Birmingham: Shot Of The Day (Thursday)
Daria Gavrilova has Thursday’s shot of the day at the Aegon Classic Birmingham.
Daria Gavrilova has Thursday’s shot of the day at the Aegon Classic Birmingham.
For the first time since 2004, Venus Williams will hit the US hard courts to prepare for the Olympic games. That preparation will begin at the Bank of the West Classic in Stanford, California, which begins one week after Wimbledon. It will be Venus’ third appearance in Stanford in the last decade.
“The Olympics is such a highlight, but at the same time it’s important to play tournaments so you can continue with success on the tour,” Venus told reporters via a conference call on Wednesday. “Also for me it’s making sure I have a little bit of a break. This year I’ve been very successful. I will be starting out with Bank of the West, then playing one more event, then heading off to Rio is my plan.” Venus is also entered in the Rogers Cup in Montreal.
The Olympics are set to take place from August 6-14, between the Rogers Cup and Western & Southern Open. In the last two Olympic cycles Venus has gone into the Olympics with no tournament play after Wimbledon but she sought a change this year.
“Being at home, being able to just play in the US, and there’s not as many opportunities as there was when I first started to play in the US, so it’s become really special at this point,” Venus said. “It really becomes the last opportunity to do so until March. I really cherish that.”
Venus’ history with Stanford goes way back. A two-time champion, Venus played her first pro tournament in 1994, when the event was held across the Bay in Oakland. As an unseeded 14-year-old she won her first WTA match, beating No.58 Shaun Stafford, and took a set off top seed Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario before losing, 2-6, 6-3, 6-0. Over the years she has made the final seven times, winning in 2000 and 2002. The only tournament at which she’s made more finals? Wimbledon.
“I love hardcourts,” Venus said. “A lot of people think my favorite surface is grass, but actually I grew up on hardcourts, so I prefer that. I feel right at home on it.”
As Venus readies for her fifth Olympics — she’s qualified for both singles and doubles with sister Serena – she’s already embracing the Olympic experience. No one loves the Olympics more than Venus. The four-time Olympic gold medalist has already debuted her red, white, and blue dress for the games, designed by her clothing label EleVen.
“My dress at the Olympics is always inspired by Wonder Woman,” Venus said. “Each and every Olympics it’s Wonder Woman as the inspiration. It never changes. I’ll probably do a special Olympic hair, though. Maybe I’ll come back with colored hair. I haven’t done that in a while.”
One of the activities both Venus and Serena have made an enduring commitment to at the Olympics: Pin trading. Venus has says she’ll pull out her massive pin collection every once in a while to relive past games, but collecting pins isn’t necessarily about the pins.
“Once you start trading pins, you find out it’s about meeting people,” Venus said. “That experience of meeting somebody you’ll maybe never see again, but the connection you have with them, the joy you have from meeting them, that is the best part of it all. It’s an interesting byproduct that you don’t expect. Then you have your pins for memories when you look back to remember those times at the Olympics. That’s awesome as well.”
The Bank of the West Classic will kick off its 46th year on July 18th. Along with Venus, Agnieszka Radwanska, Dominika Cibulkova, CoCo Vandeweghe, and Nicole Gibbs have also entered the event.
All photos courtesy of Getty Images.
Jelena Ostapenko takes on Petra Kvitova in the second round of the Aegon Classic.
Nineteen-year-old Jelena Ostapenko showed great resolve in holding off Petra Kvitova for a 6-4 4-6 6-3 Thursday as the 2014 Wimbledon junior champion defeated the 2014 Wimbledon champion in Birmingham at the Aegon Classic. The SAP Tennis Analytics for Coaches shows one of the keys to her victory was forcing Kvitova to rely heavily on her backhand during the final set.
Kvitova hit 61% of shots during third set rallies from her backhand Thursday. While she only had one unforced error from that side, she did not hit any backhand winners during that final set.
