My Performance: Venus Williams
Venus Williams reflects on her performance against Patricia Maria Tig at the Miami Open.
Venus Williams reflects on her performance against Patricia Maria Tig at the Miami Open.
Simona Halep wasn’t sure she would even make it to the BNP Paribas WTA Finals Singapore presented by SC Global this year. The World No.4 overcame illness and injury at the start of the season and finally found her footing on her beloved clay. She never looked back. With every match she won – finishing the regular season at 44-16 – she grew in confidence and became one of the tour’s most reliable winners.
Now she’s put herself in position to finish the season in the Top 5 for the third straight year.
The 25-year-old Romanian began her year behind the eight-ball. After finishing last year at a career-high No.2, Halep’s off-season training block was cut short due to illness that left her hospitalized for a few days. To make matters worse, in her race to prepare for the start of the season she re-injured her Achilles. Halep is a confidence player and the foundation of her game is her body. If she can’t trust it, everything else falls apart. She would win just two matches in her first four tournaments.
All of a sudden, Singapore felt like a world away.
“At the beginning of the year, the first four months were very tough for me,” Halep told WTA Insider. “I didn’t know if I could play this year because I was very sick and I couldn’t play 15 minutes on court. I had infections.”
But after a solid training block with her coach Darren Cahill at the conclusion of the Middle East swing, Halep began to find her game. She scored back-to-back quarterfinals in Indian Wells and Miami, and continued that steady momentum to capture her first title of the season at the Mutua Madrid Open. Her confidence slowly grew from there.
“I won Madrid and then I thought there was a chance I could go to Singapore, but I didn’t even think until the US Open that I could qualify. I said that I had a chance but I didn’t believe 100% that I could go there. So I’m really happy I could go there for a third year.”
In addition to Madrid, Halep would go on to make the quarterfinals at Wimbledon and then go on a 13-match win streak, winning the Bucharest Open and Rogers Cup in Canada. In fact, Halep finished her season by making the quarterfinals or better at six of last seven tournaments of the regular season.
“I feel from the practices that my level is very high,” Halep said. “Of course you never know when you go on court and playing against one tough opponent, but still I’m confident my game is in my hands. At the beginning of the year it was very difficult to think like this.”
Despite her slow start to the season, Halep would ultimately become the third woman to qualify for Singapore, behind Angelique Kerber and Serena Williams. Given her start to the season, it is a credit to her work ethic and resilience that she found a way to turn her season around.
“After May in Madrid, I played very well. I lost a few matches against Serena and Kerber in the last three, four months. So, yeah, I feel good. I feel that I deserve to be there. Of course, I didn’t win a Grand Slam yet, but still I played very well in the big tournaments.”
Halep has always counted Singapore as one of her favorite tournaments. It’s the site of her biggest career win, over then No.1 Serena Williams in group play in 2014. With the good vibes of the city and a good amount of rest and recovery, Halep is looking to improve on her 2015 performance, where she failed to advance out of group.
“You have to play well there because everyone from the top eight is playing crazy tennis, so I have to be ready.”
All photos courtesy of Getty Images.
MIAMI, FL, USA – No.3 seed Simona Halep was pushed to the brink in a late night epic against Sam Stosur, needing to come back from a set down and save match point to book her spot into the Miami Open quarterfinals.
Halep books a blockbuster battle against Johanna Konta after emerging victorious in the two-hour-and-ten minute thriller, 4-6, 7-5, 6-2.
“It was a tough match, like I expected,” Halep told press after the match. “But the comeback was pretty good, and I’m really happy about that.
“The last comeback like this for me was in 2014, my first match in Doha against Kanepi. Match point down and I came back. I’m happy about this, shows I can still play some tennis.”
