Google Play App Download

Tennis News

From around the world

Insider RG Contenders: Santina

  • Posted: Jan 01, 1970

Martina Hingis and Sania Mirza love a good winning streak.

They christened their partnership last spring with 14 straight victories through Indian Wells, Miami, and Charleston. They ended the season undefeated from the US Open through the BNP Paribas WTA Finals Singapore presented by SC Global, bringing that streak into 2016 before the run ended at the Qatar Total Open – with an impressive haul that included nine titles and two Grand Slam trophies.

Co-No.1s since January, they head into the French Open in search of a “Santina Slam” with two active streaks in their arsenal: one at major tournaments (18 straight since Wimbledon), and the four matches in a row to win their most recent title – and first on red clay – at the Internazionali BNL d’Italia.

For all of their winning, red clay was the final frontier for a team who arrived in Rome after finishing second in both Stuttgart and Madrid – losing to the then-streaking French Connection of Caroline Garcia and Kristina Mladenovic each time.

Recovering from a second set hiccup on Sunday, Santina dispatched Ekaterina Makarova and Elena Vesnina, who they beat to kick off their Grand Slam streak at last year’s Wimbledon final, 6-1, 6-7(5), 10-3.

The French Open bears extra significance for two women who’ve experienced bitter disappointment on the terre battue. Mirza was one half of another team to beat back in 2011, when she and Vesnina reached the final at Roland Garros. Her bid to win her first major women’s doubles title came to an unexpected halt at the hands of an unseeded Czech duo, Silent H’s Andrea Hlavackova and Lucie Hradecka.

Hingis’ struggles to peak in Paris are well-documented, and the French Open is the only major tournament where she lacks a box set of singles, doubles, and mixed titles.

None of that may matter a fortnight from now, as Santina seem to have weathered a spring hardcourt slump to rebound on a surface where they’ve traditionally enjoyed the least success. Earning wins over nearly all of the teams likely to pair up next week, Hingis and Mirza’s French nemeses will have the added pressure of playing at home, while defending champions Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Lucie Safarova lost the only match they’ve played on red clay since winning the Miami Open.

Victory would cement their already legendary partnership with a Non-Calendar Year “Santina Slam.” The last team to win four majors in a row was Venus and Serena Williams, whose campaign also started at Wimbledon and ended at the French Open in 2010.

Victory would also mean that the streak goes on. Along with Pam Shriver and Martina Navratilova, Hingis is one of only three women to complete the Calendar Year Grand Slam in women’s doubles – albeit with two different partners – in 1998, winning the Australian Open with Mirjana Lucic-Baroni and the final three legs with Jana Novotna. Who would believe that, 18 years later, the Swiss Miss could be in contention for a Golden Slam?

Well before such lofty goals appeared possible, Mirza was quick to pump the breaks and add perspective.

“It’s a Grand Slam for a reason, and the reason is that it’s so tough to win even one in your lifetime,” Mirza told WTA Insider back in January after she and Hingis had captured the Brisbane International. “If it happened, it would be amazing, but it’s not something we’re focusing on, to be honest.

“We’re just trying to take it one match at a time. Every match is tough; we’re just going to go there, focus on one match at a time, and hopefully get into the Slam.

“If we win it, great. If we don’t, we move on.”

Click here to keep up with WTA Insider’s pre-French Open coverage!

Source link

News | WTA Tennis English

  • Posted: Jan 01, 1970

MIAMI, FL, USA – No.7 seed Svetlana Kuznetsova overcame a slow start and an inspired Taylor Townsend to beat the American qualifier, 6-4, 6-2, joining No.10 seed Johanna Konta, who beat Pauline Parmentier, 6-4, 6-0 in the fourth round of the Miami Open.

Townsend has long been a talented prospect, having won the 2013 Australian Open junior title and finishing runner-up to Belinda Bencic at that year’s Wimbledon Championships. Qualifying for the main draw and upsetting Roberta Vinci in her previous match, the American looked on course for another upset as she took the first break from Kuznetsova in the opening set.

“I’d never played her before, but still, to face her it’s a bit different,” she told WTA Insider after the match. “It took me time to adjust to her game. I got broken right away, and I was serving against the sun, so it was a little bit difficult.”

But Kuznetsova is in good form herself, reaching the final at last week’s BNP Paribas Open; relaxed and focused, the Russian took four straight games to reclaim the break and the opening set from Townsend, who put up quite a fight in the final game before dropping serve.

“She plays good tennis, different than other girls. I took time to adjust, changed my strategy, and in the end it worked pretty well. But she’s very talented.”

The 2006 champion and 2016 finalist raced ahead to start the second and never looked back, despite some impressive variety from the 20-year-old.

Up next for Kuznetsova is either former No.1 Venus Williams or qualifier Patricia Maria Tig, who stunned No.22 seed and Top 20 debutante Kristina Mladenovic in the preceding round.

