Tennis News

STRASBOURG, France – On the eve of Roland Garros, French star and No.4 Kristina Mladenovic earned her first WTA main draw win on red clay on Sunday – and not a moment too soon – against American Madison Brengle, surviving a topsy turvy tussle, 6-4, 2-6, 7-5, in the first round of the Internationaux de Strasbourg.

Mladenovic enjoyed an impressive streak through the clay court season in doubles with partner Caroline Garcia; together the pair won three titles and won 15 straight matches (including Fed Cup). At the same time, the 23-year-old went 0-3 in Stuttgart, Madrid, and Rome, and was a game away from elimination against Brengle, who led 5-4 in the final set.

“It wasn’t exactly the easiest match!” she said after the match.

Steadying her nerve, the 2015 US Open quarterfinalist ran off the last three games to reach the second round, where she will play another American in Alison Riske.

“The conditions were difficult with the wind and the match was swinging back and forth. It’s also cold on the court and difficult to get comfortable.

“At 0-30 down with her two points from victory, I knew I had to change the match and dig deep. I needed a cool head and was pleased I could turn that score round to my favour and get the win.”

Riske had typically earned her best results on faster courts, but faced few problems against French qualifier Alizé Lim, winning, 6-0, 7-5.

The biggest upset of the day occurred when No.9 seed Alizé Cornet lost to another qualifier, former World No.56 Alla Kudryavtseva, 1-6, 6-2, 6-4.

Coming off of back-to-back doubles semifinals in Charleston and Madrid, Kudryatvseva was playing her first WTA singles main draw of the season, and bounced back from losing the opening set to dispatch Cornet in an hour and 45 minutes.

Hsieh Su-Wei was the third top doubles talent to emerge victorious on Sunday, taking out qualifier Xu Yi-Fan, 6-3, 6-1, while Swiss qualifier Jil Tiechman upset Kurumi Nara, 2-6, 7-5, 6-1.

Alla Kudryavtseva @AllaK11 heureuse après sa victoire contre @alizecornet #IS2016 pic.twitter.com/Hjoq4DE7qh

— WTA Strasbourg (@WTA_Strasbourg) May 15, 2016

The last Premier final before Roland Garros will feature two Americans at different stages of their career and with contrasting clay court pedigree – here are 10 Things To Know about the Internazionali BNL d’Italia final:

(1) Serena Williams (USA #1) vs Madison Keys (USA #24)
Head-To-Head: Williams leads, 2-0

1) Williams has a fine record against fellow Americans.
Since losing to her sister Venus at Montréal in 2014, Williams has won 15 straight matches against Americans, including two against Keys (at the 2015 Australian and US Opens). Her last loss to an American in a final came way back in 2008, against Venus at Wimbledon.

2) The Eternal wait is over.
The Foro Italico will host the first all-American final on tour in nearly four years (Serena d. Vandeweghe, 2012 Stanford), and the first in Rome since Billie Jean King defeated Julie Heldman in 1970.

3) Williams in unfamiliar territory.
For the first time since 1998, Williams is contesting this tournament without already having a won a title in the season to date. Keys has also endured a slightly below par start, failing to make it beyond the quarterfinals of an event until this week.

4) Keys could secure a French Open boost.
Keys will move back into the Top 20 by virtue of reaching the final. Should the American lift the title, she will guarantee herself a Top 16 seeding at Roland Garros, avoiding the big guns until at least the fourth round.

5) Good omen for Keys.
The last time Keys defeated two Top 10 players in the same week, she won the title (2014 Eastbourne – No.7 Jelena Jankovic, No.9 Angelique Kerber). In Rome she has already overcome No.9 Kvitova and No.4 Garbiñe Muguruza. Will lightning strike twice?

6) Williams has won her last 19 matches in Rome.
Williams loves the Foro Italico clay, winning her last 19 matches there. Her last loss* at the Internazionali BNL d’Italia came in a third set tie-break against Jankovic in 2010.
* Injury forced Williams to withdraw prior to her matches with Christina McHale in 2015 (elbow) and Li Na in 2012 (back) 

7) Williams is trying to win her fourth Rome title – and 70th across all tournaments.
On Sunday afternoon, Williams hopes to lift the 70th title of her illustrious career, and the fourth in Rome. The other events she has won four or more times are the Australian Open (six), Wimbledon (six), US Open (six), WTA Finals (five) and Miami (eight). The only players to be crowned champion on four occasions in the Italian capital are Chris Evert (five), Gabriela Sabatini (four) and Conchita Martinez (four).

8) Keys is going for the biggest title of her career.
Perhaps surprisingly, Keys’ only WTA title to date came two years ago in Eastbourne. Despite her self-confessed preference for the tour’s faster surfaces, her only other final did come on the green clay of Charleston, ending in a three-set loss to Kerber last April.