3rd Set!!@Simona_Halep saves a match point to force a decider vs Stosur 4-6, 7-5! #MiamiOpen pic.twitter.com/s103xofKtn
— WTA (@WTA) 28 de marzo de 2017
The Romanian targeted the Aussie’s backhand throughout the early exchanges in the opening set, and was rewarded with an early break. She built up a solid 4-2 lead and looked set to wrap up the opening set, but Stosur had other plans.
Stosur got her heavy topspin forehand going and wreaking havoc on Halep’s game plan, and reeled off four straight games to snatch away the opening set. She went on a tear in the second, recovering from an early break and winning five of the next six games to serve for the match.
She even held a match point, at 5-4 on Halep’s serve, but the Romanian chose that moment to start mounting her epic comeback. A handful of loose errors from Stosur on key moments let Halep back into the set, and she took the next seven games in a row to take the second set and a break lead in the third.
With Stosur flagging and letting her aggression dip slightly, it was Halep who bossed the rallies and dictated play to extend the lead to 4-1. The Aussie didn’t have another comeback left in her, and Halep completed the comeback to move into the Miami quarterfinals.
Comeback Complete✔️@Simona_Halep saves a MATCH POINT to edge Stosur 4-6, 7-5, 6-2! #MiamiOpen pic.twitter.com/0qeasy9VQ4
— WTA (@WTA) 28 de marzo de 2017
“When I was down, I wasn’t thinking about anything, nothing about the score,” Halep said. “I just wanted to fight. I didn’t give up, and I believed in my chance. I was maybe a little bit lucky because I came back from match point down, but still I fought for this.”
Halep will be rewarded for her efforts with another battle in the next round, this time against Britain’s No.1, Konta.
“It will be tough. She’s in a good form now, she’s near Top 10. And she plays great. It’s going to be a tough one, but here every match is tough so I don’t expect an easy one.
“I have my chance here to try my best and try to win, and of course tomorrow will help me to recover. Then I will go on court with confidence.”
Sara Errani takes on Yulia Putintseva in the quarterfinals of the Volvo Car Open.
MIAMI, FL, USA – No.2 seed Karolina Pliskova took down an on-form Mirjana Lucic-Baroni to book the first spot into the Miami Open semifinals, notching a 6-2, 6-4 victory after an hour and 12 minutes.
The win sends her into the Miami semifinals for the first time, where she awaits the winner between No.12 seed Caroline Wozniacki and Lucie Safarova.
She also gets her hard-earned revenge on the player who knocked her out of the Australian Open, where she fell 6-4, 3-6, 6-4 to the Croatian in the quarterfinals.
.@KaPliskova seals the first set 6-3! #MiamiOpen pic.twitter.com/QmSdSzhHFj
— WTA (@WTA) March 28, 2017
“I think I played much better here than I was playing [in Melbourne],” Pliskova said in her post-match press conference. “Also, the conditions here are different, and she was playing better tennis there because it was faster. It suited her better in Australia.
“So definitely I was feeling more confident with this match. I had a different game plan today.”
For her part, Lucic-Baroni – who was into her second Miami quarterfinal and the first since the tournament became a Premier Mandatory – made a strong start to the match, which featured lots of short rallies and plenty of first-strike tennis.
Lucic-Baroni’s fearless returning helped her neutralize powerful Pliskova serve during the early exchanges, but she wasn’t able to back it up with her own serves. She hit nine double faults during the opening set – including on set point – and was broken four times to surrender the first set in 28 minutes.
Not a bad way to save break point @KaPliskova! ? #MiamiOpen pic.twitter.com/drHjF0D8tI
— WTA (@WTA) March 28, 2017
The Croat continued to attack Pliskova’s serve emphatically and was rewarded with the first break of the second set, building up a 4-2 lead as her service game began to click.
But with her serve under fire, Pliskova relied on her other weapons – her big forehand and her improved court movement – and bailed herself out of trouble. The Czech reeled off four games in a row to erase Lucic-Baroni’s lead and close out the match.
“The difference was in the first set,” Lucic-Baroni told WTA Insider afterwards. “I started out great but then I couldn’t find my serve. The more I was making mistakes the worse I was getting.