“It’s a great match-up, and it’s great to play Venus again, one more time. We’re both having great results, so I’m looking forward to that match.”

Earlier in the day, Konta worked through a tense opening set to roll through against Parmentier.

“I’m happy to have come through that,” Konta said after the match. “Although the scoreline doesn’t show it in the second set, I still had to work hard within every single point. I really tried hard not to take my foot off the gas and stay focused on what I wanted to achieve.”

The Frenchwoman has displayed impresisve tennis of late, and nearly beat World No.1 Angelique Kerber in Indian Wells.

“She’s been very strong with her forehand, and her serve is actually quite a big weapon, as well. I was quite happy with how I could neutralize it and look towards having good variety on my returns. I also made it difficult for her to find her spots on the forehand; I didn’t give her too many opportunities to set up, because when she does, she can be very tough to play.”

With 19 winners to just five unforced errors to advance, it was night and day for the British No.1 on Sunday after her tough opening round win over Aliaksandra Sasnovich, which went deep into a third set.

“The bonus of getting through any match is having the opportunity to play again. I have another opportunity to get better and to perform well.

“Those stats obviously look better on paper, and that’s good to hear. There’s other moving factors in a match, but I was still very happy I was able to stick with my plan and not divert from that in any way.

“Each match puts forward different challenges, so it’s hard to compare and decide which has been my best performance. My first round was very good, for example, because I could get through a difficult situation. Today was a cleaner match, so in that sense, it was also a good performance.”

Standing between Konta and a second straight quarterfinal in Miami will be the winner of No.8 seed Madison Keys and Lara Arruabarrena.

“I played Madison in Beijing last year. I think I played Lara once before, but not for many years. We all know Madison has a big game, so if I end up playing her, I’ll be expecting to play someone with a lot of weight of shot. I haven’t watched Lara play too much, but she’s been around a while and won a title at the end of last year. She’s a tough player, so either way it’ll be a tough match.”

Source link

Insider RG Contenders: The Darkhorses

Insider RG Contenders: The Darkhorses

  • Posted: Jan 01, 1970

Which players have the best chance of playing spoiler to the top tier of Roland Garros contenders? WTA Insider compiled a list of seasoned veterans and dangerous floaters who could do some serious damage on the terre battue.

Victoria Azarenka: The most in-form player through the first quarter of 2016, Azarenka is hard to beat once she gets on a roll, completing the Sunshine Double with titles in Indian Wells and Miami. Her lone hardcourt loss was to eventual Australian Open champion Angelique Kerber in Melbourne.

Coming into what has traditionally been her least favorite time of year, Azarenka appeared keen to disprove the doubters – not that she listens to what they have to say – and continue her winning streak through the clay court season. Injuries have played their part in disrupting that rhythm, as a lower back injury forced her to withdraw from Madrid and didn’t seem fully healed in a second round loss to Irina-Camelia Begu in Rome.

Should she be healthy in time for Paris, her consistency can certainly take her places, having reached the semifinals back in 2013.

With comfortable head-to-heads against three of the four top seeds, it will be interesting to see who will be projected to face the Belarusian come the quarterfinals.

Agnieszka Radwanska

Agnieszka Radwanska: Seeded No.2 at this year’s French Open, Radwanska would be an all-out contender were this any other major tournament, but red clay of Roland Garros has proven the Pole’s kryptonite on too many occasions for her to feel truly comfortable coming into the fortnight.

The 2012 Wimbledon finalist eased into the semifinals of Stuttgart before getting dismantled by qualifier Laura Siegemund, and an unlucky draw saw her face one of her fiercest rivals in Dominika Cibulkova early on in Madrid. Opting not to play the Internazionali BNL d’Italia, it’s anyone’s guess how Radwanska will play in Paris, but like Azarenka, her long resumé of consistency should give her confidence to start the week. Since the US Open, the WTA Finals champion has made the semifinals or better at all but three of her last 12 events, including the semifinals of the Australian Open, which she reached dropping just one set along the way. Conserving energy will also be critical for a player who was once all too often drawn into wars of attrition.

Petra Kvitova

Petra Kvitova: With a new coach and new philosophy when it came to clay courts, the two-time Wimbledon winner looked poised to build on last year, when she won her second Mutua Madrid Open title.

A run to the semifinals in Stuttgart saw her battle with eventual champion Kerber, but a pair of early losses to Daria Gavrilova and Madison Keys may have shaken her confidence ahead of the French Open. Kvitova is another former semifinalist, reaching that stage back in 2012, but has only made it to the second week once since then – last year, when she lost to Timea Bacsinszky in the fourth round.

