Tennis News

Courtney Nguyen, Point: Earlier this week, Petra Kvitova was asked what she would take from the 2016 season into next year. With her typical brand of understated wit, Kvitova said simply, “Myself.”

This has been a season of discovery for the two-time major champion, and she has a chance on Sunday to cap off her WTA season on a winning note. She parted ways with her long-time coach David Kotyza in January and has spent the year in search of herself, both on and off the court. The Kvitova who was a mainstay in the Top 10 and constant threat was nowhere to be found in the first seven months of the season, as the Czech sputtered to a 16-15 record, capped off with a disappointing second-round exit at her beloved Wimbledon.

The loss seemed to jolt something within Kvitova. Her form steadily improved over the summer hardcourt season, highlighted by Olympic bronze in Rio. Then came a semifinal run at the Connecticut Open and her first Round of 16 showing at a Slam in a year at the US Open. After a loss to eventual champion Angelique Kerber in New York, Kvitova fell to No.16 in the rankings, her lowest mark since 2011.

Then, as if finally unencumbered from expectation or pressure, Kvitova found her game in Asia. En route to her third final in her last four tournaments, Kvitova has resumed her near-unstoppable form in China. The signs of a resurgence began at the Dongfeng Motor Wuhan Open in September, where she beat No.1 Angelique Kerber and proceeded to blitz the field to win her first title of the season. Since her 16-15 start to the season, Kvitova is now 29-7 since Wimbledon.

Playing in her first Huajin Securities WTA Elite Trophy Zhuhai as the No.3 seed, Kvitova has been the most dominant presence in the field this week in Zhuhai, rolling to the final without losing a set and spending just over three hours on court to win her three matches. Kvitova is 18-7 in finals, having won 8 of her last 11. Svitolina is 4-1 in finals, having split the two she’s played this year, winning Kuala Lumpur and losing in New Haven. The Ukrainian has yet to beat a Top 15 player in a final.

The Czech lefty has won five of her six meetings against Elina Svitolina, who is playing in the biggest final of her career on Sunday. The two played a few weeks ago in Wuhan and Kvitova won easily, 6-3, 6-1.

“With Svitolina I knew if I put the pressure on her, when she’s under the pressure she’s not playing as well as she is,” Kvitova said after beating Zhang Shuai in the semifinals on Saturday. Of course it’s always difficult to put a pressure on her because she is serving and returning well.”

An in-form Kvitova on a fast, low-bouncing court is a tough match-up for anyone on any given day, and it’s an even tougher task for Svitolina, who does not have the weapons off the ground to push Kvitova back. Unless Svitolina can keep consistent depth on her groundstrokes, this is going to be hitting practice for Kvitova. If Petra is on, it’s hard to see her losing this match.

David Kane, Counterpoint: Consistent depth is exactly what was on display during the second semifinal in Zhuhai. Svitolina of defensive memory was stepping into the court and taking big cuts on second serve returns against top seed Johanna Konta, winning five of the last six games to defeat the Brit, 2-6, 6-1, 6-4.

The Ukrainian youngster was the only player to have dropped a set en route to the semis. Some might say she struggled; Svitolina would say she’s been tested.

“I’ve won a lot of three-set matches, and I play good when the matches get long,” she said on Saturday night. “She came up with some good returns, couple of good returns, and I was under pressure.

“I was trying to say to myself, ‘Come on. This game is very important, the return, to put pressure back and to try to get back in the game.”

She heads into the biggest final of her young career with two wins of reigning World No.1s in 2016: Serena Williams at the Olympic tennis event, and Angelique Kerber at the China Open. Some credit the contributions of Hall of Famer Justine Henin; Svitolina looks more towards the physical improvements made since Wimbledon, all thanks to a new fitness coach.

“At this stage, when we’re already on a high level, you need to improve everything just a little bit,” she told WTA Insider earlier in the week. “Small details matter a lot; you just need to take time to adapt to new things. It’s very important because whenever you change something mentally or in your preparation, you have to know it’ll take time to show up on the court.

