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Twitter Reacts: Muguruza-Mania

  • Posted: Jan 01, 1970

PARIS, France – The well-wishes keep pouring in for first-time Grand Slam winner Garbiñe Muguruza, who grabbed the Roland Garros title by defeating Serena Williams in straight sets on Saturday.

Social media was all a-twitter for the 22-year-old. First up, a few words from the champion herself:

 From WTA to ATP players to the biggest sports stars of Spain and the world, check out what everyone else had to say about the Spainard’s victory!

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Mladenovic Battles Into Den Bosch QFs

Mladenovic Battles Into Den Bosch QFs

  • Posted: Jan 01, 1970

‘S-HERTOGENBOSCH, Netherlands – No.3 seed Kristina Mladenovic battled through fatigue and a surging Russian qualifier Natalia Vikhlyantseva to reach the quarterfinals at the Ricoh Open, 5-7, 6-3, 6-4.

Watch live action from ‘s-Hertogenbosch this week on WTA Live powered by TennisTV!

Mladenovic acknowledged that the quick turnaround from the Roland Garros clay – where on Saturday she won a Grand Slam doubles title with partner Caroline Garcia – to the grass of ‘s-Hertogenbosch was tough on her. In fact, it left her participation in the Ricoh Open up in the air.

“I have to be honest, I’m a bit surprised to be in the quarterfinals here,” Mladenovic admitted. “But I love the tournament, grass is one of my favorite surfaces.

“I was thinking about maybe pulling out, because obviously there is fatigue. I’m a bit tired, but I wanted to commit because I love this tournament and that’s why I keep coming back a couple of years in a row.”

Standing between Mladenovic and the quarterfinals was Russian qualifier Vikhlyantseva, who last round scored an upset to oust Denisa Allertova. Vikhlyantseva played far above her No.254 ranking to take the first set from the Frenchwoman, breaking twice to rattle off the last four consecutive games and take it 7-5.

The Frenchwoman grabbed an early break in the second set to rally to a 5-2 lead. Despite Vikhlyantseva getting one back, Mladenovic closed her out at her next chance, 6-3. In the deciding set, Mladenovic again felt pushback from Vikhlyantseva, staying toe to toe with her all the way to 4-4 before pulling away to take the match and her spot in the quarterfinals.

Mladenovic chalked up her first set stumble in part to the unknown factor of playing a new opponent for the first time, although the only thing she’s thinking about now is a well-deserved break.

“I didn’t know much about her,” she said of the 19-year-old Russian. “She’s very young and seems to be very talented and not easy to play on grass. Not much rallying and she has good serve. But I just had to dig in there.”

“To be honest, I’m very satisfied to be into the quarters tomorrow. I guess I will have a day off to try to recover – I still feel like I’m on clay in Roland Garros!”

2014 champion CoCo Vandeweghe is also through to the quarterfinals of the Ricoh Open. Despite an innocuous-looking scoreline of 6-2, 6-3 over Nao Hibino, Vandeweghe survived a doozy with six break of serve in the first set alone. In the second set, she rattled off six straight games to turn around a 3-0 deficit.

“Today was a very tricky day for me, mentally,” Vandeweghe said afterward. “I wasn’t as focused as I would like to be. But I managed to overcome it today.

“That’s kind of the name of the game, to just keep moving on, keep going through the second round.”

Also through are Belgian qualifier Elise Mertens, who defeated Aleksandra Krunic 6-4, 7-6(3); and Madison Brengle, who edged through in a battle against Dutch favorite Richel Hogenkamp, 7-5, 5-7, 7-5.

CoCo Vandeweghe

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WTA Breakthrough Of The Month: Bertens

  • Posted: Jan 01, 1970

Few were as stunned by Kiki Bertens’ Cinderella run to the semifinals of Roland Garros than Bertens herself. The Dutch star celebrated her almost improbable quarterfinal win over No.8 seed Timea Bacsinszky with a shrug.

“I was like, Can you believe it? Because I cannot. And also my parents were like, No, this is not happening. But, yeah, it is.”

Her run of 12 straight wins – not including a doubles victory over the Williams sisters – began as a qualifier at the NÜRNBERGER VERSICHERUNGSCUP, which she won before reaching the second week of a Grand Slam for just the second time in her career, all but guaranteeing her spot on the Dutch Olympic team at the upcoming Summer Games in Rio de Janeiro.

“I think in the preseason I did a lot of work. Like the first three weeks was only physical practices, like two, sometimes three times a day.

“It was a hell really, but I’m really glad we did it. Like with my whole team we were working really hard every day.”

For all of those reasons, Bertens is your Breakthrough Player of the Month!

Final Results for May’s WTA Breakthrough Performance Of The Month

1. Kiki Bertens (69%)
2. Shelby Rogers (16%)
3. Yulia Putintseva (12%)
4. Louisa Chirico (3%)

2016 Breakthrough Performance Of The Month Winners

January: Zhang Shuai
February: Jelena Ostapenko
March: Nicole Gibbs
April: Cagla Buyukakcay

How it works:

Finalists are selected by wtatennis.com
Winner is then determined by a fan vote on wtatennis.com

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News | WTA Tennis English

  • Posted: Jan 01, 1970

INDIAN WELLS, CA, USA – Kristina Mladenovic is happy to have found a new doubles partner in the highly experienced Russian grand slam champion, Svetlana Kuznetsova.

It was something of a shock when Mladenovic announced that she and Caroline Garcia were putting an end to their doubles ambitions for the foreseeable future.

