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Venus Falls In Indian Wells Comeback

  • Posted: Jan 01, 1970

INDIAN WELLS, CA, USA – Japanese qualifier Kurumi Nara ended Venus Williams’ fairytale comeback to Indian Wells, where she was playing in her first match back in 15 years.

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

Walking out on court to the Jackson 5’s “I Want You Back,” Williams was given a hero’s welcome to the BNP Paribas Open. The packed Stadium 1 crowd roared as she waved and gave them a big smile, touching her hand to her heart.

The stage was set for a triumphant return, but Nara didn’t read the script.

Undaunted by neither the occasion nor the crowd – who cheered every service hold and point won by Williams – the Japanese kept her head down and proved why she was once ranked as high as No.32, keeping her game clean and tidy as Williams’ frustration – and unforced error count – began to grow.

With the wind swirling and clouds threatening overhead, both players came out solid, trading service holds until the rain finally broke through and halted play at 3-3.

Williams drew first blood when play resumed after the 35-minute delay, breaking Nara for her first lead of the match. It would turn out to be her only one, as Nara quickly leveled the score and grabbed the next three games to close out the opening set.

She rode the momentum and continued her ruthlessly methodical game, forcing error after error off of Williams’ racquet. The American broke Nara twice, powered on by the boisterous crowd, but each time the 24-year-old held on. She remained steady until the end, calmly serving out the biggest match of her career to win 6-4, 6-3.

For Nara, who had to fight through qualifying to book her encounter against Williams and had only defeated one Top 20 player in her previous 16 attempts, this is a moment she won’t soon forget.

“Yes, I’m very happy, this is the biggest win of my career,” Nara enthused after the match.

Despite the experience ending in a defeat, Williams will take only positives from her return to the Indian Wells desert.

“It was enough of a fairy tale to come here and play,” she said in her post-match press conference. “A win would have been nice, but that means I have to come back and play next year.”

“I would definitely love to come back.”

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Serena Brushes Aside Siegemund

  • Posted: Jan 01, 1970

INDIAN WELLS, CA, USA – Serena Williams wrapped up the top half second round action at the BNP Paribas Open with a straightforward win over German qualifier Laura Siegemund, 6-2, 6-1.

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

Playing in her first match since reaching the final at the Australian Open and in the chilly nighttime conditions in Indian Wells, Williams found herself facing a break point right away in the first game of the match. Siegemund’s variety and a sneaky drop shot tripped her up, but the World No.1 shook off any lingering rust with ease to fend off the early assault.

From then on the match grew increasingly one-sided, with Williams simply outgunning the German qualifier, taking the ball early and attacking from every side of the court. A beautiful backhand down the line brought up set point for the top seed, which she took with one her signature swing volleys.

Siegemund continued to attack and even brought up another chance to break in the first game of the second set, but Williams roared back from 0-40 to brush it aside. Not taking the opportunity ended up being costly for Siegemund, and Williams won five straight games to wrap up the encounter in barely over an hour.

“My intensity was the key,” Williams said in her post-match interview. “[Siegemund] actually started out really strong in that first game when I was serving, she was close to breaking me.

“I knew right then and there if I wasn’t going to come out at 100% it would be a long match.”

Awaiting Williams in the third round is Yaroslava Putintseva, who earlier in the day knocked out the No.27 seed Kristina Mladenovic 6-4, 6-4.

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Insider Notebook: Robson Returns

  • Posted: Jan 01, 1970

– Day 2 Results: Christina McHale pulled off the most notable upset of the day, beating No.41 Caroline Garcia ,6-4, 6-4, to advance to the second round. Meanwhile, three wildcards made good on their opportunities, as Lauren Davis beat Nao Hibino, 6-2, 6-4, Zhang Shuai beat Pauline Parmentier via retirement, and Shelby Rogers gutted out a 6-1, 4-6, 6-3 win over Mariana Duque Mariño.

– More winners: Daria Kasatkina (d. Hantuchova), Monica Puig (d. Lucic-Baroni), Eugenie Bouchard (d. Ozaki), Tsvetana Pironkova (d. Vekic), Camila Giorgi (d. Goerges), Magdalena Rybarikova (d. Robson), Margarita Gasparyan (d. Govortsova), Zarina Diyas (d. Loeb), Yanina Wickmayer (d. Hercog), Madison Brengle (d. Doi), Denisa Allertova (d. Cetkovska).

