Insider Live Blog: Roland Garros Final
WTA Insider Courtney Nguyen | Follow along with the French Open final between Serena Williams and Garbiñe Muguruza live on wtatennis.com!
WTA Insider Courtney Nguyen | Follow along with the French Open final between Serena Williams and Garbiñe Muguruza live on wtatennis.com!
World No.2 Serena Williams faced surprise semifinalist Mirjana Lucic-Baroni at the Australian Open.
Venus Williams perfectly summed up what makes sports so special in a powerful answer at her Australian Open press conference.
With the 2016 French Open officially in the books, the WTA Insider team looked back at the entertaining final that saw new World No.2 Garbiñe Muguruza stun 21-time Grand Slam champion Serena Williams for her first major title, and look ahead to the grass court season and all the intriguing storylines that abound heading into Wimbledon.
Can Muguruza replicate last year’s run to the final at the All England Club and avoid the dreaded post-major slump? Will Serena capture the elusive and record-tying 22nd Grand Slam title at her favorite major tournament? How will Victoria Azarenka recover from her injury-addled spring? Can Timea Bacsinszky and Simona Halep turn around disappointing Roland Garros compaigns into grass court success?
All this and more on the latest episode of the WTA Insider Podcast:
Subscribe to the podcast on iTunes or on any podcast app of your choice and reviews are always helpful, so if you like what you’ve heard so far, leave us one. You can also get new episode alerts by following us on Twitter @WTA_Insider.
May was packed with plenty of amazing shots – we narrowed it down to the five best.
In the end it was Simona Halep, who showed off her quick hands and quality anticipation in her third round match against Timea Bacsinszky at the Mutua Madrid Open.
Staring down the barrel of Bacsinszky’s fearsome backhand, Halep dove for a forehand volley and the gamble paid off, helping her go on to win the match and capture her second career Premier Mandatory title.
Click here to watch all of May’s finalists.
Final Results for May’s WTA Shot Of The Month
1. Simona Halep (70%)
2. Irina-Camelia Begu (12%)
3. Serena Williams (7%)
4. Garbiñe Muguruza (6%)
5. Carla Suárez Navarro (5%)
2016 WTA Shot of the Month Winners
January: Caroline Wozniacki
February: Agnieszka Radwanska
March: Agnieszka Radwanska
April: Monica Niculescu
How it works:
Five shots are selected by wtatennis.com
Winner is then determined by a fan vote on wtatennis.com
An interview with Dominika Cibulkova before her opening round match at the St. Petersburg Ladies Trophy.
Top seed Simona Halep made a decisive debut at the St. Petersburg Ladies Trophy, dispatching Croatian teenager Ana Konjuh in straight sets.
Ricoh Open Final Centre Court, noon
Watch live action from Sunday’s ‘s-Hertogenbosch final on WTA Live powered by TennisTV!
[3] Kristina Mladenovic (FRA #32) vs. [6] CoCo Vandeweghe (USA #43)
Head-to-head: Vandeweghe leads 3-0
Final Fact: Vandeweghe has hit 22 aces en route to the final.
Much has been made of American tennis’ new-found love affair with clay. However, many of the country’s contingent on tour still long for the return to the faster surfaces.
Leading this vanguard is CoCo Vandeweghe. A booming serve, a penchant for taking the ball early and a willingness to move up the court make the Californian’s game ideally suited to the hard courts on which she was raised and the grass courts she has grown to love.
The latter is a surface that has brought her much joy, too; in 2014 at ‘s-Hertogenbosch, Vandeweghe came through qualifying to lift her maiden WTA trophy, while at Wimbledon she left a trail of seeds in her wake to reach the 2015 quarterfinals.
On Sunday she returns to the ‘s-Hertogenbosch final, where she will take on Kristina Mladenovic. An accomplished doubles player – she recently won the Roland Garros title with Caroline Garcia and in 2014 reached the Wimbledon final alongside Timea Babos – Mladenovic’s all-court game makes her a danger on grass, as she proved in reaching last year’s Birmingham semifinals.
Mladenovic was impressive in upsetting friend and top seed Belinda Bencic in the semifinals, but will be hard pushed to derail the Vandeweghe juggernaut. Apart from in the second round against Nao Hibino, Vandeweghe is yet to drop serve and has barely looked like dropping a set. The American also has history on her side, having won all three of her previous meetings with Mladenovic, at Dubai, Osaka and in qualifying during her title run at ‘s-Hertogenbosch.
Road To The Final
Kristina Mladenovic
First Round: d. Yaroslava Shvedova, 64 63 (1:32)
Second Round: d. [Q] Natalia Vikhlyantseva, 57 63 64 (2:02)
Quarterfinals: d. [Q] Elise Mertens, 75 63 (1:23)
Semifinals: d. [1] Belinda Bencic, 26 63 64 (2:04)
CoCo Vandeweghe
First Round: d. [WC] Indy de Vroome, 62 64 (1:16)
Second Round: d. Nao Hibino, 62 63 (1:07)
Quarterfinals: d. Evgeniya Rodina, 62 62 (0:59)
Semifinals: d. Madison Brengle, 64 62 (1:12)
CoCo Vandeweghe came to the Australian Open unseeded and under the radar, but all of that changed after a fortnight in Melbourne.
“I think I don’t shy away from a challenge necessarily,” she said after reaching her first Grand Slam semifinal. “I never have. Growing up, I’ve always just been wanting to prove people wrong in a lot of different regards.”
The 25-year-old American started the 2017 season with the goals of reaching a major semifinal and a quarterfinal at a major besides Wimbledon, where she reached the last eight in 2015. By the end of the tournament, she’d achieved all that and more, including a Top 20 debut after knocking out defending champion Angelique Kerber and French Open winner Garbiñe Muguruza in back-to-back straight set matches.
“I’m very happy with starting the year this way, putting validation to the hard work that I’ve put in in the off-season, the sacrifices, all the good stuff like that.
“But, you know, at the same time I’m not satisfied. Like I said, I mean, there’s a disappointment factor because I’m not satisfied. I think that’s a good thing.”
Looking to build on her major breakthrough, Vandeweghe is your Breakthrough Player of the Month!
Final Results for January’s WTA Breakthrough Performance Of The Month
1. CoCo Vandeweghe (50%)
2. Elise Mertens (28%)
3. Katerina Siniakova (16%)
4. Lauren Davis (6%)
2016 Breakthrough Performance Of The Month Winners
January: Zhang Shuai
February: Jelena Ostapenko
March: Nicole Gibbs
April: Cagla Buyukakcay
May: Kiki Bertens
June: Elena Vesnina
July: Kristina Kucova
August: Karolina Pliskova
September: Naomi Osaka
October: Peng Shuai
How it works:
Finalists are selected by wtatennis.com
Winner is then determined by a fan vote on wtatennis.com
An interview with Petra Kvitova before the start of the Aegon Classic Birmingham.