Tennis News

– Round of 16 set: It’s an “all-skate” on Tuesday, as the schedule gets reset and the entire Round of 16 is in play. In the top half of the draw: Serena Williams vs. Kataryna Bondarenko, Barbora Strycova vs. Simona Halep, Agnieszka Radwanska vs. Jelena Jankovic, Nicole Gibbs vs. Petra Kvitova.

In the bottom half: Magdalena Rybarikova vs. Roberta Vinci, Victoria Azarenka vs. Sam Stosur, Daria Kasatkina vs. Timea Bacsinszky, and Karolina Pliskova vs. Johanna Konta.

– Gretzky’s orders: Timea Bacsinskzy overcame a bad fall that left her scraped and bruised to beat Eugenie Bouchard, 6-2, 5-7, 6-2, to advance to the Round of 16 at the BNP Paribas Open for the second straight year. She’ll play Daria Kasatkina on Tuesday. Bacsinszky looked in control of the match until she slipped and fell forward early in the second set and landed flush on her hip, the gritty court surface leaving her covered in bleeding cuts that required an 11-minute medical timeout.

Bacsinszky said her hip was left bruised by the fall, but taking the fall just 40 feet from the great Wayne Gretzky left an even bigger bruise on her ego. Just a few days earlier she was able to get a photo with The Great One, which left her Canadian boyfriend Andreas fuming.

“He knows all the statistics of Gretzky, NHL, NFL, he loves it,” Bacsinszky said. “It’s his hobby. We talked at dinner and he said the only one he would love to take a picture with is Wayne Gretzky. The next day I met him in the lounge!”

“I just told him, ‘Hey the three last letters of my last name are the same as yours’. He laughed. He was really really nice. As a legend he’s one of the biggest sportsmen for me, of any sport. He’s so humble, he’s super nice.

“Today he was eating and I didn’t recognize him and he said, ‘Hey! Good luck!’ I was like, hey my boyfriend didn’t talk to me for two hours yesterday – this is true. He was really pissed. Then Gretzky told me is he here? Tell him to come! And I said, yeah he’s too shy he would never ask, I know him. And he said, ‘No it’s an order. You have to tell him to come.’ So he came and they took the picture.”

– Karolina Pliskova’s mental vacation: Pliskova played the heaviest schedule of any top player last year and she continued to play through the off-season, signing up for a full exhibition schedule. But after Australia she was mentally fried and confessed to needing a week away from the courts after going winless in the Middle East. Pliskova got some much needed R&R in Monaco, where she now has a residence; the rest seems to have paid off. She’s into the fourth round with a 6-2, 6-0 win over Ana Ivanovic. She plays Johanna Konta for a spot in the quarterfinals.

“The draw was good to me because I know Ana and I know Shelby,” Pliskova told WTA Insider. “Against Ana I won all of the matches so I was pretty confident in this match and I knew if I played at the level I played in Australia I could beat her. I definitely feel well and I rested a little bit so mentally I feel fine. That’s the main thing.”

– Daria Kasatkina saves match point to advance: The 18-year-old continues her trend of making debuts to remember. In her first trip to Indian Wells she’s into the Round of 16 after beating Monica Puig, 6-4, 3-6, 7-6(2), saving match point along the way.

“From the first practice I feel like my spins are flying and the balls are good,” Kasatkina told a small group of reporters while breathlessly cooling down on an eliptical machine after the match. “I like to play here because it’s a surface for me I think.”

– Belinda Bencic’s desert dry spell: While the court may suit a junior French Open champion like Kasatkina, it has flummoxed junior Wimbledon champion Bencic. The No.7 seed bowed out 6-4, 3-6, 6-3 to Magdalena Rybarikova.

“First of all, I didn’t have my game, second of all I really don’t like to play her,” Bencic said. “She plays really tricky for me. I cannot [use] the power from her. Especially with these conditions it’s not really the best for me. It bounces high for me, it’s slow, it’s just weird. Last year I played good here but also had my trouble. It’s not like grass where I come and just play great.”

– Jelena abandoned: Jelena Jankovic has a tough task on Tuesday, facing No.3 Agnieszka Radwanska. The Serb hasn’t had the best start to the season but seems to be finding her form here in the desert, where she made the final last year. Jankovic said her off-season preparation was poor and she’s playing catch-up with her fitness.

“During the off-season my fitness trainer he had to go train someone in the soccer team,” Jankovic told WTA Insider. “It was during the off-season when I needed to train physically and I didn’t do that very well, I didn’t prepare very well. Since Dubai I hired a new one from Thailand. He used to work with Srichiphan. I’m happy I have him with my team and I’m working hard to get physically fitter.”

– Nicole Gibbs’ key to success: The American qualifier is putting together her best career result after coming through qualifying to beat Alexandra Dulgheru, Madison Keys, and Yaroslava Shvedova to earn a shot against Kvitova in the fourth round. Since teaming up with Roger Smith after the US Open, Gibbs’ results in 2016 have seen a marked improvement. She’s won 10 of her last 11 matches.

