Tennis News

Courtney Nguyen, Point: Boy, did Simona Halep need this or what? The former World No.2 is into the final of the Mutua Madrid Open for the second time in three years after a solid week that has seen her lose just one set and play her most consistent, top-quality tennis of the year.

The last 17 months have been a time of transition for Halep, who made her breakout in 2013 and 2014 primarily based on her results on clay and grass. Then came an up and down 2015 season, where she crumbled under the pressure of replicating her success at the French Open and Wimbledon, but notched her best results on hardcourts. This year has seen her battle her body, racing the clock be fit and healthy enough not just to play tournaments but to put in the heavy training blocks she needed with coach Darren Cahill to find that confidence and consistency.

When I sat down with Halep before the tournament, it was clear there was an air of trepidation surrounding her game. After making back-to-back quarterfinals at Indian Wells and Miami, Halep endured a stressful week at Fed Cup and then was bundled out in her opening round in Stuttgart. It seems every time she got some momentum, a loss or injury or illness derailed things. Which is why she approached Madrid with caution.

Her goal this week was matches. Winning the title wasn’t even close to being on her mind. Not without a proper lead-up or any competitive indication that she was back to her best.

But with each win, Halep has regained her swagger. She lost just five games total in her first two matches, but it was her 6-2, 6-3 win over Timea Bacsinszky that may have quieted the demons. It was just a few weeks ago that Halep let a lead slip to Bacsinszky in the Miami Open quarterfinals. This week she got her clean revenge and her best win of the season. A win on Saturday would move her back to No.5.

“I’m more relaxed,” Halep said. “I think this is the key, and that’s why I repeat and say always, because this makes me more confident. It’s easier for me to play my game if I am relaxed.”

Setting aside her odd bagel set at the ends of her countrywoman Irina Camelia Begu – Halep said Begu’s player’s box was constantly coaching and their vocality got under her skin – Halep hasn’t come close to losing a set this week. Against Samantha Stosur in the semifinals, she withstood a barrage of forehands to run away with the match, taking the last 11 games to win 6-2, 6-0. Again, it wasn’t about the win itself. It was about the performance. And this was a near flawless one.

“I expect a tough one as well because is the final, and always the last match of the tournament is difficult,” Halep said. “But I have experience. I feel ready to play. She plays fast. She hits the balls.

“So, yeah, I know her pretty well. I beat her; she beat me. It’s an open match. Everyone can win. But I will do everything to win it. I really want it. It’s my dream to win here. We will see tomorrow.”

David Kane, Counterpoint: Dominika Cibulkova has made a career out of being one of the most dangerous floaters in tennis. A Top 10 player and former Grand Slam finalist in her own right, the Slovak will likely be best remembered as the woman no top seed wanted to encounter in the first week of a major tournament. So notorious is the 5’3″ powerhouse for causing big upsets that it was all but assumed that she would pull off the expectedly unexpected against Agnieszka Radwanska in Indian Wells and Garbiñe Muguruza in Miami. She would hold a match point against the former and lead the latter by a break in the final set, but left the Sunshine Swing without a win over either.

Sent back to the drawing board, Cibulkova opted to play one last hardcourt tournament before switching to clay, the surface on which she had her major breakthrough at the 2009 French Open.

“Katowice helped me quite a lot,” she said after her quarterfinal win over Sorana Cirstea. “Actually, I didn’t want to go there, but when I lost in the second round of Miami to Muguruza, I sat down with my coach and said, ‘I’m playing well; let’s just go there and play matches.'”

Playing five matches at the Katowice Open, Cibulkova won her first title in over two years, losing just one set en route. In good form heading into Madrid, she quickly earned another chance for the early round upset; weathering a second set hiccup, she got the job done against Radwanska in the first round.

“This year, I played so many matches and was getting good results on the International level, so I was waiting for this. I’m really happy it came here because in Indian Wells and Miami, I lost really close matches to Radwanska and Muguruza. I was waiting for the moment when it was going to turn around.”