9) Every underdog has its day.
World No.24 Keys is not the only unseeded player to make it to the final in Rome. In fact, in 2010, No.26 María José Martínez Sánchez managed the feat, defeating Jelena Jankovic to lift the title.

10) Williams is going for her 13th clay court title, the most of any active player.
Williams has the most WTA clay court titles among active players with 12. She still has quite some way to go to catch the all-time leader, Chris Evert, who lifted 66 trophies on the surface.

ROME, Italy – Serena Williams returned to the final of the Internazionali BNL d’Italia after a comfortable victory over the unseeded Irina-Camelia Begu on Saturday.

Watch highlights, interviews and more video from Rome right here on wtatennis.com!

The Foro Italico has historically been a happy hunting ground for Williams, who has reached the semifinals or better on eight occasions. Three times she has gone on to lift the trophy at the famous old venue, and judging by her performances this week she is in the mood to add to this tally.

Following on from the World No.1’s awe-inspiring display against Svetlana Kuznetsova on Friday evening, few gave Begu much hope of springing an upset. However, the Romanian has been enjoying a fine clay court season and acquitted herself well early on, recovering from an early break to draw level at 4-4.

Unfortunately for Begu, this was as good as it got. Two games later, a sequence of smart returns gave Williams the set and from there she rarely looked like being caught, wrapping up victory after an hour and 26 minutes by ghosting in to punch away a smart volley.

Standing between Williams and her 70th WTA title is fellow American Madison Keys. Earlier in the day Keys maintained her composure after a lengthy rain delay to defeat No.3 seed Garbiñe Muguruza, 7-6(5), 6-4.

Since losing to her sister Venus at Montréal in 2014, Williams has won 15 straight matches against Americans. Her match against Keys will be the first all-American final at the Foro in 46 years.

“I think it will be wonderful because, like I said last time I was in here, I feel like Madison is one of the players that really can be great and she has that potential, and now she’s showing that on all surfaces,” Williams said.

“You know, we’re an all-American final on the clay. It’s been a minute since that’s happened. That’s just – it’s great. It’s really exciting.”

It’s been a rainy day here in Rome as we wait for the Internazionali BNL d’Italia semifinals to get underway. So I’m emptying the notebook while the notebook is still dry. One semifinal note: the first semifinal between Madison Keys and Garbiñe Muguruza has been moved to Court Pietrangeli, and will start as soon as the rain stops and the courts are prepared.

– Madison Keys surprising herself: After her tough 6-4, 4-6, 6-3 win over Barbora Strycova in the quarterfinals of the Internazionali BNL d’Italia on Friday, the 21-year-old American was asked whether she knew she could play so well on clay.

“No,” she said with a smile.

With her run to the semifinals in Rome, Keys has notched her best result on European clay. Her success in Rome may be surprising to some – she’s lost just one set all week – but it shouldn’t be. Her powerful game should translate well on clay. She proved that in 2015 when she made her biggest tour final in Charleston, pushing Angelique Kerber deep into a third set.

But Keys had needed time to convince herself she can get results on clay, as opposed to falling into the trap of seeing it as a stop-off before her beloved grass.

“I’m still very excited for grass,” Keys said. “Let’s put that out there right now.”

“I think over the years I have just eventually accepted that we’re not going to not have a clay court season, so going into it being positive about it is the only way to deal with it,” Keys said. “I think this year it’s just been, Okay, let’s do a little bit better than last year, and not really getting ahead of myself and really just focusing each match just trying to do what I’m here for.”

On Saturday she faces Garbiñe Muguruza for a spot in the final. Muguruza looks to be rounding into form before the French Open, playing a focused, resilient match to beat Timea Bacsinszky, 7-5, 6-2. It’s the first meeting between the two in a WTA-level main draw match. Keys beat Muguruza in three sets in qualifying for Cincinnati back in 2012.

“I’m excited,” Keys said. “I did not think coming into this whole kind of stretch that things would go well. I mean, even in Madrid I felt like I was playing pretty well on the clay and really just hopefully I can keep things going and, you know, keep it going tomorrow and hopefully at the end of the week be really happy.”

– Timea Bacsinszky’s perfect French Open lead-up: Bacsinszky will go into the French Open having won 14 of her last 17 matches. Despite a frustrating loss to Muguruza, which sees her drop to 0-4 against the Spaniard, Bacsinszky still found a silver lining.

“Well, without saying any bad words, it s-u-c-k-s,” Bacsinszky said after the loss. “Third time I’m losing almost with the same score against her.

“Yeah, it’s a big challenge to play against her, because there is always some possibilities to get through the first set or maybe in the second one, but then she leveled up her game. So I think, for sure, playing so many matches in the last couple of weeks got me probably a little tired, as well. But I still had a lot of energy and I was like super enthusiastic to do even better.

