Tennis News

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil – Four-time gold Olympic medalist Venus Williams is going for a record breaking fifth medal at the Olympic tennis event in Rio after booking a spot into the final of mixed doubles with partner Rajeev Ram. The pair will take on Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Jack sock in the all-American final.

“I’m used to doing this with Serena so it’s such a crazy feeling doing it with someone else,” Williams admitted after the match. “It’s like a wild emotion, to feel what I feel with Serena. I never thought that would happen.”

Williams and Ram had to fight back from a set down against Indian superstars Sania Mirza and Rohan Bopanna to make it into the final. They came back to dominate in the match tiebreak, rattling off eight points in a row to take the match 2-6, 6-2, 10-3.

Williams is going for a fifth gold medal, which would set a new record for most medals in Olympic tennis. By virtue of reaching the final, she’s already guaranteed a medal, making her the first tennis player to medal in all three tennis events (along with her singles and doubles medals in Sydney 2000).

“It is what you are hoping for and I gotta be honest I was secretly hoping to be in this position when we both got in,” Venus said. “I think we both were, if we admitted it.

“We kept saying we don’t know what’s going to happen, we’ve never played together, but then the thought of ‘Oh my God this just happened’. I don’t know, it’s so surreal.”

They’ll take on fellow Americans Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Jack Sock in the final after the pair edged past the Czech duo of Lucie Hradecka and Radek Stepanek, 6-4, 7-6(3).

STUTTGART, Germany – The European clay season begins in earnest this week as hometown favorite Angelique Kerber leads the WTA into the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix in Stuttgart. The two-time champion tops a draw that houses a host of elite players and threats on the dirt, as players look to get off on the right foot on the road to Roland Garros.

Check out 10 things to know ahead of Germany’s Premier red-clay event.

1) Star-studded sightings in Stuttgart.
Eight of the WTA’s top 10 are competing this week. Defending champion Angelique Kerber is the event’s top seed, as one of three former champions in the main draw.

2) Top seed, but not No.1 (for now).
Though Kerber will drop to World No.2 in the rankings on Monday, the German has a chance to reclaim the top spot in the WTA rankings should she reach the semifinals this week.

3) Good things come in threes.
Kerber could be the fourth player to three-peat in the history of the tournament, dating back to when Tracy Austin and Martina Navratilova did it at the event’s beginnings in Filderstadt. Maria Sharapova also won three straight tiles from 2012-14.

4) Siegemund sneaks in.
Last year’s runner-up Laura Siegemund earned the final wildcard to this year’s tournament at the 11th hour – the World No.37 was tabbed as the final entrant prior to Saturday morning’s draw.

5) Sharapova says hello.
The aforementioned three-time Stuttgart champion Maria Sharapova returns to the WTA this week.

6) An epic rematch first up.
Though both are unseeded, the first round match between Kristina Mladenovic and Mirjana Lucic-Baroni promises to have fireworks. The two have met already on clay this season, as the Croat took a marathon 4-6, 6-4, 7-6(13) victory in Charleston earlier this spring.

7) Game, set, match – for the first time.
Two of the event’s top 8 seeds will be looking to break a losing spell in Stuttgart this week. The No.6 seed and a wildcard in the event, Johanna Konta is 0-2 in her career at the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix, while No.3 seed Dominika Cibulkova has fallen in the first round in each of her four appearances.

8) Welcome back, welcome back, welcome back.
Several WTA stars will be returning to Stuttgart for the first time in a while this week, as Cibulkova makes her first appearance in the tournament since 2012, while Mirjana Lucic-Baroni plays the event for the first time in three years. Latvia’s Anastasija Sevastova plays just her second Porsche Tennis Grand Prix, having fallen in the first round in 2011, and her first-round foe, 2010 runner-up Samantha Stosur appears for the first time since 2013.

9) Compatriots to do battle to commence play.
Two first-round matches will see countrywomen face off, as Elena Vesnina will play Daria Kasatkina — and the winner of the all-Russian showdown will face either Garbiñe Muguruza or Carla Suárez Navarro, who face each other in an all-Spanish clash.

10) Show your colors, then head to Stuttgart.
Nine players who will feature in the main draw are also donning their country’s colors this weekend – Kerber, Vesnina, Kasatkina, Siegemund, Johanna Konta, Simona Halep and CoCo Vandeweghe.

MELBOURNE, Australia – She originally immigrated to the UK at the age of 14 because of the distance between Australia and her new tennis training base in Europe. But throughout the Australian Open fortnight, that same distance has served well to keep the pressure off of the shoulders of British semifinalist Johanna Konta.