Carla Suarez Navarro

Carla Suárez Navarro: If clay court comfort holds back the first three, the next three will need intangibles on their side. The Spaniard has all the skills and “traditional” clay court guile to succeed at the French; her breakout run came back in 2008, when she reached the quarterfinals as a qualifier.

But for Suárez Navarro, it’ll come down to what’s between the ears. A game from the semifinals in 2014, the Spaniard succumbed to nerves and a determined Eugenie Bouchard. She appeared in good form at home in Madrid, but a cold kept her from closing the door against Samantha Stosur.

If she can replicate the form that took her up to No.6 in the world just two months ago, the Qatar Total Open champion will be in good shape in the latter stages of the fortnight.

Dominika Cibulkova

Dominika Cibulkova: The 2014 Australian Open finalist was a woman in need of a big win, and she got it in Madrid, taking out top seed Radwanska and battling all the way into the final with three-setters against Caroline Garcia, Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, and Sorana Cirstea.

The Slovak missed last year’s French Open to have surgery on her Achilles, and will be looking to back up her best result at a Premier Mandatory with another deep run at a major tournament. The dynamic veteran burst onto the scene back in 2009, when she blew past Maria Sharapova to reach her first Grand Slam semifinal at the French, following the feat five years later in Melbourne by going one better, again by beating Sharapova and Radwanska en route.

Seeded No.22, Cibulkova will be in position to face down another big name in the first week; unless the nerves that kept her from early round upsets in Indian Wells and Miami reappear, she is all but a shoo-in to reach the second week.

Svetlana Kuznetsova

Svetlana Kuznetsova: The tour’s most enigmatic figures had a solid, if unspectacular, clay court swing; though she failed to defend her runner-up points from last year’s Mutua Madrid Open, she rebounded nicely in Rome, defeating Samantha Stosur and Daria Gavrilova before bowing out to World No.1 Serena Williams in the quarterfinals.

The 2009 champion still has the game to compete with the best in the world, as her run to the finals of the Miami Open proved, but everything else has so often been up in the air. Seeded in the Top 16, Kuznetsova will be able to work her way through the first few round without facing a top seed, but will have to hit the ground running should she reach the second week.

Her win over Williams in Miami showed she could close out a big name when given the opportunity; whether she can still seal the deal at a Grand Slam remains to be seen.

Lucie Safarova

Lucie Safarova: Which Safarova will show up in Paris? The 2015 runner-up looked to have shaken off the rust with a much-needed title run at the J&T Banka Prague Open, but food poisoning derailed her in Madrid and Rome. The Czech star was ruthless through six matches 12 months ago, and it took a return to red clay for the former World No.5 to win her first matches of the season after coming back from injury and illness.

A tough draw may help her feel less pressure, and she proved she could take out the best clay courters around to reach the final last year, including Sharapova, Garbiñe Muguruza, and Ana Ivanovic. A healthy and confident Safarova is not one to underestimate, particular for a top seed looking to reach the last eight.

Click here to keep up with WTA Insider’s pre-French Open coverage!

All photos courtesy of Getty Images.

Source link

News | WTA Tennis English

  • Posted: Jan 01, 1970

MIAMI, FL, USA – No.3 seed Simona Halep barreled into the fourth round of the Miami Open, conquering Estonian qualifier Anett Kontaveit, 6-3, 6-0.

“I think I played my best match of the year,” Halep told WTA Insider after the match. “I was confident, and knew what I had to do: push and make her run. I hit some winners, which was very good for me. I was moving well, so I think everything went pretty well for me tonight.”

The Romanian has been plagued by knee issues throughout the 2017 season, forced to pull out of the St. Petersburg Ladies Trophy and the Middle East Swing to heal the injury.

Coming into Miami, the former French Open finalist had yet to win back-to-back matches this year, but struck down that stat in decisive fashion on Sunday night, rolling past Kontaveit in 55 minutes.

“I felt good when I came to site, and was sure that it was going to come together because I work every day. At one point, it has to come.

“I felt the best that I have this year. I can move without pain or anything, and I’m confident, which is the most important thing.”

Kontaveit is a talented youngster in her own right, a former junior Slam finalist who knocked out No.32 seed Ekaterina Makarova en route to the third round, but had no answers to her opponent’s unstoppable form, her 17 winnes undone by 24 errors in total.

“My first match here was close,” she said of her opener against Naomi Osaka. “I had some trouble in the first match. After that, I saw that I could resist and stay strong. Today, everything was flowing. I didn’t plan anything, and I won’t plan anything else. I just want to go there and give my best.”

Incredibly aggressive under the lights, Halep struck 19 winners to just 13 unforced errors and broke serve five times to book a round of 16 match-up with 2011 US Open champion Samantha Stosur.

“It’s going to be a tough match, for sure. I know how I have to play, because she’s very dangerous. Her forehand is strong, and so is her serve. I’m here to do my job, and to try to win because that’s what I want.

