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Ozaki Halts Stephens Title Defense

Ozaki Halts Stephens Title Defense

  • Posted: Jan 01, 1970

WASHINGTON DC, USA – No.136-ranked Risa Ozaki scored the biggest win of her career in the opening round of the Citi Open, knocking out defending champion Sloane Stephens 6-2, 6-1.

The 22 year old from Japan came into the matchup having won just two WTA-level matches all year long, but put all that disappointment behind her against the No.23-ranked American.

Despite being broken in the opening game, Ozaki turned up the intensity and rattled off the next nine games in a row to leave Stephens reeling, down a set and a break. The American held serve to get her name on the score board at 3-1, but it wasn’t enough to turn around Ozaki’s momentum as she swept the match in just 57 minutes.

“I just played real bad. Nothing more, nothing less,” Stephens assessed after the match. “Today just sucked, it was just one of those days where everything was really bad.”

“Obviously, I’m not the first person to have a bad day and I won’t be the last. Hopefully I can pull myself together and next week will be better than this week. I won’t look too deep into this.”

Ozaki’s win sets up a second-round clash with on-the-rise Brit Naomi Broady, who saw off Irina Falconi in straight sets earlier in the day, 6-3, 6-4.

Camila Giorgi

Giorgi Ousts No.5 Seed Bouchard

The unseeded Camila Giorgi snapped a four-match losing streak in her straight sets upset over No.5 seed Eugenie Bouchard in their Washington DC opener. Even more impressive, Giorgi recorded her first win against the Canadian; she previously hadn’t even won a set against Bouchard in either of their previous two encounters.

Bouchard initially struggled against the pace of the Italian’s high octane game, falling a break down in the opening set.

“My game is based on moving forward as soon as I can,” Giorgi said, speaking to Tennis Channel after the match. “Today it worked, I think, almost everything.”

Facing elimination at a set down and 5-2 in the second, Bouchard gritted out a pair of back to back games to cut into Giorgi’s lead, and even held game point on her serve at 5-4 to try to even the score. But the ultra-aggressive Giorgi saw off her challenge with her usual calm, quick game, climbing back from 15-40 to take the match 7-5, 6-4.

After the match, she immediately grabbed her cell phone to make a very special call.

“I called my dad, my coach,” Giorgi said. “He told me I played a good game, very aggressive. He was happy.”

Giorgi will go on to play Tamira Paszek in the next round. The Austrian No.108 took down American qualifier Lauren Albanese in a comfortable 6-3, 6-4 win.

More to come… 

– All photos courtesy of Citi Open and Getty Images

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Venus Takes Aim At Serving Record

  • Posted: Jan 01, 1970

STANFORD, CA, USA – Venus Williams’ serve has brought her plenty of wins and plenty of accolades down the years.

At the 2007 US Open, it also brought her a record, as she hit the fastest serve of all time. Williams’ delivery, clocked at 129mph, set a record that stood for seven years until it was bumped off top spot by Sabine Lisicki’s 131mph howitzer at Stanford’s Bank of the West Classic.

Williams herself is in action in Stanford this week. And while recapturing the title she won in 2000 and 2002 will be top of the agenda, recent form suggests that Lisicki’s mark could come under threat.

At Wimbledon, Williams enjoyed a welcome return to winning ways, reaching her first major semifinal since 2010 and putting the All England Club’s speed gun through its paces along the way…

Wimbledon
1. Serena Williams – 124.0mph / 199.6kph
2. Sabine Lisicki – 122.0mph / 196.3kph
3. Venus Williams – 121.0mph / 194.7kph
4T. Yaroslava Shvedova – 119.0mph / 191.5kph
4T. CoCo Vandeweghe – 119.0mph / 191.5kph

2016
1. Serena Williams – 127.0mph / 204.4kph (Indian Wells)
2T. Lucie Hradecka – 123.0mph / 197.9kph (Indian Wells)
2T. Venus Williams – 123.0mph / 197.9kph (Miami)
4T. Timea Babos – 122.0mph / 196.3kph (Indian Wells)
4T. Sabine Lisicki – 122.0mph / 196.3kph (Wimbledon)
6. Naomi Osaka – 121.8mph / 196.2kph (Roland Garros)
7. CoCo Vandeweghe – 121.mph / 194.7kph (Indian Wells)
8T. Madison Keys – 119.9mph / 193.0kph (Australian Open)
8T. Océane Dodin – 119.9mph / 193.0kph (Roland Garros)
8T. Polona Hercog – 119.9mph / 193.0kph (Australian Open)

All-Time
1. Sabine Lisicki – 131.0mph / 210.8kph (2014 Stanford)
2. Venus Williams – 129.0mph / 207.6kph (2007 US Open)
3. Serena Williams – 128.6mph / 207.0kph (2013 Australian Open)
4. Julia Goerges – 126.1mph / 203.0kph (2012 French Open)
5. Brenda Schultz-McCarthy – 126.0mph / 202.7kph (2007 Indian Wells)
6. Nadiia Kichenok – 125.5mph / 202.0kph (2014 Australian Open)
7. Lucie Hradecka – 125.0mph / 201.2kph (2015 Wimbledon)
8. Anna-Lena Groenefeld – 125.0mph / 201.1kph (2009 Indian Wells)
9T. Ana Ivanovic – 124.9mph / 201.0kph (2007 French Open)
9T. Denisa Allertova – 124.9mph / 201.0kph (2015 Australian Open)

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Bencic Out Of Montreal

  • Posted: Jan 01, 1970

Defending champion Belinda Bencic was forced to withdraw from the upcoming Rogers Cup due to the left wrist injury she sustained at Wimbledon.

