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News | WTA Tennis English

  • Posted: Jan 01, 1970

Third-round action begins in earnest on Saturday at the Crandon Park Tennis Center in Miami. We preview the day’s must-see matchups right here at WTATennis.com.

Saturday

Third round

[2] Karolina Pliskova (CZE #3) vs. [27] Yulia Putintseva (KAZ #32)
Head-to-head: Tied, 1-1
Key Stat: Pliskova is bidding for her 21st victory of the season. She would take over the WTA lead in that category with a win today.

Karolina Pliskova blasted past American Madison Brengle in the second round doing what she does best. She cracked 27 winners to just six for the American and took control of play early in rallies to cruise to a straight sets victory. She’ll look to do more of the same against fiery Yulia Putintseva on Saturday. Pliskova served 12 aces and raced by the 22-year-old Kazakh in straight sets in her first match of the season at the Brisbane International, and Pliskova will aim to continue that trend on Saturday. Putintseva won more than half of her return points against Germany’s Carina Witthoeft on Thursday, and broke serve six times in thirteen opportunities, but she’ll have her hands full against the WTA’s ace leader and will have to make the most of any opportunities she gets to pull the upset.

Pick: Pliskova in two

[4] Dominika Cibulkova (SVK #4) vs. Kirsten Flipkens (BEL #85)
Head-to-head: Cibulkova leads, 4-2
Key Stat: Cibulkova is playing at a career-high ranking of World No.4 this week.

2014 semifinalist Dominika Cibulkova improved to 15-9 at the Miami Open on Thursday with a straight-sets win over Paraguay’s Veronica Cepede Royg. On Saturday the No.4 seed will face the crafty stylings of Kirsten Flipkens, a savvy veteran that has made a living off of breaking the rhythm of the tour’s best players for years. In six previous meetings with the Belgian Cibulkova has had mixed results. But she won the pair’s last two meetings and will come in as the heavy favorite against the World No. 85, who has only won two of 21 lifetime meetings against Top 10 opponents on hardcourts.

Can Flipkens withstand the punishing ground game of Cibulkova and make enough traction with her eclectic blend of slice and dice, or will the indefatigable Cibulkova power past Flipkens and into the round of 16?

Pick: Cibulkova in two

[5] Agnieszka Radwanska (POL #5) vs. [26] Mirjana Lucic-Baroni (CRO #29)
Head-to-head: Radwanska leads, 2-1
Key Stat: Radwanska has won the singles title (2012) and the doubles title (2011) at Miami.

Mirjana Lucic-Baroni shocked Agnieszka Radwanska out of this year’s Australian Open and went on to reach a semifinal at a major for the first time since 1999. On Saturday the Croatian will try to summon the magic once again when she takes on the fifth-seeded Pole, who is a former champion and owns an impressive 29 career wins at Miami. As much as the 35-year-old Lucic-Baroni would like to bask in the glory of her colossal performance down under, she knows that Miami is another story, another chance for her to show the world that she can still play.

“Melbourne was exciting, it happened, but it already feels like it happened a long time ago,” Lucic-Baroni told WTA Insider after her three-set win over Kateryna Bondarenko on Thursday. “I definitely enjoyed it, but I don’t want to be stuck thinking about that. Look where we are: we’re in Miami, another big tournament. My feet are on the ground, and I’m fighting for every match.”

Radwanska will be fighting as well. After starting slowly in 2017, the Pole is eager to turn the page and make something special happen in Miami. “I think every tournament is different story,” Radwanska said before the tournament. “You just have to start from the beginning, and doesn’t matter what happened last week or two months ago. You just go on court and try and play your best.”

Pick: Radwanska in two

[6] Garbiñe Muguruza (ESP #6) vs. [30] Zhang Shuai (CHN #33)
Head-to-head: Zhang leads, 1-0
Key Stat: Muguruza improved to 6-1 in three-setters this season with her win over McHale on Friday.

After saving a match point and battling back from a break down in the third set to defeat American Christina McHale, Garbiñe Muguruza will now set her sights on matching her career-best performance at Miami. But to reach the round of 16 for the fourth time in six career appearances here, Muguruza will have to avenge a tough loss from earlier this season. Zhang defeated Muguruza, 7-6(3), 3-6, 7-5 in Doha in February, and the Chinese No.1 has now won three of her last five against the Top 10 after losing nine of eleven to start her career.

28-year-old Zhang is a remarkable story. After years of struggles she was contemplating retirement, but her fortunes have changed since the beginning of 2016 and she has risen over 100 spots in the WTA rankings in 15 months. Will she be able to continue her form against one of the game’s premier power players on Saturday, or will it be Muguruza who powers into the round of 16 with a new lease on life after saving match points on Friday?

Pick: Muguruza in three

By the Numbers:

20 – Karolina Pliskova is tied for the tour lead in wins with 20. The Czech did not score her 20th win until June last season.

5 – Agnieszka Radwanska has made the quarterfinal or better in five of her 11 appearances at Miami.

1 – Bethanie Mattek-Sands recorded her first win of the season on Thursday over No.9-seeded Elina Svitolina. It was also Mattek-Sand’s first Top 10 win since 2015.

13 – Ajla Tomljanovic’s win over No.13-ranked Elena Vesnina on Friday was her biggest win rankings-wise since 2014, when she defeated then World No.3 Agnieszka Radwanska at Roland Garros.

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News | WTA Tennis English

  • Posted: Jan 01, 1970

MIAMI, FL, USA — Taken to the brink for the second time in this matchup, No.3 seed Simona Halep again emerged victorious over rising Japanese teenager Naomi Osaka in the second round of the Miami Open on Friday, 6-4, 2-6, 6-3.

