My Performance: Venus Williams
Venus Williams reflects on her performance against Patricia Maria Tig at the Miami Open.
Venus Williams reflects on her performance against Patricia Maria Tig at the Miami Open.
Highlights from the third round action at the BNP Paribas Open.
MIAMI, FL, USA – No.3 seed Simona Halep was pushed to the brink in a late night epic against Sam Stosur, needing to come back from a set down and save match point to book her spot into the Miami Open quarterfinals.
Halep books a blockbuster battle against Johanna Konta after emerging victorious in the two-hour-and-ten minute thriller, 4-6, 7-5, 6-2.
“It was a tough match, like I expected,” Halep told press after the match. “But the comeback was pretty good, and I’m really happy about that.
“The last comeback like this for me was in 2014, my first match in Doha against Kanepi. Match point down and I came back. I’m happy about this, shows I can still play some tennis.”
3rd Set!!@Simona_Halep saves a match point to force a decider vs Stosur 4-6, 7-5! #MiamiOpen pic.twitter.com/s103xofKtn
— WTA (@WTA) 28 de marzo de 2017
The Romanian targeted the Aussie’s backhand throughout the early exchanges in the opening set, and was rewarded with an early break. She built up a solid 4-2 lead and looked set to wrap up the opening set, but Stosur had other plans.
Stosur got her heavy topspin forehand going and wreaking havoc on Halep’s game plan, and reeled off four straight games to snatch away the opening set. She went on a tear in the second, recovering from an early break and winning five of the next six games to serve for the match.
She even held a match point, at 5-4 on Halep’s serve, but the Romanian chose that moment to start mounting her epic comeback. A handful of loose errors from Stosur on key moments let Halep back into the set, and she took the next seven games in a row to take the second set and a break lead in the third.
With Stosur flagging and letting her aggression dip slightly, it was Halep who bossed the rallies and dictated play to extend the lead to 4-1. The Aussie didn’t have another comeback left in her, and Halep completed the comeback to move into the Miami quarterfinals.
Comeback Complete✔️@Simona_Halep saves a MATCH POINT to edge Stosur 4-6, 7-5, 6-2! #MiamiOpen pic.twitter.com/0qeasy9VQ4
— WTA (@WTA) 28 de marzo de 2017
“When I was down, I wasn’t thinking about anything, nothing about the score,” Halep said. “I just wanted to fight. I didn’t give up, and I believed in my chance. I was maybe a little bit lucky because I came back from match point down, but still I fought for this.”
Halep will be rewarded for her efforts with another battle in the next round, this time against Britain’s No.1, Konta.
“It will be tough. She’s in a good form now, she’s near Top 10. And she plays great. It’s going to be a tough one, but here every match is tough so I don’t expect an easy one.
“I have my chance here to try my best and try to win, and of course tomorrow will help me to recover. Then I will go on court with confidence.”
Caroline Wozniacki takes on Magda Linette in the quarterfinals of the Toray Pan Pacific Open.
MIAMI, FL, USA – No.2 seed Karolina Pliskova took down an on-form Mirjana Lucic-Baroni to book the first spot into the Miami Open semifinals, notching a 6-2, 6-4 victory after an hour and 12 minutes.
The win sends her into the Miami semifinals for the first time, where she awaits the winner between No.12 seed Caroline Wozniacki and Lucie Safarova.
She also gets her hard-earned revenge on the player who knocked her out of the Australian Open, where she fell 6-4, 3-6, 6-4 to the Croatian in the quarterfinals.
.@KaPliskova seals the first set 6-3! #MiamiOpen pic.twitter.com/QmSdSzhHFj
— WTA (@WTA) March 28, 2017
“I think I played much better here than I was playing [in Melbourne],” Pliskova said in her post-match press conference. “Also, the conditions here are different, and she was playing better tennis there because it was faster. It suited her better in Australia.
“So definitely I was feeling more confident with this match. I had a different game plan today.”
For her part, Lucic-Baroni – who was into her second Miami quarterfinal and the first since the tournament became a Premier Mandatory – made a strong start to the match, which featured lots of short rallies and plenty of first-strike tennis.