“Nothing special. I just expect a tough one and I’ll go there to fight.”

Halep and Stosur last played at Roland Garros 10 months ago, when the Aussie won on a wet and rainy day in Paris, locking up their head-to-head at four wins apiece.

The former World No.2 has won their last four hardcourt matches, though two of those three required a third set. But Halep might have a secret weapon.

“Something is waiting for me already, a Nutella crepe. I’ve eaten one every day, and maybe that’s why I’m winning!”

Source link

Bertens Crowned Nürnberg Champion

  • Posted: Jan 01, 1970

NÜRNBERG, Germany – Kiki Bertens lifted the second WTA title of her career on Saturday, defeating Mariana Duque-Mariño in a one-sided final at the NÜRNBERGER VERSICHERUNGSCUP.

In Friday’s semifinals, Bertens had required a third set tie-break to see off Julia Goerges, but against Duque-Mariño there was no such drama as she wrapped up a 6-2, 6-2 win in little over an hour.

“I think I played really well today – I was serving good and going for my shots. I had really good length to my shots and so she couldn’t do much from the baseline” Bertens said.

There was little to separate the players at the start of the contest, as they traded a couple of service holds, before Bertens hit the front decisively, breaking to 15 as she reeled off the final four games of the set.

Bertens’ path to the title was far from straightforward, beginning last Saturday in qualifying. And it was clear she had no intention of staying any longer on court than was strictly necessary; in the second set she raced into a 4-1 lead before breaking for a fourth and final time to wrap up victory.

Incidentally, Bertens only previous singles title also came as a qualifier, four years ago at the French Open tune-up event in Fès. The Dutchwoman will now turn her attention to Paris, where she meets No.3 seed Angelique Kerber in the first round.

Before then, though, she is planning to savor a bumper weekend. “I will fly to Paris in the morning. My family is here so for sure we will celebrate tonight!”

The afternoon got even better for Bertens a few hours later when she teamed up with Johanna Larsson to defeat Shuko Aoyama and Renata Voracova, 6-3, 6-4, in the doubles final.

“We try to play as many tournaments as possible together, so it’s really fun to always have the same partner,” Bertens said when asked about her long-time partnership with Larsson. “For me it’s also important that we not only have a lot of fun on the court but off the court as well.

“We’re really supporting each other. Like this week she lost first round of singles, but was there with me every match, supporting me, and that’s a great feeling to have in a doubles partner.”

Source link

Radwanska Jaunts Past Jovanovski

  • Posted: Jan 01, 1970

PARIS, France – No.2 seed Agnieszka Radwanska raced through her first round match with Bojana Jovanovski, playing bright tennis under a gloomy sky to win, 6-0, 6-2, and set up a second round meeting with Caroline Garcia at the French Open.

Radwanska hadn’t played a match since losing in the first round of the Mutua Madrid Open to Dominika Cibulkova, but it was an even longer lay-off for Jovanovski, who had been off the tour since St. Petersburg in February. As the Serb struggled to find her range, Radwanska soared, hitting 22 winners to just nine unforced errors, breaking serve five times and saving all three break points on her own serve to advance in straight sets on Philippe Chatrier Court.

“It was cold and windy,” she said in her post-match press conference, describing the less than idea conditions on the court. “That’s why it was a little bit slow and the ball is not going anywhere.

“I think we all kind of used to that after couple of days here. The conditions are same for both of us.”

Over on Court 1, Garcia fought off both the demons from her first round loss in 2015 and a surging Lesia Tsurenko to win, 6-3, 7-5.

“I had no specific expectations,” she said after the match. “However, when I made it on the court today I just wanted to do my best. I played with using my strengths.

“It wasn’t a super match, but I think we waged the tough battle. I think I’m quite happy, and I’m looking forward to the next round.”

Sporting a heavily strapped left thigh, Tsurenko nonetheless recovered from losing the opening set to take a 5-2 lead in the second, getting within points of a decider. With the crowd behind the young Frenchwoman, Garcia swept the final five games to win her fifth match in a row following her title run at the Internationaux de Strasbourg last week.

“In Strasbourg I played very well. I learned about myself. I have worked hard, day after day, week after week. It has been a long process. Takes a lot of time.

“But my game has improved, and this is a very important tournament. We’re in France. I wanted to do something. I think I was quite good at managing my stress. I managed to stay very focused, and each point counted.”

Radwanska and Garcia have played thrice before; though the Pole has won two of their three previous meetings, all have gone the distance.

“That’s for sure going to be different match. I guess she’s on fire winning last week. She’s a good hitter and we had couple of good matches, long ones.

“So, well, just looking forward. Going to be a good match, especially here where she’s playing at home.”

“I think I’m getting better. Of course I was doing everything in those last couple of weeks to move better. I think that’s the key on clay.”

Source link