– Laura Robson ready to move on: Robson lost to Rybarikova in the first round but there were encouraging signs in the loss. The former British No.1 says she’s been pain-free since January, the longest pain-free stint of her two-year battle with a left wrist injury that required surgery.

“It’s been the hardest thing for me to translate what I’ve been doing on the practice court to matches so I was pretty happy with that and everything else can definitely be worked on,” Robson said. “[Get back to] feeling confident enough in the rally to move up in the court, finish shots with volleys, drive volleys, getting that variation in my game. Obviously the forehand was a bit messy, but it’s all stuff that can be improved. That’s the good thing about it. As long as I’m healthy I can train as much as possible and get as much work in.”

Ranked No.551, Robson used her protected ranking to get into the main draw in Indian Wells and will use the rest of her protected ranking allotments through the first week of the grass season.

“My protected runs out in Eastbourne so I’d kind of be an idiot not to use them all before then,” Robson said. “As much as I’d like to get more matches in at the qualifying level it would be a waste not to use them. So I plan to play virtually all the clay season, Paris, and I think I’ll have one left for the first week on grass.”

A junior champion at Wimbledon at 14, the 22-year-old Brit rose to a career-high No.27 in 2013 before injuries began to take hold. Now she says she’s ready to embark on her “second career”.

“The best advice I was given was from Nick Saviano and he said I have to let the past go, in a way,” Robson said. “I can’t keep trying to have the exact same things in my game that I had before. It’s essentially a new career with a more experienced self. When I was playing at the 25 level and everything before I didn’t have years of experience behind me. So I’m lucky to get this second chance but I can’t keep thinking, ‘Oh but I used to be able to hit my forehand like this.’ That’s just not healthy.”

– Belinda Bencic turns 19: How about this photo:

– Eugenie Bouchard’s emotional win: Bouchard had a tough turnaround, flying from Kuala Lumpur after the final on Sunday to land in Los Angeles at 11am on Monday. With photoshoot and sponsor obligations to fulfill, it’s been sleepless leadup for her with minimal practice. But she battled past Japanese qualifier Risa Ozaki to win, 2-6, 6-4, 6-2, and set up a second round meeting with Sloane Stephens.

“I definitely felt out of sorts on the court,” Bouchard said. “At times I felt like my tennis was awful out there. But I just tried to put that aside and keep trying to play, keep trying to play, and slowly things kind of turned around. I just tried stay in there, really.”

“I felt more emotional than usual. I felt a bit weird and off on the court. It’s one of those days. It was a difficult turnaround and a rough couple of days.”

– Readying for Venus’ return: Venus Williams returns to the BNP Paribas Open for the first time in 15 years on Friday. ESPN rounds up a variety of reactions to her decision to come back to Indian Wells.

– Steffi Graf backs Serena: Graf told AFP she’s fully prepared for Serena to break her record of 22 major titles.

“I follow it somewhat but this is somebody else’s chance and I’m happy for them. It doesn’t take anything away from what I have achieved. I’m completely at ease.”

– All hail Sania Mirza: The doubles No.1 gets the cover of Indian magazine Just For Women.

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Kerber Ready For Indian Wells Challenge

  • Posted: Jan 01, 1970

INDIAN WELLS, CA, USA – In her first outing as Australian Open champion, Angelique Kerber was brought back to earth with a bump, slumping to a shock defeat at the hands of Zheng Saisai at the Qatar Total Open.

By her own admission, Kerber struggled to deal with the occasion, her metronomic groundstrokes breaking down under the strain. “That was a new situation – it was the first match after my biggest title and I think I had so many things in my mind,” Kerber said during her All Access Hour at the BNP Paribas Open.

It was an experience the German, now enjoying the status as the world’s second best player, is keen to accentuate the positives from. After a brief break, she was back on the practice court, gearing up for one of the biggest events on the tennis calendar.

“After Doha I took maybe five or six days off. I really tried to get relaxed and enjoy this feeling of being No.2 in the world and getting used to it for the next tournaments that are coming up,” she added.

“I had a nice start to practicing hard again at home with my team around me.”

