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Insider Podcast: Sweet Win For Simona

  • Posted: Jan 01, 1970

MONTRÉAL, Canada – Simona Halep capped off a strong week in Canada by winning her third title of the season, beating Madison Keys, 7-6(2), 6-3, to win the Rogers Cup. Her win over Keys extended her current win streak to 10 matches and moves her up to No.3 in both the rankings and the Road To Singapore leaderboard.

Hear from Halep as she discusses her week in Montreal, her plans for the upcoming weeks without the Olympics, and why she never, ever, skips a good dessert.

On doing double duty: “It was very different because I’m not used to playing doubles. I got a little bit tired in the end. But it also helped me to play some doubles matches because I practiced the return, the serve. That helped me a lot in singles; I had tough opponents there. It’s been a great week in both singles and doubles. I am dead, but I have a few days break, and I will be fresh against for Cincinnati.”

On managing frustration on court: “My physio Dragos is new and he doesn’t know tennis very well. He asked Darren during the match where I had a set and 5-0, ‘Why is Simona angry at this moment?’ I don’t know how to answer, because it happens. It’s coming from inside where I get frustrated because I’ve missed a ball. I always want perfection; I know that doesn’t exist, but I’m looking for it a lot anyway. I don’t know if I’ll ever find out why I do this, but if I do, I will change it because I really want to change this and be more patient and positive with myself.”

On the summer hardcourts: “I think I play better tennis on hardcourts here at the US Open Series because the courts are faster and I started to play well on this surface. I feel more confident because I had a great result last year at all the tournaments, so I’m looking forward to the next tournament because I feel confident that I can win some more matches. I just have to be careful with my body, to take a rest and recover, and then to work again.”

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CNN Open Court: Brazil's Hope

  • Posted: Jan 01, 1970

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil – Last April, Teliana Pereira became the first Brazilian in 27 years to lift a WTA title when she won the Claro Open Colsanitas, in Bogotá. A second, and more emotional, triumph followed a few months later, Periera departing Florianopolis for her home up the coast in Curitiba with the trophy – and a Top 50 ranking – safely secured.

In sports mad Brazil, her fairytale journey from humble beginnings to a place at the upcoming Rio Olympics has captured the public’s imagination. In the build-up to the Games, CNN Open Court tracked down Brazil’s leading player to hear her incredible story first-hand.

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Santina Survive For 29th Straight Win

Santina Survive For 29th Straight Win

  • Posted: Jan 01, 1970

SYDNEY, Australia – Top seeds Martina Hingis and Sania Mirza were trailing by a set and a break when rain interrupted their semifinal match with Yaroslava Shvedova and Raluca Olaru, but turned the tables upon resumption to win, 4-6, 6-3, 10-8 to capture a 29th straight match.

Team SanTina have not lost a match since the Western & Southern Open late last summer, and the reigning Wimbledon and US Open champions have now surpassed Gigi Fernández and Natasha Zvereva’s 1994 record of 28 straight victories and have now begun to chase an even bigger record. Back in 1990, the dynamic duo of Jana Novotna and Helena Sukova won a whopping 44 matches in a row.

“This is something that I dreamed about and I was hoping for,” Hingis told press after the match. “I can only say it over and over again: It’s something that’s a priority. When I was playing singles, singles was the priority. I became No.1 there. For a time, I was No. 1 in both.

“Now I put 100% or 120% into this, and I think I that’s what makes us this great doubles team. The chemistry is amazing. We don’t always play super tennis, but we come out and find a solution. I think that’s what makes us right now the best doubles in the world.”

“Today the girls we were playing, they were playing probably the best I’ve seen them play,” Mirza added. “Slava has won Slams before, and Olaru was playing really well. We had to really put everything that we had and really come out with our A Game when we needed to, especially in that supertiebreak.

“It’s not like because we’ve been winning so much we take it for granted really. We try every time. We’re the hunted. Everyone plays their best against us, and we have to keep playing our best as well to win.”

With titles at the Apia International Sydney and the Australian Open, SanTina could move their streak up to 36 straight, and would likely need at least another two titles to come close to passing such an elusive record.

In the meantime, the top seeds will face the winner of the second semifinal between No.3 seeds Kristina Mladenovic and Caroline Garcia, and the No.2 seeds, Chan Hao-Ching and Chan Yung-Jan. The Chan sisters are the last women to defeat Hingis and Mirza together in Cincinnati, but have fallen to the pair four times since then.

The singles matches, however, weren’t able to survive the ensuing rain storms that soaked Sydney. Top seed Simona Halep led Svetlana Kuznetsova 5-4 while qualifier Monica Puig had a massive 4-0 lead on Belinda Bencic before both matches were canceled – to resume on Friday.

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Rio Olympic Draw Announced

  • Posted: Jan 01, 1970

The draw for the Summer Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro has been released; where have your favorite players landed? Find out right here on wtatennis.com!

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Olympic Memories: London

  • Posted: Jan 01, 1970

The seventh and final stop-off on wtatennis.com’s trip down Olympics memory lane is the 2012 Games in London, which saw Serena Williams add a golden sheen to a magical summer…

London, United Kingdom, 2012
All England Club
Grass

Twelve years after watching courtside as her sister won gold in Sydney, Serena Williams produced arguably the performance of her career to finally follow in her footsteps.

Injury in 2004 and a shock defeat to Elena Dementieva four years later left Serena, the outstanding player of her generation, with one gap remaining on an otherwise flawless resume: an Olympic singles gold medal.

Of all the players in the draw, perhaps only Venus could match Serena’s joy at hearing of the All England Club’s selection as an Olympic venue. With a record second to none on Wimbledon’s hallowed lawns – she lifted the Venus Rosewater Dish for a fifth time three weeks prior to the start of the Games – even as No.4 seed, Serena started as most people’s favorite for the tournament.

So often a slow starter at tennis’ flagship events, Serena hit the ground running at a curiously liveried All England Club. She fired out an early warning shot, brushing aside former No.1 Jelena Jankovic for the loss of four games in the opening round.

Ominously for her title rivals, she got better as the rounds progressed, clinically dispatching the top seed Victoria Azarenka in the semifinals.

This set up a showdown with French Open champion Maria Sharapova. Serena had won the pair’s last seven meetings, and she continued this mastery of the Russian, whom she brutally overwhelmed with a combination of masterful serving and bullet-like groundstrokes.

At one point near the end of the first set, Serena had hit more aces than her opponent had won points. The American struck 10 aces and 24 winners in all and made only seven unforced errors in her 63 minutes on court.

Gold saw the 30-year-old become the first player ever to win all four Grand Slams and the Olympics in both singles and doubles, an achievement which dotted the i’s and crossed the t’s in modern tennis’ most comprehensive of careers.

“Oh, my gosh, this one is so high up there,” Williams said after the final. “Being Olympic gold champion, being Golden Slam champion in singles and doubles, that’s pretty awesome.

“I did something nobody’s done. So I’m really excited about that.”

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Olympic Memories: Beijing
Olympic Memories: Athens
Olympic Memories: Sydney
Olympic Memories: Atlanta
Olympic Memories: Barcelona
Olympic Memories: Seoul

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