“You just need to be patient.”

Svitolina will need some of that patience against Kvitova, who has struck winners at will through much of her three match wins over Roberta Vinci, Barbora Strycova, and Zhang Shuai. The Czech star has left opponents flatfooted as she blistered shots from the back of the court. Across the net, the World No.14 has attempted to employ the sort of mind games seen from Svetlana Kuznetsova earlier in the Asian Swing.

“It’s the last tournament. I’m trying to think that I still have couple tournaments ahead of me. When you think about your last tournament you start to be really down in energy. You start to think about Maldives or something,” she joked, referring to her inevitable off-season destination.

“I try to enjoy the moment. I think it helped in the first match when I was down the first set. Staying in the moment really helps me a lot.”

Some might say she has a tough road ahead of her against Kvitova; Svitolina sees it “step by step.”

“I’ll need to react really fast and look for my opportunities,” she said when asked about Sunday’s final. “Just stay in the moment, because you never know when the opportunity is going to come.

“I will try just to focus on each point and we will see.”

– All photos courtesy of WTA Elite Trophy

MOSCOW, Russia – As the last Premier-level event of the year and the last tournament before the BNP Paribas WTA Finals Singapore presented by SC Global, the Kremlin Cup has been witness to many last-minute qualification campaigns from hopefuls looking to claim the final spots into the WTA’s season-ending event.

This year is no different, with a three-way battle royale set to play out over the eighth spot.

“We all know that VTB Kremlin Cup is the last chance to get into WTA Finals in Singapore,” Carla Suárez Navarro admitted during her WTA All Access Hour.

Defending champion and top seed Svetlana Kuznetsova and No.2 seed Suárez Navarro are on a collision course in Moscow, and the stage looks set for a finals day showdown with more than just the title at stake. If Kuznetsova or Suárez Navarro walk away with the Kremlin Cup crown, they’ll qualify for the WTA Finals.

However, Johanna Konta looms in background; if Kuznetsova and Suárez Navarro fail to claim the title then Konta – who is not competing this week – takes the eighth Singapore spot by default.

But if they’re feeling any pressure, both players are quick to shrug it off and focus on the task at hand.

“If I win the tournament, it would be amazing and that’s what I am expecting,” Kuznetsova said during her All Access Hour. “But I don’t want to go that far ahead. My goal is to concentrate for tomorrow. I know I will to my best and to fight in every match.”

“There are a lot of good players [here in the draw],” Suárez Navarro shrugged. “Every match will be tough for sure, I don’t think too much about Singapore.”

Kuznetsova took a last-minute wildcard in order to defend her title – and make a last-minute push for Singapore – though she explained that it was due to a scheduling error, and not a late change of heart.

“There’s a lot of talks around, but I am concentrated on my schedule and if I feel I can do it and want to play here. I really wanted to be here. I just didn’t choose the right time to sign in,” the Russian explained with a rueful smile.

“I am a tennis player and want to concentrate on every match and to show a good level of the game,” she added. “If I get in, it’s good. But I am more concentrated on my performance here.”

For Suárez Navarro, the situation is all too familiar. Last year, she made the trip from Beijing to Moscow and fell just short of qualifying for the Finals.

This time, the Spaniard is keen to change the outcome, especially since her fortunes rest completely on her racquet.

“Some players do follow the results of others, but it is not my case, it all depends on me,” she explained. “Probably because it is the end of the year, I don’t think about other tournaments. I should play match after match and it won’t be easy for me.”

“But I feel better this year, I have more experience.”

Earning her spot thanks to a title run at the Generali Ladies Linz – her third of the season – Dominika Cibulkova heads to the BNP Paribas WTA Finals Singapore presented by SC Global to finish what she started two seasons ago.