Few players have a bad word to say about Indian Wells and Kerber is no different. Down the years the tournament has provided memories both good – back-to-back semifinals in 2012 and 2013 – and bad – first round exits on her past two visits – and after that Doha blip she is hungry to add to the former list.

“I think now I got used to it [the No.2 ranking] and I’m looking forward to playing my next match here and I think I’m ready to go out there and play great tennis again.”

Kerber finds herself in a relatively open section of the draw; potential engagements with Johanna Konta and Ana Ivanovic await should she survive a far-from-straightforward opener against Denisa Allertova.

“I’m looking forward to being here, to play my matches and I have a lot of confidence from the last few weeks. I’m feeling good, I’m healthy, I was practicing very well here in the last few days so I think I’m ready for the tournament to start!”

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Social Butterfly: Mladenovic On Twitter

  • Posted: Jan 01, 1970

As Agnieszka Radwanska and Roberta Vinci worked their magic in the quarterfinals of the Qatar Total Open, few were more enthusiastically spellbound than colleague, Kristina Mladenovic.

A longtime fixture of the tennis fan community on Twitter – colloquially known as Tennis Twitter – the French No.1 tweeted her thoughts on the nearly two-hour epic, which Radwanska won, 3-6, 6-2, 6-3, after she and Vinci came to net a stunning 101 times over three sets.

“It can be a WTA or ATP match,” she said during the BNP Paribas Open draw ceremony. “If I have time and a match looks interesting, I’ll go on the app and watch. It’s fun to applaud great tennis, so why not?

“It’s not just about me and what I am doing!”

Seeded No.27 in Indian Wells – and projected to play World No.1 Serena Williams in the third round – Mladenovic enjoyed a stellar 2015 season that saw her climb from a February low of No.74 all the way into the Top 30.

But success hasn’t driven the 22-year-old away from social media; as the world watched the Vinci mount her unforgettable upset over Williams at the US Open, Mladenovic’s own commentary could hardly be contained by 140 characters – all a mere 72 hours after the Italian veteran had ended her own career-best Grand Slam run in the quarterfinals.

“These days, Twitter is almost like a news channel. You wake up in the morning and go on your phone to see what everyone is up to. I wouldn’t say I’m addicted to social media, but I just put myself in the position of the fans.”

Frequently engaging with fans across the globe, Mladenovic often appears online with a flurry of retweets following a match, gregariously reposting screencaps or videos, many of which display the Frenchwoman’s penchant for on-court flair. 

“I wish that when I was younger I could have known more about the lives of my idols. What is their day like? What do they do away from tennis? Social media is just a great way to really get behind the scenes and get to know the personalities of the players.

“It keeps the fans engaged, even if they can’t attend a tournament in person, and helps to build a great connection.”

Mladenovic will likely continue to build connections in 2016, both as a USANA Brand Ambassador and as one half of a fast-rising dynamic duo with friend and Fed Cup teammate, Caroline Garcia.

“I have been using USANA vitamins and supplements for a few years and have seen the difference that it has made in my health and fitness. I’m looking forward to sharing my positive experience with others and letting them know what USANA can do for them.”

Already a major champion in mixed doubles – winning Wimbledon alongside Daniel Nestor in 2013 – the Frenchwoman peaked at No.5 on the doubles rankings last spring after she and then-partner Timea Babos became the only team to defeat the all-but-unstoppable Martina Hingis and Sania Mirza in a final to win the Internazionali BNL D’Italia.

Making her BNP Paribas WTA Finals Singapore presented by SC Global debut to end the 2015 season, Mladenovic decided to partner with Garcia ahead of the Olympic Summer Games in Rio de Janeiro – a move that as already yielded two finals at the Apia International Sydney and the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships.

“We already had great doubles partners – me with Timea and Caroline with Katarina Srebotnik – both great players and friends. But as countrywomen from the same generation, and with similar goals, we have a great opportunity.

“We’re really lucky to be from the same country and in this position to play together, not just with regard to the Olympics, which would be amazing, but there are exciting tournaments, week after week on the tour.

“Of course, to win a medal for France at the Olympics would be a huge thing, an amazing achievement for any athlete.

Their biggest struggle thus far? Deciding on a team name.

“The reaction from fans so far has been great. We’ve really noticed the buzz about us playing together, and we think at Roland Garros in particular it’s going to be very exciting.”

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