That high percentage of backhand shots for the left-handed Kvitova really stands out when compared to the 36% of rally shots from the backhand side in the second set, which she won. During her straight sets opening round win, Kvitova hit just 40% of her rally shots from the backhand side.
Ostapenko kept Kvitova under pressure the entire third set. In addition to dictating play to the backhand, she had break points in all five of Kvitova’s service games, converting three, while also winning eight of nine second serve points.
The SAP Coaches View combines scoring information direct from the chair umpire with tracking data from HawkEye to allow for an in depth look at five different aspects of a match. Each tracking option can be filtered to narrow the focus to specific situations within a match, such as break points. This information is available directly to coaches in real-time during a match on their SAP tablet and also available to them online after matches.
“Rally hit from” tracking shows where each ball is struck during a rally. The display differentiates between forehands and backhands. This data can be filtered by a particular score or to only show winners, unforced errors, the last shot of a rally or the third shot (first rally ball hit by the server).
For Ostapenko on Thursday, forcing Kvitova to hit from her backhand side was a winning strategy.
Johanna Konta takes on Misaki Doi in the first round of the Aegon Classic.
Johanna Konta and Petra Kvitova took one of Birmingham’s canals by storm during one of the Aegon Classic’s many rain delays.
Kvitova takes to one end of the Birmingham canal to engage in a light-hearted rally with the Brit on the other side.
Kvitova and Konta learned a net isn’t necessary after all when playing canal tennis.
Meanwhile, doubles starlet Andrea Hlavackova took a tour of Cadbury World to learn the ins and outs of chocolate production.
Lucie Safarova shows off one of her delicious creations.
Hometown favorite Heather Watson tried her hand at sweet fashion by making a chocolate shoe.
The WTA stars showing off their finished products.
Hlavackova, Safarova, and Watson got to leave Cadbury World with quite the souvenir they helped make themselves.
Tara Moore and Andrea Petkovic took a trip to Villa Park, the local football stadium in Aston.
Petkovic showed off some of her fancy footwork with a powerful kick.
Not to be outdone, recent Nottingham quarterfinalist Moore tried her own kick of the ball.
Later on, Moore and Petkovic received signature jerseys in the colors of the Aston Villa Football Club.
BIRMINGHAM, Great Britain – Ricoh Open champion CoCo Vandeweghe notched the biggest win of her career on Wednesday, vanquishing top seed Agnieszka Radwanska, 7-5, 4-6, 6-3, to advance into the second round of the Aegon Classic and win her sixth straight match.
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Vandeweghe had never taken a set from the World No.3 in all four of their previous encounters – three of which took place in 2015 – but the big-hitting American edged out the only service break in a 57 minute opening set – one that had begun on Wednesday – to snap the Pole’s seven-set streak.
“She’s a tricky oponnent any way you slice it – I mean that as a pun and literally!” she joked during her on-court interview.
Radwanska held off Vandeweghe’s charge into the second set to hold serve just as the rain came to interrupt play once again.
“You have all these rain delays, a lot of breaks. It about keeping your mind on the game, which isn’t easy. But you have to do your best; I try to keep myself quiet, away from everybody. I don’t start thinking about other things, but hopefully this rain stays away for the rest of the week so we can play a full set all the way through. That would be nice!”
Rain…
…Again ☔️ #AegonClassic pic.twitter.com/hbT5ph8wyS
— WTA (@WTA) June 15, 2016
Losing serve to level the match, Vandeweghe rebounded well in the decider, racing out to a double-break lead; though she failed to serve out her first Top 5 win, she closed things out one game later to book a second round encounter with fellow American Christina McHale, hitting 48 winners to 33 unforced errors – forcing the issue far more than Radwanska’s 20 winners to 13 unforced.
Showing the sort of grass court efficiency that already earned her a title in the Netherlands, Vandeweghe also won 17 of her 24 forays at net, moving forward in the hopes of rushing the crafty Radwanska.
