As It Happened: Serena Triumphs In Oz To Break Open Era Record
WTA Insider Courtney Nguyen | Serena Williams will outlasted older sister Venus Williams in the 2017 Australian Open final, to nab the Open Era record and World No.1 in one fell swoop.
WTA Insider Courtney Nguyen | Serena Williams will outlasted older sister Venus Williams in the 2017 Australian Open final, to nab the Open Era record and World No.1 in one fell swoop.
A deeper look at the Dubai upsets: After three days of play at the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Champions, no seeds remain in the tournament. This is the first time the seeds went winless at a WTA event and just the fourth time no seeds advanced to the quarterfinals (2014 Bastad, 2012 Bogota, 2009 Hobart).
Needless to say, this week’s results in Dubai are a statistical anomaly, especially for a Premier tournament. The withdrawals of World No.1 Serena Williams, Australian Open champion Angelique Kerber, and Australian Open semifinalist Agnieszka Radwanska — the top three women on the Road to Singapore leaderboard — reshuffled the top seeds in Dubai and injected some level of unpredictability in a tournament where conditions are already tricky. The balls tend to fly and the courts have been recently resurfaced. Control is at a premium.
But a closer look at the top seeds’ opening round match-ups does provide some context for this unprecedented exodus. For No.5 seed Belinda Bencic and No.7 seed Roberta Vinci, who played the St. Petersburg Ladies Trophy final on Sunday, both women arrived less than 24 hours before their opening round matches. Bencic lost to Jelena Jankovic, no slouch of a player herself, while Vinci looked understandably sluggish in a 6-0, 4-6, 6-3 loss to qualifier Yaroslava Shvedova.
As for the remaining six seeds:
– Ana Ivanovic d. No.1 Simona Halep 7-6(2), 6-2: It’s been a sputtering start to the season for Halep, who dropped to 3-3 this season. Halep took a late wildcard into Dubai after deciding to postpone nasal surgery. Her mantra from the start of the season has been simple and repetitive: Matches, matches, matches. Halep has yet to play herself into form and the rustiness, particularly on the big points, shows.
“I’m disappointed that I lost but it’s okay,” Halep said. “I feel good. Physically I’m okay. I have no pain anywhere. It’s good, and the most important thing is that I’m healthy.”
As for Ivanovic, she’s rebounded well from a disappointing 2015 season. After going 0-2 to start the year her level has improved week after week. She was dominated Madison Keys for most of their third round match at the Australian Open, but get nervous in the end, losing 4-6, 6-4, 6-4. She made the semifinals last week in St. Petersburg, only to lose to the slicing-and-dicing wiles of Vinci.
But Ivanovic carried that form into Dubai this week. She blasted No.35 Daria Gavrilova off the court in the first round, losing just one game. And her win over Halep on Wednesday was her first top 5 win since the 2014 WTA Finals, when she beat…Simona Halep.
– Elina Svitolina d. No.2 Garbiñe Muguruza 7-6(3), 6-3: Svitolina has been playing at a good level. It just hasn’t been obvious after a surprising second round loss to Naomi Osaka at the Australian Open. Could her decision to hire Justine Henin as a coaching consultant inject a sense of urgency in the Ukrainian’s game? Her improvement over the years has been steady but the Henin hiring may just signal a new level of hunger and ambition.
Much like Halep, Muguruza’s 2016 start has struggled to gain traction. A foot injury left her undercooked in Melbourne, where she lost in the third round to Barbora Strycova. Against Svitolina she hit 68 unforced errors in two sets.
“I’m not really finding my game, so I think I have to rest a little bit and concentrate again and work hard and eventually come back to the tournament to play again,” Muguruza said after the loss. “I think I’m not really ready to compete. I need to work a little bit more. My shots, my fitness. So we’ll see.”
She told reporters she’s still dealing with her foot injury and her participation in next week’s Qatar Total Open is up in the air. “If I’m not 100%, I don’t think it’s necessary,” she said. “So we’ll see these couple of days.”
– Caroline Garcia d. No.3 Carla Suárez Navarro 4-6. 6-4, 6-3: The young Frenchwoman has an uncanny ability to use a strong Fed Cup weekend as a springboard to confident play on tour. She was the hero in France’s win over Italy two weeks ago, scoring singles wins over Sara Errani and Camila Giorgi.
– Madison Brengle d. No.4 Petra Kvitova 0-6, 7-6(1), 6-3: At I highlighted in my last Notebook, Kvitova is at a crossroads right now. She drops to 1-5 this season, with that sole win coming against No. 143 Luksika Kumkhum in the first round of the Australian Open, and announced a surprising split with long-time coach David Kotyza. The high-flying conditions in Dubai have not been easy for the Czech. Setting aside a title run in 2013, she has not made it past the second round and lost in the opening round at four of five appearances.
