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Serena Reigns Over King On Home Court

  • Posted: Jan 01, 1970

NEW YORK, NY, USA – Top seed Serena Williams lit up the Arthur Ashe Stadium night session once more with a 6-3, 6-3 win over Vania King to reach the third round of the US Open.

Coming off a high-powered and high-profile first opponent in Ekaterina Makarova, Williams was even more aggressive against King, who spent most of 2015 off the court nursing an injured back. As celebrity superfans Beyoncé and Jay-Z looked on, Serena was particularly dominant on serve, striking 13 aces in the 64 minute match, and losing just six points behind her first serve.

Still, Serena told press she wasn’t totally satisfied.

“I just think it should have been a different scoreline for me,” she said in her post-match press conference. “I feel like I made a lot of errors.

“But, you know, there’s nothing I can do about that now. What really matters is I got the win. Hopefully I’ll just get better.”

Breaking serve three times over the two sets, Serena didn’t face a break point at all on Thursday night, ending the match with a +10 differential in winners to unforced errors (38-28).

Serena continued to discuss the shoulder injury that reduced her summer schedule to just three matches between Wimbledon and the US Open, and felt optimistic that the injury had largely subsided.

“It’s stable,” she said with a laugh. “I just got to keep it like that. It’s two matches in, and usually you want to be able to play seven matches. It’s not even close to the halfway point.

“I definitely want to keep it as good as it can be.”

Up next for the six-time US Open champion is Sweden’s Johanna Larsson, a semifinalist at last week’s Connecticut Open. Larsson dispatached Ana Ivanovic’s conqueror Denisa Allertova, 6-3, 6-1, to set up the the third round encounter.

A win over Larsson would gaurantee Serena passes Martina Navratilova’s record of 306 Grand Slam wins; she tied the record on Thursday.

“I knew it was on the horizon. I knew at Wimbledon that I wanted to get there. Obviously I’m excited about that. But I would like to take one more step, several more steps.”

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Silent Hs Have Strong Start At US Open

  • Posted: Jan 01, 1970

NEW YORK, NY, USA – Two-time finalists and 2013 champions Andrea Hlavackova and Lucie Hradecka rebounded from a disappointing finish to their Olympic tennis event with a 6-3, 6-1 win over Denisa Allertova and Anna-Lena Friedsam in the first round of the US Open.

Silver medalists at the Olympics four years ago, Hlavackova and Hradecka were a point away from the finals in Rio when Hlavackova was hit at net, causing an eye injury that affected them not only as their lead slipped away in the semifinals against eventual Silver medalists Martina Hingis and Timea Bacsinszky, but also in the ensuing Bronze medal match later.

But Hlavackova spoke of her full recovery to wtatennis.com, and the pair faced few problems against Allertova and Friedsam on Thursday, breaking serve four times to take the match in 55 minutes.

“I feel 100%, and I’m very happy about it,” she said. “I’ve been practicing at 100% for the last six days. I’m very happy we had the latest possible start to gain that extra day, and I’m happy things are going in the right direction.

“I’ve had some rough days, but it’s not a pain where you can’t do anything. It’s quite fine for what it is, and I’m very happy that I can be here.”

Defeating Venus and Serena Williams en route to the title in 2013, the Czechs employed their signature aggression to book a second round encounter with Mirjana Lucic-Baroni and Maria Sanchez, who defeated Belinda Bencic and kirsten Flipkens, 6-4, 6-4.

“We started very good in the beginning of each sets, playing aggressive and trying to move towards the net.” Hradecka said. “It worked!”

Hlavackova and Hradecka reunited at the end of the 2014 season after nearly 10 months apart; a strong season helped them qualify for the BNP Paribas WTA Finals Singapore presented by SC Global, where they reached the semifinals. They took that momentum into the Australian Open in January, falling in the championship match to then Co-No.1s Martina Hingis and Sania Mirza. With Hingis and new partner CoCo Vandeweghe in their quarter of the draw, Hlavackova and Hradecka have good memories from being previous champions, and are hoping for one more strong result to end the year.

“It’s a very nice feeling to be here, of course,” Hlavackova said. “It’s been a while since the year we won, but every Grand Slam is special and this is the last one of the season. That’s a big motivation and we’ll try to do our best.”

Hingis and Vandeweghe recovered from a one-set deficit to defeat former No.1 Kveta Peschke and Anna-Lena Groenefeld, 4-6, 6-1, 6-2. No.3 seeds Timea Babos and Yaroslava Shvedova also advanced with a 6-3, 6-0 win over American wildcards Catherine Bellis and Julia Boserup.

