Puig Named Best Female Athlete Of The 2016 Rio Olympics
Monica Puig’s unlikely run to winning Puerto Rico’s first Olympic gold medal inspired the world, and now she’s received the ANOC Award for Best Female Athlete at the 2016 Rio Olympic Games.
Monica Puig’s unlikely run to winning Puerto Rico’s first Olympic gold medal inspired the world, and now she’s received the ANOC Award for Best Female Athlete at the 2016 Rio Olympic Games.
Being World No.1 certainly has its perks. Angelique Kerber capped a career-best season with a once-in-a-lifetime selfie with US President Barack Obama.
Kerber tweeted about meeting the 44th President of the United States:
A dream come true!! What an honour to meet President Obama for lunch today. pic.twitter.com/0AU6HUeuqV
— Angelique Kerber (@AngeliqueKerber) November 17, 2016
It’s already been a busy off-season for Kerber, who won a pair of Grand Slam titles at the Australian Open and US Open, and reached the final of the BNP Paribas WTA Finals Singapore presented by SC Global. The year-end No.1 also held a kid’s clinic, giving advice to the next generation of players:
the next tennis generation is really cute ? pic.twitter.com/6c1xTyzkAI
— Angelique Kerber (@AngeliqueKerber) November 16, 2016
Top seeds Caroline Garcia and Alizé Cornet are one win away from an all-French final at the Engie Open de Limoges after fighting past a pair of tough quarterfinal battles.
Elena Vesnina began the season ranked outside the Top 100, but you’d never know it after six months of impressive results.
“I was not putting any pressure on myself going on the court,” the Russian veteran said after reaching her first-ever Grand Slam semifinal at Wimbledon. “I know I’m in good shape, I’m playing good. But it’s always tough when you know you’re in a good shape to build your game from beginning till the end and keep playing the same level.
“So I was just trying to be focused on every single game. I was not thinking about my draw. I didn’t see who I was playing next round. I was trying to enjoy myself on the court.”
Building her ranking back up with wins over the likes of Simona Halep, Venus Williams, and Belinda Bencic, Vesnina went farther than she’d ever gone at a major tournament in singles, breaking her second week duck against doubles partner Ekaterina Makarova and blasting into the final four against another in-form player in Dominika Cibulkova.
“I was watching Dominika’s match yesterday because we were going after this,” she said, referring to the Slovak’s win over Agnieszka Radwanska. “It was up and down, Dominika had match points. I knew she had long match.
“Me too. I had singles and we had to play doubles, as well. We finished quite late.
“I think first thing that I was not thinking about being tired. I was just thinking that this is my chance, and I had to use it.”
She certainly used it to full effect in the quarterfinals, dismantling Cibulkova in what might have been the best match of her career.
“I think it’s coming with experience. You really appreciate what you have now. You really enjoying what you’re doing. I love playing tennis. I’m really enjoying my time on the court, and off the court as well.
“I had really difficult beginning of the year, end of the year. I dropped out of the Top 100. I was playing all tournaments starting from qualifications. I had a lot of matches under my belt. It was not easy, to be honest, because I was in Top 30, then I was like No.120 or something.
“I’m really happy that it didn’t break me up. I think the difficult times, every single player has to go through it because it makes you better, it makes you stronger.”
For all of those reasons, Bertens is your Breakthrough Player of the Month!
Final Results for June’s WTA Breakthrough Performance Of The Month
1. Elena Vesnina (62%)
2. Madison Keys (31%)
3. Anastasija Sevastova (7%)
2016 Breakthrough Performance Of The Month Winners
January: Zhang Shuai
February: Jelena Ostapenko
March: Nicole Gibbs
April: Cagla Buyukakcay
May: Kiki Bertens
How it works:
Finalists are selected by wtatennis.com
Winner is then determined by a fan vote on wtatennis.com
Ekaterina Alexandrova upset defending champion and No.1 seed Caroline Garcia to win the Engie Open de Limoges on Sunday afternoon.
Defending champion Belinda Bencic was forced to withdraw from the upcoming Rogers Cup due to the left wrist injury she sustained at Wimbledon.
There’s a reason Agnieszka Radwanska has the nicknames “The Magician”, “Ninja” and “La Profesora”. It’s simple, she can pull off the most difficult shots in the game with ease.
And she’s done it again – for the fourth year in a row, Radwanska is the winner of WTA Shot Of The Year.
Radwanska took top honors with her hot shot against Monica Niculescu at Indian Wells back in March. She turned her signature defense into some thrilling offense, running all over the court and blasting a stunning around-the-post winner that even left herself speechless.