“It’s really important that I could win this match today,” Halep said, after the match, referencing her struggles with a knee injury to begin 2017. “I think it was very, very difficult to play against her in the first match here at the tournament, but I’m really happy. I had no pain, I stayed there two hours, fighting, running all over the place… so it’s great.”

There was little to separate the two players for the duration of their nearly two-hour encounter, which included two rain delays, but Halep improved to 2-0 against Osaka after defeating her in the third round of the French Open last year.

With the teenager Osaka known for her blistering serve, it was Halep who cruised behind her delivery in the first set, dropping a total of three points.

While Osaka almost kept pace at the line for the duration, she blinked in the pivotal ninth game, falling behind 0-40 only to see Halep take the game on her third break point and serve out the set to love.

After Osaka held serve to begin the second set, a brief shower forced the players off court, but upon resumption, Oskaka cranked up the heat on serve and off the ground.

After breaking in the first game out of the delay, Osaka stretched her run to 12 of the next 15 points played after the break to take a two break lead at 4-0. 

“I lost my serve after the rain and I was a little bit too upset,” Halep said. “She was very strong there, and I think I did my best third set this year. I think I played my best tennis. I didn’t expect her to play that good in the wind. She’s hitting the balls pretty hard and she adjusted well today. Her game is strong and she likes…to hit, and the wind was moving the ball a lot. From my side, I didn’t have pretty good timing to hit. She did very well.”

Halep steadied herself in the fifth game, using some all-court tennis to earn back one break and hold in her next game, but the undaunted Osaka held at love and broke to 30 to send the match into a decider.

Halep, who stroked 11 winners in the opening set, saw her stat line nearly reversed in the second, as she hit just four winners to balance 11 unforced errors.

A lengthy third game of the decider, which went to deuce five times, seemed to be the turning point for Halep early as the No. 3 seed broke the Osaka serve to move in front, 2-1. However, Osaka rallied back to knot the set at 3-3 with a break of her own, only to surrender serve at love in the next game to put Halep back in front.

After a second, lengthier delay due to weather, Halep hardly missed a beat, holding serving and breaking Osaka on her second opportunity to close out the match.

“I changed everything that I did before,” Halep said about her rain delay thoughts. “I said I had to be fired up from the first point, even if I did a double fault. I just wanted to stay there and fight for every ball.”

The Romanian advances to play the winner of the match between No. 32 seed Ekaterina Makarova and Anett Kontaveit.

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News | WTA Tennis English

  • Posted: Jan 01, 1970

MIAMI, FL, USA — She reached the quarterfinals in her Miami Open debut a year ago, and Johanna Konta’s 2017 tournament is off to a winning start after the No.10 seed survived a game effort by Aliaksandra Sasnovich of Belarus, 6-2, 6-7(5), 6-4 in the second round on Friday night.

“I’m definitely satisfied with how I came back in the third set and just competed,” Konta said after the match. “Basically just did the best that I could with what I had. It was very difficult conditions — not just the wind, but also the rain, quite a little bit of stop and start. It was about managing your expectations for any sort of level for the match but also any sort of frustrations that would arise because of the conditions — just keeping things in good perspective, fighting and competing. She played quite well, and I really had to fight hard and work for it in the end.”

Konta cruised in the 33-minute opener, winning four straight games from 2-2 to take a one-set lead. The Brit surrendered just seven points on serve in the first set, while winning 50 percent of the points on Sasnovich’s delivery. She remained in command for much of the early going in the second, building a 6-2, 4-2 lead, but Sasnovich got a foothold in the match with a key break of serve in the seventh game — her first of the match.

From there, the set went with serve until the tie-break, with Konta forced to save break points at 4-4 as Sasnovich looked to win a third straight game, before the qualifier found her forehand late, striking several winners to earn herself a deciding set.

After the pair traded breaks to begin the final set, a second break in the fifth game keyed the victory for Konta, as she held serve the rest of the way to emerge victorious in the two hour, 39 minute encounter.

Also through on Day 4 was Madison Keys, who surrendered just three games en route to dispatching Viktorija Golubic, 6-1, 6-2 in 67 minutes. Dropping serve just once, the No.8 seed broke five times to sail through to the third round.

“The key today was definitely staying calm, because the conditions were not great,” Keys told WTA Insider after the match. “[I was] staying focused on playing my game, having good serves, kind of just focusing on what I could control.”

Keys, who began her 2017 at the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells following a lay-off from wrist surgery, reached the fourth round in her first tournament back, and feels as though it hasn’t taken her very long to get back in the swing of competitive tennis.

“I feel pretty good,” Keys said. “There’s obviously still some points where it’s more the mental, where it’s, ‘That was a bad decision’ — that’s where I feel like I’m still not 100 percent happy with myself all of the time. That’s one thing the one thing that I really want to look to improve on.”

Keys will next face Spain’s Lara Arruabarrena, who defeated No.28 seed Irina-Camelia Begu in three sets, but Patricia Maria Tig and Sorana Cirstea made it three Romanians in the third round behind a pair of second-round upsets of their own.

Tig recorded her first win against a top 20 player in defeating Kristina Mladenovic, 7-6(5), 6-2, while Cirstea was victorious in the conclusion of a rain-delayed match against No.19 seed Anastasija Sevastova, 7-6(4), 3-6, 6-3.

Tig also led a trio of qualifiers to advance to the third round, as Anett Kontaveit scored an upset over No.32 seed Ekaterina Makarova, 6-7(1), 6-2, 6-2 and American Taylor Townsend handled No.25 seed Roberta Vinci, 6-3, 6-2.

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