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Bacsinszky On The Olympic Experience

Bacsinszky On The Olympic Experience

  • Posted: Jan 01, 1970

NEW YORK, NY, USA – It has been a whirlwind few weeks for No.15 seed Timea Bacsinszky, who came away from her debut appearance at the Olympic tennis event with a silver medal in women’s doubles alongside former No.1 Martina Hingis.

Bacsinszky had planned a quiet summer that got louder – and more surreal – with each passing moment.

“I was supposed to get a week of holiday the same week of the Ladies Championship Gstaad,” she mused after a decisive win over Vitalia Diatchenko. “It was tough for me because at one point I knew it would be a tough year and I would need to rest at one point. But I chose to play Gstaad because it was home, and I was all the time complaining there were no tournaments in Switzerland. So I had to assume my status and assume everything what I said in the past, so I played it.”

A brief respite after playing at home saw her spend some time with her boyfriend – even buying a motor boat to cruise around the lake near her home – gave way to the full emotional impact of the Olympic Summer Games.

Martina Hingis, Timea Bacsinszky

Here is Bacsinszky on the Olympic experience, in her own words:

Growing up in Lausanne you have all the Olympic committees around. I practiced next to the IOC, the house of the IOC. You have the Olympic museum right there.

As a kid at school, every school of the region goes there to visit the Olympic museum least probably at least three times.

It’s a highlight in Lausanne. You have many things to do, but for tourists, it’s just amazing.

It means so much. When I was watching the Olympics, I would never ever really think that I would win a medal one day, and we did it together – against all odds.

Playing next to Martina was not an easy position. But I’m super proud of myself because I held her up sometimes during this event, as well. She was maybe less motivated at the beginning. She was like, ‘Oh, crap, I feel like everyone is letting me down, but you’re the only one who stands here with me.’ So, like, okay, let’s do it.

I really never never ever thought that I would be coming back home with a medal one day. It had really made me dream a lot when I was a kid, even though tennis is not really in history of the Olympics.

Something I thought was really amazing, was how the Olympics is not connected to anything. You get there, you get to meet people you don’t know and probably will never see them again, but while you’re in the Village you just feel respect which is like around everyone there.

Martina Hingis, Timea Bacsinzky

There’s no aggressive energy. Everyone was nice with me, and me, myself I was shining more than usual. I was laughing more because I really felt the energy of it.

It’s only two weeks in a year or three weeks in a year and that’s sad, because every competition should be like that. In tennis we say things like, ‘Oh, what are your weapons?’ Oh, come on, guys. We use weapons for war. But why do we use that in our sports vocabulary?

At the Olympics I felt like you meet an athlete, you just talk for a few minutes or you trade a pin. This is the best Olympic exchange, because otherwise people would be too shy to talk with each other.

This way, you can go to any country in the world and say, ‘Ah, Palau. Didn’t even know it existed.’ Or, ‘Tuvalu. Where is it on the world map?’

You get curious and you’re like, ‘Oh, which sport are you in? What are you doing?’ ‘Oh, I lost to her,’ or, ‘I got injured.’ Then you really feel how much it means to people. Then, you say, ‘Bye-bye, good luck, all the best for you,’ and you’re probably never going to meet him or her again.

But the human contact, the exchange, is just natural, simple, and it’s nice. And all the images that you see from the Olympics are usually full of positive emotions of sportsmanship.

Olympic Podium

As I came back on tour, you feel like sometimes the tension that people have in their eyes, even in tennis. You’re like, ‘Guys, I didn’t do anything. Calm down.’ You feel the aggressivity sometimes, which I was sincerely not feeling at the Olympics.

You go back to the Swiss house and all the other Swiss athletes, they are really 100% sincere that they are so happy for you that you got a medal, because they know how tough it is and how much you work all year long for that and how big it means to everyone.

It’s the first time in my life I really felt like 100% of sincerety out of people or other athletes, who were like, ‘Oh, wow. I saw that you won a medal. Oh, how amazing. Do you have it? Can I just see it?’

I think the world should be just like thus. Unluckily there are no Olympics every week. It wouldn’t be that special, probably. But it made me realize all of these things.

Bacsinszky plays Varvara Lepchenko in the second round of the US Open on Thursday.

All photos courtesy of Getty Images.

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Insider Podcast: Big Upsets On Ashe

  • Posted: Jan 01, 1970

NEW YORK, NY, USA – Anastasija Sevastova claimed the biggest shock thus far at the 2016 US Open, holding her nerve to defeat World No.3 Garbiñe Muguruza, 7-5, 6-4. The win came hours after Caroline Wozniacki had a renaissance of her own on Arthur Ashe Stadium, turning back the clock to take out No.9 seed and longtime rival Svetlana Kuznetsova in straight sets following a slow start.