Check out the video above to watch all her award-winning shots, from 2013’s incredible 360 spin backhand volley in Miami to this year’s Indian Wells stunner!
Final Results for 2016 WTA Shot Of The Year
1. Agnieszka Radwanska: Indian Wells (62%)
2. Simona Halep: Montréal (21%)
3. Kirsten Flipkens: Seoul (10%)
4. Caroline Wozniacki: Auckland (7%)
Click here to watch all four WTA Shot Of The Year finalists!
BASTAD, Sweden – Johanna Larsson’s defense of her Ericsson Open title gathered further momentum following a brisk win over qualifier Sara Sorribes Tormo on Thursday afternoon.
Watch live action from Bastad, Stanford and Washington DC this week on WTA Live powered by TennisTV!
The withdrawal of top seed Angelique Kerber earlier on removed one of the more significant obstacles between Larsson and a second title on home soil. However, in front of an appreciative home crowd she was never likely to take her eye off the ball, running out a 6-0, 6-3 winner in an hour and 20 minutes.
“I don’t feel more pressure, the same thing happened last year, but I don’t really think about it,” Larsson said when asked about Kerber’s unexpected exit. “I try to just focus on my own thing and it’s a very tough match coming up in the quarters so I’m just looking forward to that one.”
Sorribes Tormo has made only fleeting appearances at WTA events this year and her inexperience was laid bare early on, Larsson romping through the first set. In the second set, Sorribes Tormo gave a better account of herself, success in a terrific 23-shot exchange helping break the No.8 seed in the opening game.
Unfortunately for the Spaniard, holding onto her own service games continued to be problematic. A couple of double faults handed the break right back, before Larsson put daylight between the two when she slung a serve out wide to register an increasingly rare hold the sixth game.
This cushion proved enough to get Larsson to the finishing line, and ace down the T taking her into a fifth quarterfinal in six years at Bastad Tennis Stadium.
There she is likely to face stiffer resistance, taking on No.4 seed Annika Beck, an impressive 6-2, 6-0 winner over Anastasija Sevastova. In the last second-round match, Julia Goerges fought back to defeat Bethanie Mattek-Sands, 2-6, 6-4, 6-2.
Back to back aces, nice finish by Johanna Larsson against @sara_sorribes pic.twitter.com/FC5Xw1hBdY
— Swedish Open Tennis (@swedish_open) 21 July 2016
From Alizé Cornet’s record-shattering performance to Naomi Osaka’s record low, take a look back at all the best WTA Frame Challenge moments, and watch them all again right here!
Elena Vesnina
2016 Quick Hits
Week 1 Ranking: No.115
Year-End Ranking: No.16 (Career-High No.16, 11/6/2016)
Season Highlights: Charleston RU, Doha, Eastbourne QF, Zhuhai RR
Best Major Result: SF (Wimbledon)
16 Days left until the 2017 #WTA season! ? pic.twitter.com/LsjqFdzKWR
— WTA (@WTA) 16 de diciembre de 2016
2017 Outlook
Things were certainly at their darkest before Elena Vesnina enjoyed a new dawn in 2016. Outside the Top 100 for the first time in over a decade, the Russian was forced to play qualifying at the Australian Open and dropped to a low of World No.122 just before February.
“I thought it’d be very difficult to get my ranking back, and I felt that I had to win a lot of matches,” the 30-year-old told WTA Insider at the US Open. “I think I did well mentally, not putting much pressure on myself, and I was saying to myself: ‘If you’re good, you’re going to be back. If you’re not that good, then that’s it.’ You have to prove yourself, that you deserve to be there. It was a very hard moment at the beginning of the year.”
From that tough moment, Vesnina earned her first Top 10 win since 2013 – defeating then-World No.3 Simona Halep in Doha – and reached the Volvo Car Open final as a qualifier. Those early results foreshadowed a fairytale run into the semifinals of Wimbledon, where she upset doubles partner Ekaterina Makarova and future WTA Finals champion Dominika Cibulkova at the All England Club.
“It’s just amazing how tennis can give you these possibilities, because you can try, and try, and if you’re brave enough, you can achieve it. It doesn’t matter how old you are, but I definitely appreciate it more now, than if I’d gotten it when I was 20. I made the fourth round of the Australian Open when I was 19, and for me, it was like, ‘Wow, it’s like a miracle!’ But I didn’t realize how it happened.
“Now I’ve been working through so many tough moments, working on my game, and my mentality. What I achieved now, I understand more why big results happen.”
Even bigger results came to Vesnina in doubles – pairing with Makarova to take home Olympic gold and WTA Finals glory – but the veteran heads into 2017 at a career-high ranking, with a Top 10 debut firmly in her sights.