– CoCo Vandeweghe d. No.6 Karolina Pliskova 7-6(5), 6-1: The two split their two prior meetings, so it’s not like this result was out of the blue for Vandeweghe. But it’s been difficult to get a read on Pliskova’s form in 2016. She had a fantastic Fed Cup run two weeks ago, scoring a three-set win over Halep. In Sydney she earned two good wins over Ivanovic and Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova. But she has yet to win more than two matches at a tour event.
– Julia Goerges d. No.8 Svetlana Kuznetsova 6-0, 6-1: The erratic nature of her game persists — we’re talking about Goerges here — but the German has been very good this season. Kuznetsova had little chance against her in the first round, with Goerges blasting 28 winners and 15 unforced errors.
Projected Rankings: The big news on Monday: Roberta Vinci will finally make her Top 10 debut. Despite losing in the first round she’ll move up three spots after Suarez Navarro, Lucie Safarova, and Venus Williams drop.
Next week’s projected rankings:
1. Serena
2. Kerber
3. Radwanska (+1)
4. Halep (-1)
5. Muguruza
6. Sharapova
7. Bencic (+2, career-high)
8. Kvitova
9. Pennetta (-2)
10. Vinci (+3, Top 10 debut)
11. Suarez Navarro
12. Safarova (-2)
13. Venus (-1)
14. Azarenka (or Ivanovic wins the title)
15. Bacsinszky (or Azarenka if Ivanovic wins the title)
All photos courtesy of Getty Images.
NEW HAVEN, CT, USA – No.6 seed Petra Kvitova is back into the Connecticut Open semifinals for the fifth year in a row after defeating Ekaterina Makarova 6-3, 6-1 in exactly one hour.
Watch live action from New Haven this week on WTA Live powered by TennisTV!
Kvitova and Makarova are quickly building up a fierce rivalry in 2016, with this match being their fourth encounter in 2016 alone.
Decidedly quicker than the last several matches they’ve played, which both went almost two hours long. In fact, it went a little more like the last time they played in New Haven, back in 2014, when Kvitova stomped past Makarova in straight sets in just 49 minutes.
“Maybe the court helped me,” Kvitova said. “Maybe, I don’t know, I was ready to battle again. Just knew that I had to be really focusing on each point.
“I think I played better here. I served better, for sure. I just think it was really, you know, helpful for me today. Couple of the matches which we played before today was always a little bit tricky. I think in each of them that I had chances to win it, but I didn’t really take it. Today I just played good match again.”
Kvitova and Makarova stayed toe to toe during the tightly drawn first set, with the lone break at 4-2 going the way of the Czech. She held on to the slight lead to take the opening set, then found an extra gear in the second, breaking three times and reeling off six games in a row to close out the match in exactly an hour.
With the win Kvitova is back in the semifinals of the Connecticut Open for the fifth consecutive time.
Despite the fact that New Haven has become her happiest of hunting grounds outside of her favored Wimbledon – winning three titles and reaching four finals in her last four appearances – Kvitova still can’t say what it is about this tournament that she loves so much. She just likes it here.
“I don’t know. I always looking forward to be here,” Kvitova mused in press. “I’m here. I just feel so relaxed. We always have our kind of restaurants and breakfast shop where we are going every morning, having just easy time. It’s easy to get here, like 10 minutes, not that much.
“I don’t know. I just feel everything, it’s so easy. Even the court. Of course with a lot of success that I have here, it’s better to play.”
Kvitova is set to face Agnieszka Radwanska for a spot in the final.
MELBOURNE, Australia – The first Grand Slam of 2017 saw the WTA rankings make its first major shifts since the end of last season – most notably at the top, where Serena Williams ended Angelique Kerber’s 20 weeks at No.1 after winning her 23rd major title at the Australian Open.
Williams has been ranked No.1 for 310 weeks since 2002, and shares the record for most consecutive weeks atop the rankings at 186 with Stefanie Graf – a record Kerber ended by winning last summer’s US Open.
Click here to check out the updated WTA rankings, as of January 30.
Who else made big leaps Down Under?
Venus Williams (+6, No.17 to No.11): Venus fell just shy of returning to the Top 10 after making her first Grand Slam final since 2009. The elder Williams sister has shown off some of her best tennis at major tournaments of late, reaching semifinals in two of the last three, and could continue adding points through the next few months of hardcourt tournaments.
Karolina Pliskova (+2, No.5 to No.3): Pliskova reached the second week of a Grand Slam for the second straight time in Australia; it was also her second time ever after falling before the fourth round in her first 17 major appearances. Pliskova started the season strong with a win in Brisbane before running into a razor sharp Mirjana Lucic-Baroni in the quarterfinals.