Lucic-Baroni’s fearless returning helped her neutralize powerful Pliskova serve during the early exchanges, but she wasn’t able to back it up with her own serves. She hit nine double faults during the opening set – including on set point – and was broken four times to surrender the first set in 28 minutes.
Not a bad way to save break point @KaPliskova! ? #MiamiOpen pic.twitter.com/drHjF0D8tI
— WTA (@WTA) March 28, 2017
The Croat continued to attack Pliskova’s serve emphatically and was rewarded with the first break of the second set, building up a 4-2 lead as her service game began to click.
But with her serve under fire, Pliskova relied on her other weapons – her big forehand and her improved court movement – and bailed herself out of trouble. The Czech reeled off four games in a row to erase Lucic-Baroni’s lead and close out the match.
“The difference was in the first set,” Lucic-Baroni told WTA Insider afterwards. “I started out great but then I couldn’t find my serve. The more I was making mistakes the worse I was getting.
“I was able to calm down and fix it in the second, but then I just had a lot of bad luck after 4-2. But she played great, a pretty flawless match. It was still pretty close, but it just didn’t go my way today.”
.@KaPliskova is first through to the @MiamiOpen Semifinals!
Skips past Lucic-Baroni 6-3, 6-4! pic.twitter.com/XybPo6IfNJ
— WTA (@WTA) March 28, 2017
With the win Pliskova is through to her fourth semifinal of 2017, and she’ll face either Safarova or Wozniacki for a spot in the final.
“Lucie obviously I know pretty well,” Pliskova assessed. “It will not be something really surprising for me there. I will be really confident coming into this one but it’s Czech against Czech so anything can happen.
“Obviously against Caroline, we played in Doha also, so a little bit different conditions than here. I would expect tough one because I know she has been playing quite good here in last few years.”
GUANGZHOU, China – Lesia Tsurenko edged past defending champion and No.2 seed Jelena Jankovic 6-4, 3-6, 6-4 to claim the title at the Guangzhou International Women’s Open.
Playing Guangzhou for the second time in her career, Tsurenko capped off her trip to the sprawling Chinese port city by taking home her second career title after a nearly two-hour-and-thirty-minute clash against Jankovic.
“I think today I played really good tennis, except maybe in the second set when I felt a little bit tired,” Tsurenko said in her post-match press conference. “But I said to myself that I have to give it all in the final set, and I was fighting for each point. I had to give 100 percent to win this title.”
The Tashkent Open is up next for the Ukrainian, who is coming off a career-best week at the Grand Slams with a fourth round appearance at the US Open. She plans to forgo Wuhan and heads to the Uzbekistani capital build on the recent success.
“I’ll go to Tashkent and I think I’ll be more relaxed there,” Tsurenko explained. “I will try to play good tennis, not losing too much energy and I will see maybe I will come back to China and play Beijing. But for now I am focusing on Tashkent.”
It was a taxing week for Jankovic, who also reached the semifinals in doubles with former No.1 Martina Hingis.
“It’s tough, because this tournament took a lot of energy out of me,” said the Serb, who has been struggling with shoulder issues throughout the season. “It’s so hot and humid here, and also when you take into consideration that it’s only my second tournament on hardcourt because I’m coming back from an injury.”
On the doubles side, No.4 seeds Asia Muhammad and Peng Shuai took home the title with a 6-2, 7-6(3) victory over Olga Govortsova and Vera Lapko. Guangzhou was the pair’s first tournament together, and they didn’t drop a set en route to the title.
“Not many times when you play with someone for the first time, you get to win the whole tournament,” Muhammad said. “I’m really excited that we were able to do that. Our games mesh really well, and I really mean it when I say this but it doesn’t feel like it’s the first time we’ve played together. That’s something very positive that we have.”
Jarmila Wolfe has announced that she and her husband are expecting a baby.
The Australian revealed the news on social media.
This is one of my favorite post I could share with y'all! With joy and pride we would love to share that there will be a little Wolfe soon ❤ pic.twitter.com/JNEIpeNSeL
— Jarmila Wolfe (@tennis_jarkag) March 28, 2017
Unsurprisingly, she was immediately deluged with congratulations.
Congratulations Jarka and Adam! We can't wait to meet the little Wolfe ? https://t.co/6cZdpqGDTN
— TennisAustralia (@TennisAustralia) March 29, 2017
Wolfe retired from tennis at the start of 2017.
