how the fans in Singapore and around the world have warmly embraced the event as well as shown their enthusiasm for women’s tennis.”
Two-time Olympian Caroline Wozniacki will make a third trip to the Games this summer in Rio, and this time will be leading out the Danish team during the opening ceremony.
Former World No.1 Wozniacki was unveiled as her nation’s flag bearer during a press conference at Copenhagen City Hall on Friday afternoon, where she was presented with the Danish flag by Crown Prince Frederik.
“It’s an honor for me! The Olympics mean a lot to me, and I have some fantastic memories from my two previous appearances,” Wozniacki said. “I enjoy competing for the Danish team and feel the team spirit, which I do not get to experience in my everyday life.
“Carrying the flag in Rio will be one of the highlights of my career and something I will never forget.”
In both of her previous Olympic appearances, Wozniacki fell to the eventual Gold medalist: Serena Williams at the 2012 London Games in the quarterfinals, and Elena Dementieva in the third round in Beijing four years earlier.
Wozniacki, 25, will be the fifth WTA player to carry their country’s flag at the Games, following in the footsteps of Maria Sharapova, Agnieszka Radwanska, Stephanie Vogt, and Claudine Schaul.
Such a dream come true!! Was chosen to be the Danish flag bearer at the opening ceremony at the Rio Olympics! ?? pic.twitter.com/mIfFj0pnPz
— Caroline Wozniacki (@CaroWozniacki) February 5, 2016
Karolina Pliskova takes on Jelena Ostapenko in the second round of the Western & Southern Open.
Chinese New Year is Monday, February 8, and in the spirit of the holidays we’re looking at the Chinese Zodiac, where each of the 12 years in the cycle is represented by an animal sign and thus their reputed attributes: rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, rooster, dog and pig.
2016 is the Year of the Monkey, which makes it an extra special Chinese New Year for former No.1 Venus Williams and Fed Cup heroine Karolina Pliskova, who led the Czech Republic to a 3-2 victory over Romania this weekend with three wins in singles and doubles. Most auspiciously, Williams and Pliskova ended the 2015 season by reaching the Huajin Securities WTA Elite Trophy Zhuhai final, which the American won to finish the year ranked inside the Top 10 for the first time in five years.
Which animals are the Top 50 players on the WTA? The birth years range from 1980 to 1997…
Monkey (1980, 1992)
Venus Williams
Karolina Pliskova
Rooster (1981, 1993)
Serena Williams
Garbiñe Muguruza
Caroline Garcia
Sloane Stephens
Kristina Mladenovic
Monica Puig
Dog (1982, 1994)
Flavia Pennetta
Elina Svitolina
Annika Beck
Daria Gavrilova
Alison Van Uytvanck
Margarita Gasparyan
Anna Karolina Schmiedlova
Danka Kovinic
Pig (1983, 1995)
Roberta Vinci
Madison Keys
Rat (1984, 1996)
Samantha Stosur
Ox (1985, 1997)
Jelena Jankovic
Svetlana Kuznetsova
Belinda Bencic
Tiger (1986)
Barbora Strycova
Varvara Lepchenko
Rabbit (1987)
Lucie Safarova
Maria Sharapova
Sara Errani
Andrea Petkovic
Monica Niculescu
Ana Ivanovic
Dragon (1988)
Ekaterina Makarova
Angelique Kerber
Carla Suárez Navarro
Snake (1989)
Agnieszka Radwanska
Lesia Tsurenko
Sabine Lisicki
Timea Bacsinszky
Victoria Azarenka
Horse (1990)
Petra Kvitova
Caroline Wozniacki
Alizé Cornet
Irina-Camelia Begu
Mona Barthel
Sheep (1991)
Johanna Konta
Simona Halep
Camila Giorgi
CoCo Vandeweghe
Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova
Go behind the scenes with the hardworking team of Rogers Cup ball kids on this episode of WTA Behind The Tour.
It’s time to crown the 2016 WTA Shot Of The Year!
Each WTA Shot Of The Month winner has been placed into one of two groups:
• Voting for Group A and Group B will close Sunday, November 20 at 11:59pm ET
• The two shots from each group that receive the most votes will then be placed into a final group
• Final Group voting opens Monday, November 21 and ends Monday, November 28 at 11:59pm ET
• The 2016 WTA Shot of the Year winner will be announced Tuesday, November 29
Group A
January: Caroline Wozniacki
February: Agnieszka Radwanska
March: Agnieszka Radwanska
April: Monica Niculescu
May: Simona Halep
Monica Niculescu takes on Natalia Vikhlyantseva in the first round of the St. Petersburg Ladies Trophy.
CINCINNATI, OH, USA – Five years ago, Germany’s top-ranked woman was asked to handicap her countrywoman at the Western & Southern Open. Having recently made her Top 10 debut, Andrea Petkovic told members of the media to keep an eye out for one player in particular.
“She’s going to come back,” Petkovic said of Angelique Kerber. “I called her and I asked her to come to my academy where I train, and she came there for four weeks and practiced really, really hard.”
Kerber had been ranked as high as No.45 to start the 2011 season, but briefly dropped out of the Top 100 that summer. At the time of Petkovic’s press conference, she had lost 15 of her last 18 WTA main draw matches.
“I promise you she’s going to be at least Top 30 like in six months, because she worked really, really hard and she’s a great player and she’s definitely going to come back.”
To say that Petkovic proved prescient would be the understatement of the decade. Within a week, Kerber reached the semifinals of a WTA International event in Dallas, Texas as a qualifier. Two weeks after that, the then-World No.90 was in the final four of the US Open, upsetting Agnieszka Radwanska and Flavia Pennetta along the way.
“She was helping me in practice,” she said of Petkovic’s advice after her win over Pennetta. “She told me, ‘You can do it. You play very well. You need to play consistent your tennis and not think about something or not think that you can win or you can lose. Just go on the court, play your tennis.’ Yeah, she helps me a lot.”
Kerber ultimately fell to eventual champion Samantha Stosur, but nonetheless beat Petkovic’s prediction by well over three months, cracking the Top 30 for the first time on October 2, 2011.
A lot has changed since then. The reigning Australian Open champion, Wimbledon runner-up, and Olympic Silver medalist is now in pole position to end Serena Williams’ 183 straight weeks atop the WTA rankings. Should she take home the trophy at the very tournament where Petkovic first made her bold prediction, Kerber would become the oldest woman to debut at World No.1 since a 25-year-old Jennifer Capriati in 2001.
She spoke about the pressure of having to back up her Melbourne run, and how it was familiar to her feelings following her 2011 breakthrough, after her opening round win over Kristina Mladenovic:
Angelique Kerber is done proving to people that she belongs. Now she plays for herself. #CincyTennis pic.twitter.com/39eyX49kfJ
— WTA Insider (@WTA_insider) August 18, 2016
With dangerous veteran Barbora Strycova looming in the third round, Kerber still has a tough road to reach the top spot, but it’s proving tougher and tougher to bet against the German, especially with the Cincinnati breeze at her back.
Angelique Kerber’s stunning maiden Grand Slam victory in Melbourne set the tone for a rollercoaster 2016 WTA season, but she wasn’t the only name to make her mark Down Under as Victoria Azarenka, Monica Puig and Svetlana Kuznetsova highlighted the first few weeks of WTA action during the Australian Swing.
The Rise of Angelique Kerber
Following a career-best season in 2015 – where she picked up four titles and finished the year at No.10 – Angelique Kerber stayed on course in Australia, but even she had no idea what was to come.
After being blown off the court by an inspired Victoria Azarenka in the final of the Brisbane International and being forced to withdraw from the Apia International Sydney in the second round due to a gastrointestinal illness, the German went straight to Melbourne for the first Grand Slam of the year.
Kerber, who’d she’d previously never advanced past the fourth round of the Australian Open – saved match point in her first match against Misaki Doi and went on to put together a clinical run to the final, where she locked horns with Serena Williams.
She stunned the tennis world by defeating the then-World No.1 in a thrilling three sets and lifting her maiden Grand Slam title, ending a 17-year major title drought for German tennis and cementing her place at the top.
Vika’s Red-Hot Australian Summer
Australia has been Victoria Azarenka’s home away from home for several years, but this time it was in Brisbane, not Melbourne, where the two-time Australian Open champion made her mark.
Starting the year ranked No.22, Azarenka tore through the draw at the Brisbane International without dropping a set. In fact, the Belarusian lost just 17 games en route to the first title of the year, a feat which still stands as the fewest games lost in winning a WTA title in 2016.
She went on to reach the quarterfinals at the Australian Open, her best result there since 2014, and picked up another two titles before succumbing to injuries – a back injury in Madrid, a right knee injury during the French Open – and finally putting an end to her season following the announcement of her pregnancy.
Puig and Kuznetsova Foreshadow 2016 Brilliance
In Sydney, a pair of surprising names who reached the final at the second Premier-level event of the year.
Puerto Rican qualifier Monica Puig, then ranked No.94, reached the second WTA final of her career after posting wins over a trio of Top 30 players, Anna Karolina Schmiedlova, Samantha Stosur and Belinda Bencic (via retirement). She faced Svetlana Kuznetsova, who’d just pulled off her biggest win since 2009 over No.2-ranked Simona Halep in the semifinals.
Even though Kuznetsova went on to drop just two games in her dominant victory over Puig, the pair’s surprise run to the Sydney final served as a preview for what was in store for Puig and Kuznetsova later in the season.
Elsewhere, Agnieszka Radwanska continued where she left off at the 2015 WTA Finals, returning to the home of her best tennis in Asia and picking up a title at the International-level Shenzhen Open. Sloane Stephens also took home the ASB Classic in Auckland and Alizé Cornet won in the Hobart International.
– Photos courtesy of Getty Images