Konta Conquers Venus For A Spot In Miami Open Final
Britain’s Johanna Konta will play Caroline Wozniacki in the Miami Open final after overcoming former champion Venus Williams in a tight, straight sets battle.
Britain’s Johanna Konta will play Caroline Wozniacki in the Miami Open final after overcoming former champion Venus Williams in a tight, straight sets battle.
MIAMI, FL, USA – After more than a week of compelling tennis, Johanna Konta and Caroline Wozniacki are the last two standing at the Miami Open, as both women look to raise the trophy for the first time at the WTA Premier Mandatory event.
Here are 10 things to know before Saturday’s championship showdown.
Johanna Konta (GBR #11) vs. Caroline Wozniacki (DEN #14)
Head-to-head: Konta leads, 1-0
1) Maiden (in) Miami.
Both players will break new ground in their careers when they set foot on court on Saturday, as each is competing in her first-ever final at the Miami Open. Playing in Miami for the 10th time, Wozniacki’s best result previously came in 2012, when she reached the semifinals. Konta is playing in Miami for just the second time in her career, and reached the quarterfinals in her 2016 debut.
2) Wozniacki Goes Four for Four.
Wozniacki has reached the final of all four Premier Mandatory events in her career with her success in Miami this week. The former World No.1 first was runner-up at the 2009 Mutua Madrid Open; won the BNP Paribas Open in 2011; and won the China Open in 2010. Konta will contest her second final at Premier Mandatory level out of her last three, finishing runner-up to Agnieszka Radwanska in Beijing last fall.
Caroline Wozniacki has now made the final of all 4 Premier Mandatories, 6 in all.
More: https://t.co/vkUOl0CPfY pic.twitter.com/LUgZPYo3Q8
— WTA Insider (@WTA_insider) March 30, 2017
3) Comebacks – and upsets (on paper).
Over the course of the week, both women have recorded wins over higher-ranked players en route to the final. Konta ousted No.3 seed Simona Halep in a marathon quarterfinal match, 3-6, 7-6(7), 6-2, after the Romanian served for the match in the second set, and was two points away from victory. Wozniacki also rallied from a set down to defeat No.2 seed Karolina Pliskova in Thursday’s semifinals.
.@JoKonta91 advances to @MiamiOpen Semifinals!
Battles past Halep 3-6, 7-6(7), 6-2! pic.twitter.com/nm3n99u6s8
— WTA (@WTA) March 29, 2017
4) Third Time’s the Charm?
While Miami marks both Wozniacki and Konta’s first Premier Mandatory final of the season, both players have already reached finals this year. Wozniacki will contest her third final of 2017 after Doha and Dubai, the most on tour this season. While the Dane is looking to win her first title of the year, Konta is appearing in her second final after winning the Apia International Sydney.
5) Lucky Number…45.
With this result, Wozniacki becomes just the fourth active player to reach 45 career finals on the WTA Tour; the 26-year-old has reached at least one final every year since the 2008 season.
#SAPStatOfTheDay: @CaroWozniacki reaches 45th career #WTA Final! #MiamiOpen pic.twitter.com/cLjFZidk2X
— WTA (@WTA) March 31, 2017
6) Recent History, Down Under.
The two have only met once before just two months ago at the Australian Open. In the third round match, Konta broke serve four times en route to a 6-3, 6-1 victory in one hour, 17 minutes.
7) Top 10 Implications.
Regardless of Saturday’s result, Konta is assured of returning to the WTA Top 10. With a victory, the Brit will rise to a new career-high of No.7, bettering her previous of No.9 from last fall. For Wozniacki, only a victory in the final will get her back inside the Top 10 for the first time since 2015, with a rise to No.8 in the rankings.
By advancing to @MiamiOpen final, @JoKonta91 will re-enter the Top 10 on Monday. Venus also moves into Top 10 UNLESS Woz wins the title.
— WTA Insider (@WTA_insider) March 31, 2017
8) The Road to the Final.
Combined, both players have dropped three sets this week. Konta had a battle on her hands in her first match of the week against qualifier Aliaksandra Sasnovich before her quarterfinal comeback against Halep. By contrast, Wozniacki rolled through her first four matches without losing a set until the semifinals.
9) A Bit of British History.
Konta is looking to become the first British woman to not only win the title in Miami, but also win a WTA Premier Mandatory event.
.@JoKonta91 is the first ?? to make a @MiamiOpen Final! pic.twitter.com/6hSG38HiaI
— WTA (@WTA) March 31, 2017
10) Singapore Shakeup.
