Tennis News

QUÉBEC CITY, Canada – Julia Boserup held off a spirited challenge from CiCi Bellis to win their all-American quarterfinal at the Coupe Banque Nationale.

Two years on from her only previous venture this far at a WTA event, World No.125 Boserup displayed great composure to close out a 7-6(0), 6-4 victory, setting up a semifinal showdown against Océane Dodin.

Boserup, who is enrolled in an online degree at Penn State, does not graduate until December, and recent success is providing a welcome distraction from looming deadlines. In July, then ranked outside the Top 200, Boserup came through qualifying to reach the third round at Wimbledon.

Her latest run could well take her into the Top 100. And against Bellis she showed enough to suggest that this may not be her ceiling. After a shaky start, Boserup pinched the first set, then played the more assured tennis at the conclusion to the second, fending off a break point before striking decisively in the following game.

1re demi-finale @WTA en carrière pour Océane Dodin qui bat Van Uytvanck 6-2, 6-4 en quarts de finale. #CoupeBN pic.twitter.com/ewadEglgaS

— CoupeBanqueNationale (@CoupeBN) September 16, 2016

Earlier on, Dodin, appearing in her maiden WTA quarterfinal, made another breakthrough by defeating Alison Van Uytvanck, 6-2, 6-4. While Dodin is entering uncharted waters this week, it should come as no real surprise given her recent form on the ITF Circuit, where she has won 13 of her last 15 matches.

In the top half of the draw, qualifier Lauren Davis withstood a late fightback to defeat Alla Kudryavtseva, 6-3, 7-6(4). Davis had won all three of the pair’s previous meetings and was made to work hard for number four, closing out the contest after spurning three match points and a comfortable second set lead. In the last four Davis will face either Tereza Martincova or Jessica Pegula.

QUÉBEC CITY, Canada – 19-year-old Oceane Dodin capped off a dream week in Québec City by reaching her first WTA-level final at the Coupe Banque Nationale where she’ll face American qualifier Lauren Davis.

“I’m just very, very happy to be in my first final,” the Frenchwoman said. “It’s a pleasure to be here in Québec. It’s like France so it helped me so much!”

Dodin started off the week by winning her first ever WTA match in emphatic style, coming back from a set down to oust the No.5 seed Naomi Broady. She continued her run and romped past Sachia Vickery and Alison Van Uytvanck in straight sets to reach a maiden semifinal, before defeating American Julia Boserup 6-4, 3-6, 6-2 for a spot in her career first WTA-level final.

Her strong serving and aggressive play made the difference against Boserup – Dodin struck 17 aces during the match and won 77 percent of points behind her first serve.

“My dad [coach Frederic Dodin] always tells me that I have to be very aggressive,” Dodin said, explaining how she bounced back after losing the second set. “But sometimes with my nervousness, I’m not. So I look at him and he’s like, ‘Go! Go! Go!’ So it helps me so much and I stay focused.”

Dodin’s opponent in the final, Davis had to survive a two-and-a-half-hour battle against fellow qualifier Tereza Martincova to advance 6-3, 6-7(2), 6-2.

“It was very tough, I feel like we were out there for so long,” Davis said. “And we both already have a lot of matches under our belt, but we competed great.”

With the win Davis is into her second WTA final, having reached the Citi Open final earlier this year.

“I’m really happy with the way I’ve competed this week, I’ve stayed healthy and I’ve really enjoyed myself. That’s the most important thing.”

TOKYO, Japan – Garbiñe Muguruza exacted revenge on her shock US Open loss to Anastasija Sevastova with a straight set win in the second round of the Toray Pan Pacific Open.

Watch live action from Tokyo this week on WTA Live powered by TennisTV!

In her first match since that loss in Flushing Meadows, Muguruza broke five times to run out a 6-3, 6-3 winner. In the quarterfinals the top seed will face either Elina Svitolina or Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova.

More to follow…

World No.6 Karolina Pliskova has split with her coach Jiri Vanek. The successful partnership began in 2014 and resulted in two career-best seasons for the 24-year-old Czech, who broke into the Top 10 in 2015.

Pliskova continued her rise in 2016, winning the biggest title of her career at the Western & Southern Open and advancing to her first Slam final at the US Open, where she lost in three sets to World No.1 Angelique Kerber. The announcement comes after Pliskova helped lead the Czech Republic to their fifth Fed Cup title in the last six years.

Like Pliskova, Elina Svitolina also announced her decision to split with longtime coach Iain Hughes; neither Pliskova nor Svitolina have named replacements.

– 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: