Tennis News

Simona Halep captured her second career Premier Mandatory title at the Mutua Madrid Open; defeating Dominika Cibulkova in straight sets on Saturday, the win not only brought her back into the Top 5 on the WTA rankings, but also helped her rocket up 23 spots on the Road to Singapore leaderboard, entering th Top 8 for the first time in 2016 at No.6.

Runner-up at the 2014 BNP Paribas WTA Finals Singapore presented by SC Global, Halep has qualified for the WTA Finals for the last two years, but a slow start to the season kept her out of the Top 8 despite reaching back-to-back quarterfinals in Indian Wells and Miami. The Romanian was ranked No.29 on the Road to Singapore heading into Madrid, but an impressive week in the Caja Magica reversed her fortunes in emphatic style – leaving her just 119 points behind Carla Suárez Navarro, who rounds out an unchanged Top 5 that also features Australian Open champion Angelique Kerber, Sunshine Double winner Victoria Azarenka, Agnieszka Radwanska, and World No.1 Serena Williams.

Cibulkova also took a big leap up the Road to Singapore leaderboard, finishing the week just behind Halep at No.7 from No.17. Moving up to No.26 on the WTA rankings, Cibulkova has all but guaranteed a seed at the upcoming French Open, where she is a former semifinalist, and aims to make her WTA Finals debut in 2016. Svetlana Kuznetsova completes the Top 8 despite an early round loss to Porsche Tennis Grand Prix finalist Laura Siegemund, who cracked the RTS Top 20 following another solid week in Spain.

Samantha Stosur made the biggest leap of the week following her run to the semifinals; the 2011 US Open champion made back-to-back semifinals at the WTA Finals in 2010 and 2011 and moved up 25 spots to No.13 on the Road to Singapore leaderboard, defeating Suárez Navarro en route.

RTS Ranking Movers

Louisa Chirico: No.110 to No.33 (+77)
Samantha Stosur: No.38 to No.13 (+25)
Simona Halep: No.29 to No.6 (+23)
Dominika Cibulkova: No.17 to No.7 (+10)

Martina Hingis and Sania Mirza held on to the top spot on the Road to Singapore doubles leaderboard, but the reigning WTA Finals champions find their status is under siege by a pair of streaking Frenchwomen in Caroline Garcia and Kristina Mladenovic. Garcia and Mladenovic each qualified for Singapore last fall – Garcia with Katarina Srebotnik, Mladenovic with Timea Babos – and won a third straight title and a 13th straight match in Madrid, backing up their Stuttgart win over Hingis and Mirza with a two-set win in Madrid.

Undefeated on clay in 2016, the French Connection surged up to No.2 on the Road to Singapore doubles leaderboard, putting a nearly 700-point gap between themselves and the No.3 team, Chan Hao-Ching and Chan Yung-Jan.

The Chan sisters suffered a quarterfinal loss to Vania King and Alla Kudryavtseva, who saved two match points to reach a second straight WTA semifinal. King and Kudryavtseva have qualified for the WTA Finals a combined three times – King in 2010 and 2011 with Yaroslava Shvedova, Kudryavtseva in 2014 with Anastasia Rodionova – and made the semifinals each time.

Bowing out to Hingis and Mirza in the final four in Madrid, the pair cracked the Top 8 on the Road to Singapore doubles leaderboard, bumping Miami Open champions Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Lucie Safarova.

Another Premier 5 tournament is already underway as the Internazionali BNL d’Italia began on Monday; with nearly all of the Top 8 in both singles and doubles in contention – except Agnieszka Radwanska and Chan Hao-Ching – there is bound to be more major shifts ahead of the second major tournament of the season in Paris.

Click here to see the full Road To Singapore leaderboard standings heading into Rome.

ZHUHAI, China – Top seed Johanna Konta produced a clinical display to brush aside Caroline Garcia and take her place in the knockout stage of the Huajin Securities WTA Elite Trophy Zhuhai.

Watch live action from Zhuhai this week at WTA Live Powered By TennisTV!

One hour was all it took for Konta to wrap up a 6-2, 6-2 victory and set up a semifinal against Elina Svitolina. Earlier in the day, No.2 seed Petra Kvitova also advanced, topping her round-robin group after a 6-1, 6-4 win over Barbora Strycova.

Konta confirmed she would finish the year ranked inside the Top 10 following an impressive win against Samantha Stosur in her opening match, and she underlined her status with an even more dominant display second time out.

It did not take long for the Briton to get her nose in front, hooking a passing shot beyond Garcia’s reach to break in the third game. A few games later it was the backhand doing the damage, the World No.10 finding the line to stretch her lead further, before wrapping up the set soon after.

Konta handily won the pair’s previous meeting, at this summer’s Rio Olympics and a run of five straight games in the second set sent her hurtling past the finishing post.

“I really felt I played a very consistent match. I didn’t give he many windows [of opportunity] and I’m very happy I managed to do that today,” Konta said during her on-court interview. ” She has such a big game so I really needed to apply myself on every point.”

“Right now, it’s just one more match tomorrow. I’m not looking any further than that. I’m going to have a very tough one and looking to compete as best I can.”

While Konta takes on Svitolina, in the other semifinal Kvitova meets Chinese No.1 Zhang Shuai.

Kvitova made a flying start against fellow Czech Strycova before encountering some late resistance. However, just as she has so often in her recent resurgence, she found her best tennis when it mattered most, withstanding some late service jitters – and a couple of break points – to take the final three games of the match.

“The second set was a little bit tight. It was really important to serve well in that game, 4-3. I was facing two break points and it was really the key point,” Kvitova said in her press conference.

“And I think that from the time that I started to play more aggressive than I did before, the beginning of the second set, so it helped me actually, to face the two break points to get back on the track and play little bit better and to return better as well. But, I mean, overall it was a good match. I think it was – the serve was really good today; helped me a lot as well. I’m happy that I’m in the semifinal for sure.”