“I just stuck with my gameplan; I got myself into a little bit of trouble here and there in the first second and third set, but I just managed through it. Definitely the confidence from last week and winning the title helps get you out of that tricky situation. You’ve done it so well the week before that nothing really phases you and it’s just another match.
“She takes power and moves it around the court, but I didn’t think she could sustain it if I was able to be consistent with my power and pace. I thought I would overpower her, so that was my gameplan.
“She was going to hit some amazing shots, but I think overall if I stuck with it, I was going to beat her.”
Speaking later in her post-match press conference, Vandeweghe admitted to having to overcome a crisis of confidence in her first round in ‘s-Hertogenbosch, one that largely stemmed from failing to qualify for the US Olympic team.
“My first match on the grass, I was really extremely nervous. I was playing a local wildcard, and I never heard of her. You never know what you’re going do get with a wildcard. I mean, I’ve been a wildcard before.
“Whether it’s someone that crumbles in front of their home, can’t perform to their abilities, someone that plays out their mind because they’re rising to the occasion, like, Holy cow, I’m finally in the WTAs.
“I’ve played the part in both of those scenarios. I was kind of thinking in the wrong mind frame of, I’ve had such great results on grass, I’ve got to do it again, points and seeding for Wimbledon.
“I was also kind of dealing with a major letdown of I didn’t make the Olympic team and that was one of my biggest goals. So it was definitely a hard moment for me that I really internalized. I didn’t talk to anyone on my team. It was just kind of a disappointing moment for myself, heartbreaking moment for myself.”
Hear more from Vandeweghe in her Champion’s Corner interview on the latest episode of the WTA Insider Podcast:
Disappointed in defeat, Radwanska nonetheless spoke well of her opponent in press after the match.
“She was really consistent and solid. No free points from her,” she said in her post-loss press conference. “You can really see how she won the tournament last week.
“She was really playing good game and very consistent for all three sets. That’s surprised me a little bit as well.
“For me, was tough. First match is always tricky pretty much without the practice on the grass. I think I needed a couple more days to adjust. Hopefully Eastbourne will be better.”
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— WTA (@WTA) June 15, 2016
Highlights from the first round action at the Aegon Classic Birmingham.
BIRMINGHAM, England – Carla Suárez Navarro snatched victory from the jaws of defeat on another rain-interrupted afternoon at the Aegon Classic Birmingham.
Watch live action from Birmingham and Mallorca this week on WTA Live powered by TennisTV!
Trailing 5-3 in the final set, Suárez Navarro’s three-day wait to complete her first-round match looked like it would end in disappointment. However, with the rainclouds gathering overhead once more she produced a rousing finale to triumph, 7-5, 4-6, 7-5.
Originally scheduled for Monday, the players did not make it on court until Tuesday, splitting the opening two sets before the last of the day’s showers brought play to a halt with the Spaniard leading 2-1 in the decider.
A sluggish start on Wednesday, though, saw Svitolina take the first three games to build a seemingly insurmountable lead. As Suárez Navarro struggled to find her rhythm – and footing – Svitolina stretched this advantage, coming within two points of victory when serving for the match only to be denied by her opponent’s late show.
In two of the other matches carried over from the previous day, British wildcards Naomi Broady and Tara Moore suffered close losses. Tamira Paszek broke in the penultimate game to end Moore’s spirited effort, 4-6, 6-4, 6-4, while Daria Gavrilova eventually defused Broady, 4-6, 6-2, 6-3.
Over on Centre Court, No.4 seed Belinda Bencic’s tournament came to an unfortunate end as a thigh injury forced her to retire from her match with Irina-Camelia Begu. Bencic required treatment after a tumble in the first set and despite bravely battling on eventually admitted defeat trailing 6-4, 4-3.
“I slipped during the first set and injured my thigh. I tried to play on but unfortunately I wasn’t able to finish the match,” Bencic said. “It’s not ideal but being healthy in the long term is the top priority so I had to do the sensible thing.”
Agnieszka Radwanska had Wednesday’s shot of the day at the Aegon Classic.