“Sometimes it happens that the opponent is making better choices than you are in crucial moments, so I have to give her a lot of credit for that.

“Basically I think I’m really happy about my clay court season so far, and the good news is that I can go home and celebrate tonight for the win that I had in Morocco. This is the good news of the day. I’m taking the positive side of it.”

– Madison Keys, M.D.: Who says you can’t learn anything from television?

Q. You were rubbing your arm quite a bit in the second and third set. Is it bothering you more? The conditions are heavier today than they have been in the past.

MADISON KEYS: It was a little cold. Balls were a little bit heavier. It was a little bit tight. But I’d like to think of myself as a doctor since I watched a lot of Grey’s Anatomy, so I feel like I figured it out (laughter).

– Bacsinszky goes home again: The Swiss star was asked whether she has ever returned to the hotel near Lausanne where she interned as a hospitality manager before returning to tennis. She ended up giving the best tourism ad for Switzerland.

“Yeah. Well, I did. I love this ski resort over there, Villars-sur-Ollon. It’s close from Lausanne. You take the car and you can be there in 45 minutes. So for sure Zermatt or Verbier or whatever, so many others. Vanghen, St. Moritz are more fancy, but I’m not that type of girl which likes those big things and showing off and stuff. I prefer to stay in a small mountain village. And, well, the hotel is great.

“When I worked at it, it was already great. Maybe better with me. No. (Laughter.) No, no, I was really – no, my colleagues were way better than I was. I was just learning, so it’s normal.

“The hotel is really great. It’s one of, still, my favorite hotel worldwide. I’m going to play the tournament of Gstaad this year in Switzerland – finally a woman’s tournament in Switzerland! – so I’m really proud of it. The ATP communications officer told my boyfriend yesterday, Oh, I heard you guys are going to Gstaad. And over there the palace is unbelievable.

So, yeah, it’s almost a 6-star over there, probably. But we’ll see if it challenges my old hotel where I worked, because, I have great memories over there.

I went after my semifinal of Miami for a couple of days, and, well, it’s great to go back there and to see where the colleagues are, because some of them are like traveling worldwide and they come only for half a season, so only for six months, and then they go back somewhere else.

But it’s fun to see how everyone is everywhere. And actually they joke a lot around me. They’re like, No, come on, we never — if we would knew that you were playing tennis — because they didn’t know. Actually, they didn’t know. They were making fun of me. Oh, like, you’re so old to do an internship. 24 years old? Internship at that time? Oh, your feet must hurt.

And then they found out that I play tennis, and like two years later I’m like top 10. They’re like, Okay.”

– Daria Kasatkina powering through: It hasn’t been the clay court swing the young Russian wanted. On her favorite surface she won just two matches on European clay, though she did make the quarterfinals in Charleston as well.

“I was waiting for this time [of the season] but looks like after a good start I have a little bit down,” Kasatkina told WTA Insider. “It’s ok. It happens. I will work and try to come back on my level.”

Kasatkina may be paying the price for her early season success. “This year we go tournament by tournaments. It was the plan because at the start of the season we didn’t know how I will play and if I will not reach a lot of points at the start.

“Start was good. I played a lot of matches. Reach a lot of points. Now we can maybe a little bit slow down. We will see, actually, how I feel.”

– Daria Gavrilova jumpstarts her season: After her star-making run to the fourth round of the Australian Open to start to the year, Gavrilova struggled mightily to get back on track. She won just one tour-level match after that before the tour turned to clay in Charleston.

“I was pretty flat going to the Middle East,” Gavrilova told WTA Insider. “I wasn’t ready. My mind was still at home. I was like, oh my god, really? I had tough losses in America, put myself in a good position in both matches but couldn’t close it out. But it happens.

“I was pretty frustrated after I lost to Zarina Diyas in Miami. And then I thought it’s a good time to make a difference, it’s not just me struggling. I can separate myself from other girls who are not winning so many matches. I was like ‘clay is my favorite surface’. I was keen to start playing on clay and just get over with hard court. Had a few good wins in Charleston and did get revenge over Zarina and that felt really good.”

Since the clay season began, Gavrilova scored wins over Petra Kvitova, Elina Svitolina, Simona Halep, and Sabine Lisicki. She’ll be seeded in Paris.

– Congratulations Li Na: No.2 is on the way.

Happy news for Li Na and Jiang Shan who are expecting their 2nd baby. Daughter Alisa will turn 1 June 3. #LiNaBaby pic.twitter.com/rTd6xRJL2i

— IMG Tennis (@IMGTennis) May 13, 2016

– Serena previews her documentary: Set your DVRs for June 22nd.

Here’s a sneak peek of my new documentary premiering on @EpixHD 6/22! Take a look inside my world! #Serenahttps://t.co/oj2wydQutf

— Serena Williams (@serenawilliams) May 12, 2016