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Beck Bounces Back In Bastad

  • Posted: Jan 01, 1970

BASTAD, Sweden – No.4 seed Annika Beck came through a tight encounter with Sorana Cirstea to secure a second-round spot at the Ericsson Open.

Watch live action from Bastad, Stanford and Washington DC this week on WTA Live powered by TennisTV!

Last week in Gstaad, Beck slumped to a shock defeat at the hands of World No.797 Rebeka Masarova, but bounced back with a 7-5, 7-5 win in her opening match in Sweden.

“It was quite a tough match – I expected it because Sorana is a great player and she had some great results on clay this year,” Beck said. “It was the first time I ever played her but I got some tactics off my coach and I knew what to do.”

In a match of fine margins, Beck’s greater consistency at the conclusion of both sets proved decisive. Having hauled herself back into the opening set, Cirstea looked well set to complete the comeback only to hand back the break with a wayward backhand. Beck duly closed out the set and despite weathering a barrage of winners in the second set, held her nerve to close out victory. 

“She was defending really well and made my life really tough out there on court, especially in the second set – she was just going for winners and basically hit all the lines – I was just trying to stay in the match and fight.”

Also advancing in the bottom half of the draw were Beck’s fellow seeds Sara Errani and Johanna Larsson. No.2 seed Errani produced a confident display to defeat Cagla Buyukakcay, 6-2, 6-3, while No.8 seed and defending champion Larsson came through her all-Swedish clash against Rebecca Peterson, 7-6(3), 6-2.

Another former champion to advance was Mona Barthel, who was leading 4-6, 6-3, 3-0 when No.7 seed Yaroslava Shvedova retired with a back injury.

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Ranking Watch: Viktorija In Europe

  • Posted: Jan 01, 1970

Viktorija Golubic’s game has always been easy on the eye. And if recent evidence is anything to go by she is now successfully marrying this style with plenty of substance.

In the final of the Ladies Championship Gstaad, Golubic upset Kiki Bertens to become the tour’s newest – and arguably most popular – silverware owner. The 23-year-old’s swashbuckling play was a ray of sunshine in an otherwise drab week, and her rousing comeback ensured there was a home victor on the WTA’s return to Swiss soil.

Success in Gstaad vaulted Golubic into the Top 100 for the first time. Now perched at No.72, she will gain direct entry into a major for the first time at this summer’s US Open and with relatively few points to defend for the remainder of 2016 she has a good opportunity to improve further.

Golubic, though, is not the only player on the charge:

Kiki Bertens (+5, No.26 to No.21): Bertens announced herself to the tennis world with a win-laden end to the clay court season. Back on the dirt and she was back to winning ways, knocking out crowd favorite and top seed Timea Bacsinszky en route to the Gstaad final. Although she was unable to make it a Swiss double against Golubic, she is now within touching distance of a Top 20 debut.

Anastasija Sevastova (+17 No.66 to No.49): In Bucharest, Anastasija Sevastova continued her steady re-ascent up the ranks with another impressive week, knocking out Sara Errani and Laura Siegemund before running out of steam against Simona Halep in the final.

Vania King (+24, No.144 to No.120): Another of Halep’s victims, Vania King, played some typically positive tennis to reach her first semifinal since 2014. There she gave the home crowd a real scare, too, leading Halep by a set and a break before being denied in a high-quality decider.

Rebeka Masarova (+483, No.797 to No.314): Earlier this summer, Rebeka Masarova tripped up a couple of highly touted rivals to lift the junior French Open title. It was a performance that earned her a wildcard for Gstaad, a chance she grabbed with both hands by knocking out Jelena Jankovic, Anett Kontaveit and Annika Beck to go further than any other WTA main draw debutante since 2012.

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Cornet Survives In Stanford

  • Posted: Jan 01, 1970

STANFORD, CA, USA – No.7 seed Alizé Cornet was taken to the brink in the first round of the Bank of the West Classic, but rallied from a set down to dispatch American Jennifer Brady, 3-6, 6-4, 6-4, in two hours and 44 minutes.

Watch live action from Stanford this week on WTA Live powered by TennisTV!

“I always wanted to come here to Stanford, but somehow I was always ending up in Washington, maybe because it was closer!” Cornet joked with Andrew Krasny during her on-court interview. 

“But this time I really don’t regret it because I really love this place. It’s amazing, and a lot of champions have won the tournament, so I hope to go as far as I can.”

Playing her first match since reaching the third round of Wimbledon, Cornet fell behind 4-0 in the opening set and couldn’t quite catch up to Brady, who broke serve in a marathon game to put herself one set away from a first-ever WTA main draw win – though she reached the semifinals of a WTA 125K Series event in San Diego last fall.

“I just kept fighting. She was playing really well, big serve and forehand.

“I had some trouble in the beginning of the match; I was really tense and the ball was coming really fast against me. But I just kept trying to hang in there, and try to give my best every point.”

Only one break separated the two in the second set, which Cornet took in another dramatic game to level the match. Racing out to a 5-2 lead in the decider, Brady made one last surge to force the Frenchwoman to serve out her spot in the second round. Clinching the contest with a classic one-two punch, booked a second round meeting with Zheng Saisai, who was the first winner of the day over wildcard Maria Mateas, 7-5, 6-1.

“In the end it was really really close, and I went for it and it worked out, so I’m really happy to be in the second round.”

The night session features an all-Stanford battle between former All-American Nicole Gibbs and Carol Zhao, who helped the university win the 2016 NCAA Championships.

More to come…

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