In the latest Daily Dispatch from Flushing, hear more from Muguruza and Sevastova in their own words as the WTA Insider team analyze the upsets from Day 3, and make their picks for the most exciting matches on Thursday’s order of play:

Subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, TuneIn or on any podcast app of your choice to ensure you never miss an episode when they go live. 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.

Follow @WTA_Insider

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Halep's Rollercoaster Summer

  • Posted: Jan 01, 1970

NEW YORK, NY, USA – This season has provided plenty of ups and downs for World No.5 Simona Halep. To coin an overused sports-writing cliché, it could even be described as a roller coaster.

Over the coming fortnight in Flushing Meadows, Halep hopes to scale the highest peak by lifting her maiden Grand Slam title. Her next obstacle comes in the shape of former Roland Garros finalist Lucie Safarova, but before then the Romanian took a break from the tennis talk to discuss a recent trip to Cincinnati’s Kings Island theme park with the US Open press corps…

“[In]Cincinnati. I tried a roller coaster. First time in my life and never again!

“I felt that I’m dying. Darren [Cahill] said he was going on all the machines, and I said I’m not going to do that. But he said it was a white one, and I didn’t see completely. Like I just saw the end, and the end was straight. He said, Come on. It’s pretty easy. It’s the lightest one.

“I said about what is that? He said, just the speed, but straight. I said, Oh, I love speed, so I can go. When I went there and that machine was going down, I felt that I’m dying. I said, Darren, never again. He was laughing when I said. It was tough, but it was nice. Good experience.”

So how did Halep respond to her white-knuckle experience?

“I did nothing. I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t breathe. No, I didn’t scream.”

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Wozniacki Turns Back The Clock

  • Posted: Jan 01, 1970

NEW YORK, NY, USA – As Caroline Wozniacki hurtled to all corners of the court before unleashing an unerringly accurate winner to close out her upset win over Svetlana Kuznetsova on Wednesday afternoon, it felt as if someone had wound back the clock.

The manner of the comeback drew instant parallels with two displays from the Dane’s pomp against the same player at the same venue. The first of these, during the a fourth round tussle seven years ago, came from a particularly perilous position, Wozniacki trailing the Russian 6-2, 4-1 only to somehow resuscitate her ailing challenge.

“Definitely I was a much different player back then. I love playing here at the Open. I have great memories here,” Wozniacki said. “I have had matches against Sveta so many times before here where she’s been killing literally on court 6-1, 4-1, and then I have managed to come back and win the match in three sets.

“It’s like, You know what? Just keep going, wait for your opportunity and your chance, and I did that today.”

In both 2009 and 2011, Wozniacki went on to reach the latter stages of the tournament; indeed, in 2009 she would come within one win of that elusive Grand Slam title, only to be denied by Kim Clijsters own fairytale run.

Two years ago, Wozniacki returned to the final once more, this time losing out to the imperious Serena Williams. Since then success has been rather thin on the ground, injuries sending her ranking tumbling down to No.74. However, the former World No.1 is not contemplating hanging up the racquets just yet.

“I think, you know, when you’re home for a big amount of time you realize that, you know, life goes on and you kind of get a rhythm at home. I was actually enjoying my time, making the most of the time that I had,” Wozniacki said about her time away from the tour this spring recovering from an ankle injury.

“I haven’t been able to be home for three months in a row for the last probably over 10 years. So, you know, if I have to look at the positive of things, that was a positive. But I always had in my head that I just have to keep working hard and I’ll come back and hopefully play strong and play well. I knew that it’s not easy to come back, and especially, you know, you are going to get tough draws. I’m a player that needs matches to kind of get into the tournament.

“But I wasn’t thinking about quitting. I mean, I know that I have a lot of opportunities, I have a lot of other interests, and my life is going to be good regardless. But, you know, I’m still young. Hopefully I have a few more years in me.”

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Sevastova’s Big Win Celebration Plans

  • Posted: Jan 01, 1970

NEW YORK, NY, USA – The high still hadn’t settled in for the No.48-ranked Anastasija Sevastova when she entered the press room late last night at the US Open.

Just hours earlier, she’d dealt Garbiñe Muguruza the biggest shock of the tournament, outing the No.3 seed and reigning French Open champion in straight sets.

It was definitely the win of Sevastova’s career, and certainly an occasion to celebrate. So did she have any big plans?

“I go to Five Guys maybe, eat a burger,” she answered with no hesitation, before bursting into laughter.

“I don’t know. Maybe have some drinks. My mom is here but she’s leaving tomorrow. It’s her first Grand Slam.”