Battling through a trio of tough matches to reach the semifinals, she passed what was perhaps her biggest test in the semifinals. Playing American qualifier Louisa Chirico, Cibulkova rose to the challenge of being the favorite and ended the underdog’s run in merciless fashion, dropping two games to reach her first career Premier Mandatory final.

“I was really, really happy, because today’s match was not easy,” she told press on Friday. “I made it look easy.

“I needed a win like this. When I came off the court my coach told me, ‘Oh, this reminds me of your matches of Australian Open when you went to the finals.'”

Underdog to start the event, favorite by the semifinals, she heads into the championship match as a little of both against Simona Halep – the 2014 runner-up but a player whom Cibulkova has beaten in three of their four previous encounters. Should she continue to handle the pressure, she could well end up turning her career narrative on its head, and go from chasing the pack to leading it.

Hear more thoughts on the Mutua Madrid final in the latest episode of the WTA Insider Podcast:

All photos courtesy of Getty Images.

Catch up on the first two episodes of All In With Alla here and here.

A disconsolate Alla Kudryavtseva returns to her hotel room in Pelham, Alabama, after a difficult loss. A seemingly straightforward quarterfinal match against Grace Min had gone horribly wrong as the 2011 junior US Open champion charged back from a 6-1, 4-0 deficit.

But Kudryavtseva can’t wallow; she has a paper to write.

“I came back to my room and thought, ‘I want to be sad, and I want to whine, but I have to finish this paper!’ she told WTA Insider. “‘So I’m going to spend the next four hours typing.’

“I spent the next two days the same way and I thought, ‘You know what? I didn’t really have time to be sad!'”

The subject of the 40-page assignment (before bibliography) carried unintentional irony for the veteran, who set aside a disappointing defeat to type a treatise on retirements – specifically the WTA Transitions Program, which assists players as they exit the world of professional tennis, helping to assess what lies ahead.

“You can’t ignore the fact that I am 28 and it is going to happen some time,” she laughed, when asked whether the topic drew from personal inspiration, adding, “and after reading around 35 sources for my paper, I know it’s better to start planning early, sooner – rather than later.”

One of 21 players currently enrolled at the Indiana University East’s online degree program – a WTA-administered partnership between the university and the Women’s Tennis Benefits Association, one that already boasts former No.1 Venus Williams among its alumni – Kudryavtseva is on course for a second bachelor’s degree in communications.

“I really had to work very hard this semester, and it was a killer. I’m going to graduate in September; I can’t wait.”

Balancing coursework with divergent careers in singles and doubles not only requires precision but also an ability to prioritize; Kudryavtseva opted to extend her stint on green clay past the WTA’s typical finish in Charleston – where she and Vania King reached their first semifinal of the season – and remain in North America for two additional weeks of singles.

“Clay has never been my favorite surface, but I’m glad I’ve been able to scramble together a few matches here at the Challengers,” she said after a three-set win over Asia Muhammad in Dothan. “Hopefully it will help me get into some WTA events so I can play even more singles later in the year.”

The match against Muhammad came to an abrupt halt at 5-1 in the final set; a thunderstorm delayed proceedings, later causing confusion around the grounds.

“We were told we were going to resume at 2:30, and so we were just chilling. But I looked over at the courts thinking, ‘It looks really dry,’ so I started moving around when they came back and told us, ‘No, no, we’ll actually start at 2.’

“That wouldn’t happen at a WTA event; you wouldn’t get that kind of information and then be told, ‘Nah, we changed our minds! It wasn’t easy, but then, tennis is never easy. There are three matches a year that go smoothly; the rest you have to really fight for.”

Fighting her way into the semifinals – upsetting top seed Anna Tatishvili en route – Kudryavtseva had to deal with a different kind of battle each night back at the hotel.

“On the WTA tour, we have five-star hotels, and all of the players are staying together, so it’s never a problem with quiet or noise. Here, there are only three players at this hotel and my neighbors were not the most quiet people; they were, well, not having a good time in their marriage.

“I kind of had to be a part of it and listen to every single argument they were having, thinking, ‘Jesus people, just figure it out; I need to sleep!'”