“The UK is a number of thousands of miles away and a completely different time zone, which in this case it might be quite nice,” Konta said, speaking of the growing buzz around her wins Down Under. “I think whatever pressure or whatever buzz there is outside, it only affects me as much as I let it.”

The always-cool Konta might remain unaffected, but there’s good reason for all the buzz.

She was the first British player since Jo Durie in 1984 to reach the quarterfinals of a Grand Slam, and with her win over Zheng Shuai she’s matched another of Durie’s milestones: making a Grand Slam final four, which Durie achieved at the 1983 US Open.

Now, she’s one win away from becoming the first British finalist in a Slam since Virginia Wade won Wimbledon in 1977.

“I don’t know Jo Durie or Sue Barker or any of the others who’ve been this far,” Konta admitted to the press after her win against Zhang. “But I’ll definitely make a concerted effort to find out more about them. It’s on the to-do list to become more informed.”

Konta displayed her potential with her impressive 2015 performance, improving her ranking by 103 spots to end the year at No.47 and produced several upsets along the way, notching wins over Garbiñe Muguruza and Andrea Petkovic at the US Open and over Victoria Azarenka and Simona Halep in Wuhan.

But for Konta, who was nominated for WTA Most Improved Player, the focus isn’t on making history or headlines- just continuing her steady upward climb to the top.

“I’m not really thinking about accumulating ‘wow’ moments, just solid experiences,” Konta said. “I just look at the way I live every single day and the way I want to compete in every single match. It’s about doing my job.”

The last Brit to make the Australian Open semifinals was Sue Barker in 1977, back when the tournament was held in December and the 32-player draw was dominated by Australians.

How does Barker feel about Konta batting away so many long-held records?

“I feel sorry for her having so many records thrown at her and it’s upsetting that it has taken so long to break the ones that were set in my era,” Sue Barker said to The Times. “Most other countries would be upset if they didn’t have a woman in a quarterfinal for a couple of years.”

“There has been a void in British women’s tennis for so long but now Johanna Konta has filled it.”

CINCINNATI, OH, USA – Croatian qualifier Donna Vekic snapped a six-month long losing streak to knock out 2014 finalist Ana Ivanovic out of the Western & Southern Open in straight sets, 6-4, 6-2.

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

“I’m very happy – I’ve played a great three matches and I’m happy to be through to the second round,” Vekic said after the match.

The only previous time Vekic played Ivanovic, the match ended in a lopsided straight sets victory for the Serbian. But now with more experience, and with three matches in Cincinnati already under her belt in the qualifying rounds, Vekic came out looking more match fit and playing aggressively.

Vekic’s big forehand gave Ivanovic plenty of trouble throughout the match. The Croat earned a double break lead early on to build a 5-1 lead. Though the former No.1 eventually looked to be finding her rhythm and even got a break back to cut into Vekic’s lead, she wasn’t able to keep the unforced errors out of her game and Vekic took the first set 6-4.

She opened the following set with another break, punching back an Ivanovic volley with a deep cross court forehand. A lackadaisical backhand from Ivanovic drifted just wide and gave Vekic her first match point, on Ivanovic’s serve at 5-1, but the Serb held on after a pair of big serves and aggressive baseline play. Vekic took the match at the second time of asking, sealing it with a big inside-out forehand.

“I’ve played [Ivanovic] before and I know her,” Vekic said. “I just played my best tennis tonight and it was enough – I’m happy.”

Once ranked as high as No.62, Vekic has struggled with finding her form in recent months. With her win over Ivanovic, she’s well on her way to finding it again. She’s snapped a losing streak dating back to February – the 20-year-old hadn’t won a WTA-level main draw match since her first round win in Doha.

She faces another big task ahead in the form of British No.1 Johanna Konta in the second round. The No.10 seeded Konta sits at a career-high ranking of World No.13 after a spate of great results that has seen her reach the quarterfinals or better in seven events so far this year.

“I’m just gonna get back out there on the practice court and try to keep up my level,” Vekic said of the matchup. “Hopefully that’ll be enough again.”

CINCINNATI, OHIO, USA – CoCo Vandeweghe has been around the world, and can now add the Olympics to her global passport.

Straight from a thrilling three-set win over Sara Errani, Vandeweghe sat down with WTA Insider to discuss victory over the Italian veteran and her wild week in Rio for the Olympic tennis event on the first of our Daily Dispatches from the last major tournament of the Emirates Airlines US Open Series:

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