A win for Wozniacki would see her rise to No.1 on the Road to Singapore leaderboard, ahead of Karolina Pliskova and Serena Williams, while Konta would sit in fifth. Should Konta win the title, she will sit behind Pliskova in second, while Wozniacki will rise to third.
Unseeded and looming Gabriela Dabrowski and Xu Yifan knocked out four of the Top 8 seeds en route to their biggest career title at the Miami Open.
RABAT, Morocco – Top seed Timea Bacsinszky showed off some of the grit that saw her reach the semifinals of last year’s French Open in the semifinals of the GP SAR La Princesse Lalla Meryem, taking out Timea Babos, 6-4, 7-5.
Watch live action from Rabat & Prague this week on WTA Live powered by TennisTV!
The Swiss has been impressive all week in Rabat, but withstood a fierce challenge from the No.5 seed, who leveled the second set at love as theLo former World No.10 tried serving for the match. Bacsinszky made no mistake in her second chance, earning her first WTA final berth of the season in an hour and 46 minutes.
Her opponent in Saturday’s final will be New Zealand’s Marina Erakovic; saving a match point in the second set tie-break, the World No.186 outlasted Dutch powerhouse Kiki Bertens, 2-6, 7-6(7), 7-5. Edging ahead 5-3 in the final set, Bertens engineered one last twist in the topsy turvy match, saving two match points of her own and pushing perilously close to another tie-break before Erakovic converted on her third match point.
“I think I just kept trying to find my game in the first set,” the former No.39 said after the match. “I felt like I was lacking a little bit of rhythm, but I just kept trying and trying. In tennis, anything can happen, so you just keep working. Kiki is playing well, and it was a good level of tennis. It’s nice to win today but it’s also nice to win matches like these where you fight very hard and it pays off.”
Into her fifth career WTA final, Erakovic is enjoying her best week since a knee injury curtailed her progress at the end of last year.
“I really like Morocco. It’s a great place; I’ve come here before and I really enjoyed it. It’s great to be in another final, especially since I had a very tough year last year and I’ve been trying very hard to come back and to rehab all of the injuries. It’s nice to see these kinds of things after that.”
The doubles final brought Friday’s play to its conclusion as No.4 seeds Aleksandra Krunic and Xenia Knoll upset top seeds Tatjana Maria and Raluca Olaru, 6-3, 6-0.
Congratulations doubles team of Xenia #Knoll & @KrunicAlex for their 2016 win in #Rabat pic.twitter.com/SiRQZBgqAu
— TennisTV (@TennisTV) April 29, 2016
More to come…
MIAMI, FL, USA – The British media celebrated Johanna Konta’s win at the Miami Open with plenty of print space and air time – and are hoping she’ll rise even further up the rankings than her current career high of No.7.
Konta said in her post-match press conference that she hoped her journey in the tournament would garner lots of attention for the sport.
“If the coverage has been good then it’s great for us,” said the British No.1. “It’s promoting tennis, and hopefully promoting more people to play.”
And so it has proved – starting with a front-page splash in the Sunday Times.
No stunts required – win as big as Konta is starting to, it gets attention. Front page of the Sunday Times. pic.twitter.com/VQKgSUsnt9
— DavidLaw (@DavidLawTennis) April 2, 2017
Comparisons are inevitably being drawn with Virginia Wade, Britain’s last female singles Slam winner – but Konta has played that down, although she admitted she would love to win Wimbledon.
The Daily Mail reported that she said: “It does sound quite monumental but winning Wimbledon is a dream and hopefully one day I will get an opportunity to play for such a title.”
An unforgettable two weeks for @JoKonta91 at the @MiamiOpen! ? pic.twitter.com/XuN5Snv16F
— WTA (@WTA) April 2, 2017
The Daily Telegraph’s tennis correspondent Simon Briggs assessed Konta’s chances of a Slam title thus: “How much further, then, can this late-blooming champion climb? Two years ago, Konta was ranked around the 150-mark, which did not even earn her a spot in the qualifying tournament here. Now she stands alongside Pliskova and world No 1 Angelique Kerber as one of the women most likely to worry Serena Williams.”
In the Guardian, Kevin Mitchell wrote: “Konta was clearly the better player in this match as well as the one in Melbourne. That was such a clear indicator of how far the British No1 has come in a relatively short time. There would not have been many takers backing Konta to beat Wozniacki even a couple of years ago. Now she has to set her sights higher.”
And of course Konta’s Fed Cup teammates were also thrilled for her – Naomi Broady and Heather Watson were straight on Twitter to publicly congratulate their friend.