“I was able to calm down and fix it in the second, but then I just had a lot of bad luck after 4-2. But she played great, a pretty flawless match. It was still pretty close, but it just didn’t go my way today.”
.@KaPliskova is first through to the @MiamiOpen Semifinals!
Skips past Lucic-Baroni 6-3, 6-4! pic.twitter.com/XybPo6IfNJ
— WTA (@WTA) March 28, 2017
With the win Pliskova is through to her fourth semifinal of 2017, and she’ll face either Safarova or Wozniacki for a spot in the final.
“Lucie obviously I know pretty well,” Pliskova assessed. “It will not be something really surprising for me there. I will be really confident coming into this one but it’s Czech against Czech so anything can happen.
“Obviously against Caroline, we played in Doha also, so a little bit different conditions than here. I would expect tough one because I know she has been playing quite good here in last few years.”
Sara Errani had Friday’s shot of the day at the Volvo Car Open.
Jarmila Wolfe has announced that she and her husband are expecting a baby.
The Australian revealed the news on social media.
This is one of my favorite post I could share with y'all! With joy and pride we would love to share that there will be a little Wolfe soon ❤ pic.twitter.com/JNEIpeNSeL
— Jarmila Wolfe (@tennis_jarkag) March 28, 2017
Unsurprisingly, she was immediately deluged with congratulations.
Congratulations Jarka and Adam! We can't wait to meet the little Wolfe ? https://t.co/6cZdpqGDTN
— TennisAustralia (@TennisAustralia) March 29, 2017
Wolfe retired from tennis at the start of 2017.
An interview with Sloane Stephens after her win in the semifinals of the Volvo Car Open.
On this episode of the WTA Insider Podcast, we recap last week’s action at the Volvo Car Open and Katowice Open, which saw Sloane Stephens grow her title collection with her third title of the season and Dominika Cibulkova end her title drought. Then we debut the Coach’s Corner, a recurring feature that puts the spotlight on the hard working men and women sweating away in the players’ box.
David Taylor may have started as “just” a hitting partner for Martina Hingis, but he’s now one of the premier coaches in professional tennis. He has coached Australia’s two best prospects in the modern era into the Top 10, taking Alicia Molik and Sam Stosur into the upper echelons of the game and he was there, heart in his throat, when Stosur fired that inside-out forehand return on match point to win the 2011 US Open. He’s seen the highs and he’s lived the lows, and he was happy to talk about it all.
On being Hingis’ traveling hitting partner: “You could see the way Martina practiced was just translated into what she had to do. It was very specific. That was a time when the Williamses were coming onto the scene and she was definitely the Queen of that time and the other ones were coming. It was an interesting time. A lot of things were constructed on how to deal with the power of Davenport, Serena and Venus, and Capriati.”
On how the game has changed: “The skill has gone down but the striking of the ball has gone way up. So the ability to hit the ball amazingly fast and with power has increased. That’s what tennis is about. But a lot of the skill, because it’s so fast, has gone out of the game now. It’s interesting. It’s not better or worse. It’s just what it is.”
On conflicts of interest: “It’s a funny set up in tennis because the player is paying the coach, while in other professional sports they’re paid for by an outside body. Like basketball, the players don’t pay their coach. They all work for the organization, coach included. In tennis it’s very personal. I don’t think it’s that great a set up. I don’t see the alternative though.”
On the need for weapons: “I believe to be a great player you have to be able to win points on your own terms. And that’s reflective of any great player that we’ve had in recent times. That’s where we’re at. That doesn’t mean there isn’t a market for all types of players. Being aggressive doesn’t have to be cracking the ball hard. It can be playing from a very aggressive court position. Halep’s an aggressive player. She doesn’t hit a tremendous amount of winners, but she’s an aggressive player. It’s not just hitting the ball hard. It’s where you play from, your mentality, what you can do under pressure.”
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