“And my best friend [is here too]. We’ll maybe go somewhere. They will drink; I will watch.”

Burgers and peanuts seem like a modest plan for a player who’s just scored the win of her career and reached her best result at a Grand Slam in five years, but not for Sevastova.

Sevastova was a rising star back in 2011 when she reached the fourth round of the Australian Open at 20 years old. But injuries soon sapped the desire away from the young Latvian, who hung up her racquets two years later, and was off the tour for two years more.

So while last night’s win over the World No.3 stands as her biggest victory since her return, Sevastova is keen to stay grounded and keep the perspective she gained from her years away from the sport.

“It’s not like it’s my last match. It’s not like it’s over, the tournament,” she mused. “It’s only second round. The third round is in two days. Tomorrow I have to play doubles, so…

“Yeah, it’s a good feeling. We can enjoy it today, but tomorrow is a new day. There are other matches. Nobody thinks about the previous match. You have to think forward. But tonight I can enjoy.”

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Wozniacki Completes Titanic Turnaround

  • Posted: Jan 01, 1970

NEW YORK, NY, USA – Two-time finalist Caroline Wozniacki overcame a 0-4 deficit in the opening set to complete a titanic turnaround and upset No.9 seed Svetlana Kuznetsova, 6-4, 6-4 for a spot in the third round of the US Open.

“At one point I was like, ‘we’ve been playing for 30 minutes and it’s 4-0 for her, it’s not looking good for me,” Wozniacki laughed after the match. “I wanted to give the crowd a little more tennis to watch today.”

Coming into the match, the pair’s long rivalry was tied at 6-6, with Kuznetsova winning their two most recent encounters and Wozniacki winning their previous two US Open meetings.

A clash that would normally be worthy of the second week of Slam became a second-round affair, due in large part to Kuznetsova’s 2016 renaissance – returning to the Top 10 in her best season since 2009 – and Wozniacki’s dip in form – a spate of injuries derailing her season and bringing her down to No.74.

“To be honest, I stopped looking at the rankings when I fell out of the Top 10. I was like, ‘I wanna get back up there and once I do I’ll start looking at the rankings again,'” Wozniacki told ESPN’s Pam Shriver after the match.

“It’s been a tough year, I’ve had a lot of injuries, but I feel like I belong at the top. I just beat someone who’s been playing really well this year, so that’s definitely gonna build my confidence.”

The innocuous-looking 6-4, 6-4 score line belies the quality of the tortuous battle between the two great champions. 2004 champion Kuznetsova came out of the gate firing, striking winners from every angle of the court and completely shutting out Wozniacki. The Dane had only struck one unforced error by the time Kuznetsova put her down 4-0.

Facing a break point for a 5-0 deficit, Wozniacki’s game finally started to come together. She took advantage of a drop in Kuznetsova’s energy level to storm back, winning seven unanswered games to take the opening set and hold serve in the second.

Wozniacki served for the match at 5-3, but Kuznetsova placed an incredible topspin forehand lob right on the back line to bring up break point, sealing it with an inside out forehand to keep herself in the match.

But at 5-4, 30-30, just as it looked like the match held one more twist for the pair, Kuznetsova smacked a forehand into the net to bring up Wozniacki’s match point. The Dane sealed her passage into the next round with a pinpoint forehand winner into the back corner of the court.

Wozniacki is set to play Monica Niculescu in the third round after the Romanian advanced with a 6-0, 6-1 win over countrywoman Ana Bodgan.

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Insider Podcast: Serena & Radwanska Roll

  • Posted: Jan 01, 1970

NEW YORK, NY, USA – Three seeds were planted early on Tuesday – including former No.1 Ana Ivanovic – but as play continued, the game’s biggest names largely found a way to win, and comfortably so.

World No.1 Serena Williams shook off the rust and lingering doubt about the health of her right shoulder with a comprehensive, 6-3, 6-3 victory over 2014 semifinalist Ekaterina Makarova. How is the top seed feeling after a tough opening round test? Listen in on her press conference as she discusses the match, her shoulder rehab, and the inspiration behind her new eye-catching outfit, sleeves and all. 

Meanwhile, Connecticut Open and Emirates Airline US Open Series winner Agnieszka Radwanska roared past American qualifier Jessica Pegula, dropping just two games en route to the second round. WTA Insider caught up with the Pole on the eve of what she considers to be her least favorite major tournament, and how the former No.2 is feeling about her season thus far.

Plus, get the Insider team’s favorite moments from around the grounds, all in the latest Daily Dispatch from Flushing Meadows:

Subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, TuneIn or on any podcast app of your choice to ensure you never miss an episode when they go live. 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.

Follow @WTA_Insider

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