She came, she saw, she 'kontad' ? best tweet I've seen today! Killing it JK ? @JoKonta91
— Naomi Broady (@NaomiBroady) April 2, 2017
Congrats @JoKonta91 ! ?????? #killinit
— Heather Watson (@HeatherWatson92) April 1, 2017
On this Dropshot Edition of the podcast, WTA Insider Senior Writer Courtney Nguyen previews the Mutua Madrid Open draw. Will Victoria Azarenka pick up where she left off and assert her dominance on clay? Or will it be the tour’s Road to Singapore leader Angelique Kerber build on her title at the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix to breakthrough in Madrid’s altitude? If the two most dominant players on tour this season don’t end up with the final, who is poised to play the spoiler?
Joining the podcast to help preview the action is René Denfeld, contributing writer for The Tennis Island, who is also in Madrid for the week.
Nguyen on Azarenka’s clay court preparation: All eyes are on Victoria Azarenka, 24-1 on the season. I was encouraged by what she said today during All-Access Hour, how this was her first clay court preparation with her new team, and hearing some new advice from her team – new voices. I think the numbers through the season on the hardcourts have shown that she is playing some of her best tennis. She’s serving better than she ever has in her career, and on return she’s right up there alongside the numbers she was posting in her peak years of 2012 and 2013. In all ways, you think this is Azarenka’s season, which is a weird thing today when Angelique Kerber has won Stuttgart and the Australian Open.
Denfeld on comparing Azarenka’s season to Kerber’s: Kerber put in a tremendous run at the Aussie Open, taking out the two biggest favorites along the way, and backing up a title for the first time in her career. What Kerber’s done really well over the last six months is learn from experiences in terms of dealing with pressure. But in terms of consistent performance over the last four months, I put Victoria Azarenka ahead of her, and everyone in Germany is going to throw rocks at me when I come back!
Nguyen on Agnieszka Radwanska’s confidence on clay: It’s interesting because when I’ve talked to Aga about her clay issues, it’s always a curious thing because she says, ‘I grew up on clay; this was the surface I played on.’ But then once she started to play on tour, 90% of the tournaments were on hardcourts. She made those adjustments and faster courts became her strength. When I ask her to drill down on the adjustments she made or what makes clay a challenge for here, she never points to the power deficiency issue, or the technical issue, that the ball sits up. She always points to movement; she’s said, ‘I like sliding on hardcourts, but for some reason, I don’t like sliding on a clay court. I need to be able to run to win matches, and if you take the ability to run away from me, it exposes my game.’
Denfeld on Simona Halep: Of all the seeds, I think this might be the most key tournament for Halep, because I’m a little confused as to the state of Simona at the moment. She said she felt fine and that her ankle felt good; I’m just curious what this tournament holds for Halep. She says she has no expectations, and for me that’s tough to judge, because with no expectations, what does a first round loss mean? She had some good results in the US, and then that curious end against Laura Siegemund, having breathing problems. It created more questions than answers, but it would be good to see some results to resolve them.
Subscribe to the podcast on iTunes or on any podcast app of your choice and reviews are always helpful, so if you like what you’ve heard so far, leave us one. You can also get new episode alerts by following us on Twitter @WTA_Insider.
Hear from Samantha Stosur prior to the tournament.
Check out Daria Kasatkina’s stat of the day from the Volvo Car Open final.
BRISBANE, Australia – It was Saturday, January 10, 2009 when a future World No.1 would make her first mark on the WTA tour, as a then-19-year-old Victoria Azarenka took home her very first WTA title at the Brisbane International.
The talented teenager had been knocking on the door for a while; she’d already featured in four finals, including at the previous year’s Gold Coast women’s event, which would merge with the Adelaide men’s tournament to form the Brisbane International.
Azarenka, then ranked World No.16 and seeded two at the tournament, would not be denied a fifth time and routed Marion Bartoli 6-3, 6-1 in the final.
“Everybody says the third time’s the charm but for me it is the fifth one – I’m just glad I got it,” the Belarusian laughed in her post-championship press conference.
“I just go out and play no matter what happens. That probably helped me. It was like playing a regular match – that is what helped me finish it so quickly.”
Azarenka would go on to write her name in the tennis history books and record even more significant milestones on Australian soil; she eventually took home her first Grand Slam title at the Australian Open in 2012 and rose to WTA World No.1 for the first time.
But, back in 2009 at Brisbane, Azarenka was just getting started.
So young and happy! Same passion still ? https://t.co/U0iJrD8REt
— victoria azarenka (@vika7) January 10, 2017
Check out more photos of Azarenka’s maiden moment of victory, courtesy of Getty Images:
Bogota’s top seeds Kiki Bertens and Katerina Siniakova had to weather a pair of tough opponents – and the rainy conditions – to move into the second round at the Claro Open Colsanitas.