Mirjana Lucic-Baroni (+50, No.79 to No.29): Speaking of Lucic-Baroni, the feel good story of the tournament made an improbable run to the semifinals of the Australian Open, her first at a Grand Slam since 1999, when she was just 17 years old. The 34-year-old Croat hadn’t won a main draw match in Australia since 1998, and ousted two Top 5 seeds (Pliskova and Agnieszka Radwanska) en route to the final four.
CoCo Vandeweghe (+15, No.35 to No.20): Vandeweghe made her Top 20 debut after her run to the Australian Open semifinals. The American was the youngest of the semifinalists, but nontheless boasted big wins over two of 2016’s major title-winners in Angelique Kerber and Garbiñe Muguruza.
Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova (+5, No.27 to No.22): The Russian made her second Grand Slam quarterfinal out of the last three, stunning an in-form Elina Svitolina before crushing compatriot Svetlana Kuznetsova to complete her Last Eight Club membership at all four major tournaments.
Jennifer Brady (+38, No.116 to No.78): In an impressive tournament for Americans, Brady was the freshest face in the second week of the Australian Open. Forced to qualify, she saved five match points to defeat Heather Watson before using her big serve to dispatch Elena Vesnina in the third round.
Sorana Cirstea (+19, No.78 to No.59): The former World No.21 continued her march back up the WTA rankings by reaching just her second career Grand Slam second week, and her first since the 2009 French Open.
Jelena Ostapenko (+5, No.38 to No.33): Ostapenko, 19, earned a career-high ranking after reaching the third round of the Australian Open – her best-ever finish at a major – and pushing Karolina Pliskova to the brink in a 10-8 final set.
Agnieszka Radwanska takes on Petra Kvitova in the semifinals of the Connecticut Open.
Roberta Vinci takes on Timea Babos in the first round of the St. Petersburg Ladies Trophy.
Top seed Simona Halep and former doubles No.1 Martina Hingis traveled to the Faberge Museum before beginning their week at the St. Petersburg Ladies Trophy.
An interview with Elina Svitolina after her win in the quarterfinals of the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships.
No.1 seed Elina Svitolina made her way to the Taiwan Open quarterfinals after edging past Czech qualifier Lucie Hradecka in a tight straight sets.
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil – Former World No.4 and 2010 French Open champion Francesca Schiavone reached her first WTA final since 2013 with a 6-3, 6-3 win over Petra Martic.
Playing in her first WTA semifinal in nearly 18 months (2014, Hong Kong), Schiavone put down four aces and won 84% of points behind her first serve against Martic, herself a former World No.42 who one made the second week of Roland Garros back in 2012.
It had been a difficult start to 2016 for Schiavone, who missed out on a 62nd consecutive Grand Slam main draw appearance when she fell in the second round of qualifying at the Australian Open.
“When I chose Rio, I chose it mainly because it was clay,” Schiavone said in her post-match press conference. “I remembered the conditions here being very difficult, so I trained as much as is possible for me to prepare myself on clay to be ready for the heat and the effort.
“Obviously when you come here, you try to prepare as much as you can, but you don’t think ‘I’m going there to win it,’ no, no. It’s a wonderful surprise; it’s been a long time since I’ve had this big a result, so I’m taking it as it comes.”
Schiavone next plays resurgent American Shelby Rogers. Playing her first WTA main draw since the Coupe Banque Nationale last fall, Rogers ended the excellent adventure of Sorana Cirstea, a former World No.21 who had amassed a 12-1 record heading into the semifinal by reaching back-to-back finals at two Challenger tournaments in Brazil.
“It feels amazing. I’ve had a really great week, played some good matches,” Rogers said in her post-match press conference. “I got a little momentum at the beginning, but this year has been good so far; I’ve already played a lot of matches, so that’s been a big help.
“Winning this many matches in a row and playing very well is definitely a confidence-builder, but I’ve also had to fight through some tough moments in those matches. Those are where I really get confidence from, so hopefully I can carry that into tomorrow and through the rest of the year.”
Rogers won, 6-4, 6-4, and will be playing Schiavone for the first time in what will be her second career WTA final (Schiavone’s 18th).
“Rogers is a player I don’t know very well,” Schiavone said. “But it’s going to be interesting. A final is really a 50-50 chance.”
In doubles, Veronica Cepede Royg and María Irigoyen captured the doubles final with a 6-1, 7-6(5) win over Tara Moore and Conny Perrin. For Paraguay’s Cepede Royg, the Rio Open is her first WTA title of any king, while Irigoyen won her only previous WTA title back in 2014, playing doubles in Rio with Irina-Camelia Begu.
“I want to thank my partner for the amazing week we had here in Rio,” Cepede Royg said after the match. “I’m really happy for winning my first WTA title in Rio.:
“This is such an enchanting place and the city is beautiful,” Irigoyen added. “I love coming here, people are really receptive and it was a special week.”