“He’s a really supportive person, just really, really positive,” Gibbs said. “He kind of complements my personality really well. We get along really well, which hasn’t always been the case with my coaches in the past. I can be really stubborn. I can be a little difficult sometimes. He’s been really great in that sense.

“And then he just knows the game so well. Sees it so well. Gives me unbelievable game plans. You know, we have just been working really hard on making me more of an all-court player and a little bit less defensive.”

The gritty court seems to be favoring Gibbs’ game too. “I have been hitting the ball a little bit heavier, which I think picks up well on the slower courts,” she said. “Maybe I’m throwing people’s timing off, I’m not sure, but I have been enjoying the conditions out here. I think it plays fast through the air but kicks up off the court, which is nice for me.”

– No dream team for Kvitova: When Kvitova split with David Kotyza the first name on everyone’s lips was Martina Navratilova. Oh well:

Q. If Martina came in that door right now and said, I’ll coach you, would you consider her?
PETRA KVITOVA: Probably no.

– Former WTA CEO Stacey Allaster returns to tennis: Allaster announced that she will be joining the United States Tennis Association to become the new Chief Executive of professional tennis; the post is tailor-made for the one who spent nearly 10 years with the WTA. 

“I worked 28 years straight, hard between the Ontario Tennis Association, Tennis Canada and the WTA, and that was a mistake,” Allaster said by telephone Friday from a wellness retreat in California. “There needs to be these scheduled breaks. Academics do it. A lot of law firms do it. Nike does it. It just rejuvenates you physically, mentally and emotionally and brings you back stronger. And I am at that place and super excited to join the U.S.T.A.”

– Hear from Steve Simon and Agnieszka Radwanska: Both are great, insightful guests on the new episode of the WTA Insider Podcast:

MELBOURNE, Australia – No.2 seed Serena Williams put together some high-quality tennis against Lucie Safarova to make her way to the third round and avoid the upset bug sweeping through the Australian Open on Thursday night.

Even to her own high standards, her 6-3, 6-4 victory in the pair’s rematch of their French Open final was impressive, which explains why Serena didn’t have much patience for anyone finding fault in her performance.

Case in point, here’s an exchange between the six-time Australian Open champion and a reporter at her post-match press conference:

Q. Looked a little bit of a scrappy performance. A few more unforced errors, a few double-faults.
SERENA WILLIAMS: I think that’s a very negative thing to say. Are you serious?

Q. Just my observation.
SERENA WILLIAMS: Well, you should have been out there. That wasn’t very kind. You should apologize. Do you want to apologize?

Q. I do. I’m sorry.
SERENA WILLIAMS: Thank you very much. That was a great performance. I played well. She’s a former Top 10 player. The last time we played together was in the finals of a Grand Slam.

You know, it’s not an easy match. She’s a really good player. You have to go for more, which obviously makes a few more errors.

So, yeah, I think it was overall a really good match, on both of our ends.

Moral of the story: Don’t tell Serena Williams she played badly. Especially when she played great.

INDIAN WELLS, CA, USA – World No.5 Simona Halep had begun to find her form in the opening set of her match against unseeded and looming Barbora Strycova at the BNP Paribas Open, but after winning five games in a row, the Czech called the trainer to court for an upper respiratory illness, ultimately sending Halep into the quarterfinals, 6-3, 1-0, ret.

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

The pair had split their prior two meetings and Strycova, fresh off a run to the finals of the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships, initially took advantage of an out-of-sorts Halep, who was playing her first day session match on Stadium Court 3.

Halep, however, has been in stellar form throughout her opening round matches, and with a little help from coach Darren Cahill, the former World No.2 slowly shifted into turbo as Strycova became overcome, calling the trainer on the set break.

“I feel sorry for her, being sick,” she said during her on-court interview. “I know how it is, and it’s tough to continue to play the match. It was a good start for me; I played a good first set, but the conditions are really difficult because I played two matches in the cold weather, and now it’s hot. I tried everything to keep things going in the right away, so I’m happy to be into the quarterfinals.

“I adjusted my game very well, just wanted to make fewer mistakes and keep the ball into the court. I moved better than I did in the beginning of the match, and I’m looking forward to the next one, where I hope to play better.”

Awaiting Halep in the quarterfinals will be the winner of World No.1 Serena Williams and qualifier Kateryna Bondarenko; the 2014 French Open finalist was set to play Williams in last year’s semifinal before the American was forced to pull out with a knee injury.

“I would like to play against her; I’m looking forward to it, and I know she’s the best player in the world, so I have nothing to lose. I want just to go and fight for my chance – I know that I have a chance.

“I will go with confidence, positivity and just fighting for the match.”