“In 2014 I was very close [to Singapore], and that’s what made me very intense and want it too much,” she told WTA Insider after winning in Eastbourne. “I was over-motivated and it didn’t happen.”

Cibulkova had long been among the toughest outs in tennis when a run to the 2014 Australian Open final – in which she ousted Maria Sharapova and Agnieszka Radwanska en route – boosted the boisterous veteran into a new stratosphere. She who thrived as a chaser suddenly became the chased.

“Playing in the finals of a Grand Slam is a big thing. I think the other players always respected me, but when you earn a big result play a consistently high level of tennis, you become one of the best in the world.”

Adjusting to Elite Eight levels of expectation proved a slow process, as the specter of a WTA Finals debut weighed the typically fleet of foot Slovak down throughout the second half of that season.

“If you get in your head, I don’t think you can do well,” she mused at the Western & Southern Open’s All-Access Hour in August. “Whenever I really, really want to win, I never do.”

Eager to shake off the letdown, she gamely backed up her Melbourne run to start 2015, dismissing former No.1 Victoria Azarenka in one of the best matches of the year en route to the quarterfinals.

All the while, Cibulkova soldiered on with a chronic Achilles injury; initially planning to postpone the surgery until autumn, the Slovak was suddenly off the circuit after Antwerp, returning after a four month stretch that ultimately set her back a year.

“It wasn’t easy to come back. I was around No.60 or No.70 in the world, and facing top players in the first round because you’re not seeded. You really have to play well to get back to where you were before, and I think that’s the hardest part.

“If you can manage that, then I think it shows you’re a good player.”

Cibulkova steadied herself at smaller events, reaching the semifinals in Hobart and the final of Acapulco. But the headline-grabbing upsets for which she’d become famous eluded her through the spring, failing to convert a match point against Agnieszka Radwanska at the BNP Paribas Open, and losing in similar style to Garbiñe Muguruza at the Miami Open.

“I was waiting for something at the big tournaments because at Indian Wells and Miami, I lost really close matches,” she said at the Mutua Madrid Open. “Playing in Katowice helped me quite a lot; I actually didn’t want to go there, but when I lost in the second round of Miami, I sat down with my coach and we said, ‘I’m playing well; I just want to go there and play matches.'”

Five wins and a first title in two years at the Katowice Open was the kickstart Cibulkova craved; she avenged the Indian Wells loss to Radwanska to reach the finals in Madrid, and arrives in Singapore having won her last three matches against the reigning WTA Finals winner, including a Wimbledon thriller that will likely be another match-of-the-year candidate.

“I was able to play well because I could enjoy my tennis without stressing too much,” she said in Stanford, attributing the shift to sessions with a mental coach.

“It’s something that’s helped a lot,” she explained to WTA Insider in Eastbourne. “Now I realize everything I’m doing on the court, and I’m doing it with purpose. I don’t lose my emotions so much.

“I’m not saying it’ll be like this all the time because nothing is perfect, but I hope to keep it like this as long as I can.”

Tied with Radwanska at 49 match wins (second behind World No.1 Angelique Kerber), the Slovak newlywed leads the tour in three-set wins and is 5-3 against the Top 10, a group she rejoined for the first time since the her surgery after reaching the final of the Dongfeng Motor Wuhan Open.

“I played really well during the whole year on all surfaces,” she noted in press that week. “It’s just something, where maybe I’m more mature and just doing things better. That’s what helps make me be a more consistent player, and that’s what I’ve always wanted to be.”

Up to a career-high of No.8, the sky’s the limit for Cibulkova, who’ll aim to be better than her best in the last tournament of the season.

“I’m not the tallest player on tour. I always say I need to have something extra to beat these players or even be on the same level. Fitness is one of my things. I need to be more than hundred percent. My physical preparation is really, really hard and tough because I need to be ready more than the other girls who can serve aces and things like that.

“Right now, I’m just playing good tennis, and that’s what keeps me going.”