Just love @Gibbsyyyy 's take over on Twitter to defend equal rights&prize money and her attention to male players who support the good fight

— Alla Kudryavtseva (@AllaK11) March 23, 2016

Domestic squabbles weren’t the only things keeping Kudryavtseva up in the last few weeks, with more global arguments like those concerning equal prize money taking center stage in Miami. As former BNP Paribas Open CEO Raymond Moore’s controversial comments hit the Twittersphere, she was among the most visible voices contributing to the debate.

“Obviously, there are men who express their opinions about us, and there is that conversation, but it’s hard to believe that someone who was in charge of such a big event could have expressed such views.

“You could see that from my Twitter feed, that I was a little frustrated! But that’s because one comment led to a bunch of others. As a female athlete, it’s frustrating to feel like you have to prove yourself and have that same conversation over and over. As a woman, period – not even as an athlete – being constantly compared can get exhausting after a while.

“Some of these men, I wonder if they’re really in touch with what year we’re living in and what kind of things are going on in the world, how important human rights are, and how important acceptance and equality really is.

“I’m glad that other girls are also willing to speak up, like my teammate for WTT, Nicole Gibbs, who is always courageous and outspoken, and a fantastic representation for female sports.”

The Russian conveyed similar sentiments when asked about her countrywoman, Maria Sharapova.

“I get some Twitter hate sometimes,” she said, likely referencing the reaction to a remark made after defeating the former Wimbledon champion back in 2008, “but I’m honestly a very big fan of Sharapova and think she’s an incredible tennis player. What she brought to the game, you can’t take it back.

“With this whole situation, I really hope she gets cleared and she can compete again. I don’t really know her personally, but just from the point of view of a tennis fan, she’s had such an incredible career: five Grand Slam titles on all surfaces, first Grand Slam at 17. I hope it doesn’t end this way.”

From a player who spent much of her week as a first alternate in Singapore on Centre Court taking in the likes of Sharapova and Agnieszka Radwanska from the sidelines, “tennis fan” is hardly a trite turn of phrase. Ever-active on social media, Kudryavtseva is among the most accesible people in the game – for worse and for better.

“Those damn haters! The trolling is harsh sometimes; you can read that stuff and think, ‘Jesus, just let me be; I didn’t go on your page and call you an idiot!’

“I can’t say I’m completely immune to internet hate. But I think I do a good job of ignoring the negative. The tweets that mean the most are the ones that come from my actual fans, the people who’ve followed me for years. They love the sport, and always bring positive energy and make me not want to quit social media.

“Every now and again you get bad comments and think, ‘Why am I even on this?’ But your fans are the ones who’ll tweet, ‘Remember that selfie we took?’ and ‘Remember this time when you beat someone?’ or ‘Oh my god, I loved that time you did this or that!’

“In the internet community, it’s all fairly anonymous, but I’m not anonymous. I’ve met the people who do send supportive tweets at tournaments and I love when they tell me their handle, and that they follow me on Twitter. That’s always so nice.”

It's hard to overstate how much I loved playing @WorldTeamTennis last year… I'm glad I'll get to play again pic.twitter.com/80Wl9p8gCv

— Alla Kudryavtseva (@AllaK11) March 25, 2016

Drafted for a second season of Mylan World TeamTennis alongside Gibbs, the Orange County Breaker has the opportunity to engage a whole new group of fans following a glittering debut as part of the Austin Aces, leading the team into the championship match against the Washington Kastles.

“I love World TeamTennis. I cannot say enough about how much I love it. I was so excited to follow along with the Draft on social media, and I look forward to being in California. I’m sad we’re not going back to Austin because I really connected with those people; they’re so nice and I saw their tweets from the ATP event in Houston. I hope at some point that WTT can come back to Austin, just so I can meet all of those people again! But I’ve heard great things about Newport Beach.

“So long as I have ‘Eye of the Tiger’ playing in the background, I’m good to go!”

At 28, Kudryavtseva still has the swagger of a college kid, and just the right mix of intensity and optimism a player needs to have it all. Hard as it may be to predict what goes viral, consistency with King and 140 characters may make it all happen sooner – rather than later.

Follow Alla on Twitter @AllaK11!

All photos courtesy of Christopher Levy.