The Asian swing is heating up, with nine of the WTA’s Top 10 players set to battle for precious ranking points at this week’s Dongfeng Motor Wuhan Open. We break down the opening day matchups here at wtatennis.com.
Sunday
First Round
[9] Svetlana Kuznetsova (RUS #10) vs. Belinda Bencic (SUI #26)
Head-to-head: Bencic leads, 1-0
Key Stat: Bencic has lost eight of her last 11 matches.
After a long season that has seen her battle injuries to her back and wrist, 19-year-old Belinda Bencic is hoping to rediscover her winning ways in Asia this fall. Bencic’s plan to do so in Tokyo backfired when she was ousted by Caroline Wozniacki in three sets in her first match, and the draw gods haven’t been any kinder to the Swiss in China, as the world No. 26 is slated to face No. 9 seed Svetlana Kuznetsova here in Wuhan. Kuznetsova has had some very strong results this year, particularly on hard courts where she has won seven of her last eight against players ranked outside the Top 20. But Kuznetsova has not played since falling in the second round of the US Open to Caroline Wozniacki, and she was in very poor form last year at Wuhan when she won only one game in a lopsided loss to Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova. Will the Russian be able to shake off the rust and rise to the Bencic challenge, or is it time for Bencic to get her game on track and notch another Top 10 win?
Pick: Kuznetsova in three
[13] Roberta Vinci (ITA #15) vs. Monica Puig (PUR #33)
Head-to-head: Vinci leads, 1-0
Key Stat: Puig has won 11 of her last 14 hardcourt matches.
Olympic Gold medalist Monica Puig suffered a Rio letdown at the US Open when she was knocked off in the first round by China’s Saisai Zheng, but Puig hit the ground running in Tokyo last week, proving that her Rio heroics were no fluke. The 22-year-old took out Petra Kvitova for the second consecutive time to reach the Toray Pan Pacific Open quarterfinals, stretching her win streak against the Top 20 to six, before falling to Agnieszka Radwanska. The unseeded Puerto Rican will look to keep the positive vibrations going when she meets Italy’s Roberta Vinci for the second time with a spot in the second round on the line. Both players know their way around a hard court, but stylistically they couldn’t be more different. Puig attacks with relentless, percussive topspin, while Vinci switches up the beat to produce an off-kilter and often times maddening amount of slice. It was Vinci that prevailed in the pair’s only previous meeting on the clay of Madrid last season. Can Puig, buoyed by her newfound confidence, power past the Italian in Wuhan?
Pick: Puig in three
[WC] Sabine Lisicki (GER #113) vs. Ekaterina Makarova (RUS #39)
Head-to-head: Makarova leads, 2-1
Key Stat: Lisicki is 2-10 against Top 50 competition in 2016.
A pair of former Top 15 players who have been off their game in 2016 will do battle in the final match of the day on Centre Court on Sunday in Wuhan. It’s been a tough year for Sabine Lisicki, but the German is hoping that she can build some momentum down the stretch after reaching the quarterfinals at Guangzhou last week. Lisicki reached her second quarterfinal of the season, winning twice in straight sets before falling to Jelena Jankovic. The Grand Slam season may be over for Lisicki, but there’s still a lot to play for. The 27-year-old German, outside of the Top 100 for the first time in over five years, will look to make up points this autumn as she did not play after the U.S Open in 2015 due to a knee injury. Lisicki is making her second appearance at Wuhan and owns a 13-18 record on the season. Former world No. 8 Makarova has had mixed results this year as well, but she has managed four quarterfinals and a 23-18 tour-level record.
Pick: Makarova in two
By the Numbers:
19 – Bencic is the youngest player in this week’s draw at Wuhan. The Swiss will turn 20 next March.
8 – Number of American players in this week’s draw in Wuhan. Three (Louisa Chirico, Varvara Lepchenko and Shelby Rogers) will be in action on Sunday.
2 – Former champions in the draw. Venus Williams (2015) and Petra Kvitova (2014) won the first two stagings of the Dongfeng Motor Wuhan Open.
Caroline Wozniacki takes on Naomi Osaka in the final of the Toray Pan Pacific Open.