Mladenovic and Kuznetsova got their partnership off to the best of starts at the BNP Paribas Open, defeating Anna-Lena Groenefeld and Kveta Peschke 6-4, 6-1. They next face Andrea Hlavackova and Peng Shuai in the second round.

The French pairing of Mladenovic and Garcia enjoyed no shortage of doubles success, winning the French Open in 2016 as well as being runners-up at the US Open later in the same year.

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News | WTA Tennis English

  • Posted: Jan 01, 1970

INDIAN WELLS, CA, USA – Reigning French Open champion Garbiñe Muguruza came through a tense finish against Kirsten Flipkens, 6-2, 6-3, in her opening round match at the BNP Paribas Open. Up next for the No.7 seed is 17-year-old Kayla Day, who stunned Australian Open semifinalist Mirjana Lucic-Baroni in three sets.

“I think it was a difficult match,” she said during her post-match press conference. “I think she’s very talented and she can hit some critical shots and she can be tricky. I’m happy because it was not a first, easy match, like a first round. I don’t know. It was a big win for me, actually.”

Muguruza had split her first four meetings with the 2013 Wimbledon semifinalist, losing both of their meetings on grass. But hardcourts have proved more fertile ground for the Spaniard, who won her third straight match against her rival on concrete after 90 minutes on court.

“I think grass is a very tricky surface; you never know what’s gonna happen,” the 2015 Wimbledon runner-up said during her on-court interview. “I just played my game; sometimes she plays better, sometimes I do – that’s what tennis is! – but I played better today.”

Racing out to a set and 5-0 lead, things got more complicated from there as Flipkens forced her way into the second set. Ultimately, Muguruza broke through for the sixth and final time in the match, striking 24 winners to 28 unforced errors, and came to the net an impressive 33 times – winning 21 of those points.

“It’s always difficult to close out your first match. She’s a very talented player, unbelievable, with a very different game. I got nervous!”

Muguruza is making her fifth appearance in Indian Wells, and hopes to make the quarterfinals; her previous result came on her 2013 debut, when she reached the fourth round as a qualifier.

“I never know my expectations for the tournament. I believe every time I play the tournament I see myself holding a trophy, for sure. I want to believe I’m one of these women that can win the tournament.

“After that, I could lose in third round. I just want to go out there, my next match, and try to play well, try to do my game.”

Standing between her and a second round of 16 run is Day, the American teenager who survived No.32 seed Lucic-Baroni, 6-4, 5-7, 7-5.

“This means a lot to me,” Day told press. “I was really grateful to get offered this wildcard into the tournament, and it really means a lot that I can be able to see that I can play with some of the best players in the world.”

Lucic-Baroni retired from her last tournament due to a GI illness, but nonetheless served for the match in the final set.

“It was a really close match throughout the entire match. I think I started to really believe I could win at 6-5 in the third. It was still a really tough game, because I was a little bit tight to close it out. But my serve had been giving her a lot of problems, so I knew if I stuck to my game it might work out.”

Day turned heads last summer when she took home her first Grand Slam title at the US Open girl’s singles event, and withstood the Croat’s firepower to win the final four games of the match and book a meeting with Muguruza.

“She’s such a great player. I’m really excited to go out there and play her, one of the greatest in the game right now, so it should be really fun and a great experience for me.”

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News | WTA Tennis English

News | WTA Tennis English

  • Posted: Jan 01, 1970

INDIAN WELLS, CA, USA – Kayla Day has a beaming smile, one of those smiles which lights up a face, and while this week in the desert has given her plenty to smile about, it seems that she’s the kind of person who doesn’t need many excuses to crack out a grin.

When asked to describe herself in one word she chooses “hilarious”. The 17-year-old admits to being “pretty funny, I’m serious sometimes but I like to crack jokes a lot and laugh.” She clearly enjoys life and with the kind of impressive talent that saw her take out No. 32 seed Mirjana Lucic-Baroni on her way to the third round at the BNP Paribas Open, there is plenty to be happy about.

The California native first picked up a racket at the age of seven after watching her mom play in a women’s interclub match. She thought tennis looked ‘fun’ and subsequently signed up for a week’s tennis camp, loving it so much she ended up playing ‘every day all summer’ before locking in to regular lessons in her hometown of Santa Barbara.

Kayla Day, Mirjana Lucic-Baroni

A few years later she started making the four-hour round trip to Carson twice a week with her mom and she still trains there today under the watchful eye of Henner Nehles.

“My dream was always to be a professional but I really started thinking about it when I was 15,” said Day, who won the first Grand Slam match she played when she defeated Madison Brengle at last year’s US Open. That victory set up a second round meeting with Madison Keys on Louis Armstrong Stadium.

“It was such a good experience. I mean, I got two matches,” said the lefthander. “I got to play one of the great American players right now, Madison Keys. And I got to play on such a big court, and that was the first time I had ever been on such a big court.”

It was quite a fortnight for Day who claimed her first Junior Grand Slam title at the same event and also finished as runner-up in the girls’ doubles competition with Caroline Dolehide. Her junior successes ensured she ascended to World No. 1 in the junior rankings – a position she hopes to hold one day in the senior ranks, although she is having to practice the art of patience in the pursuit of her career dreams.

Kayla Day

“I want my results to come, like, now. I want everything to be as fast as possible,” she admitted. “I think my coach is really good about telling me, like, focus on the process and improving and the results will come.”

Day is bubbly and confident and seems to be taking her success in her stride. She certainly doesn’t struggle for motivation either, divulging she was almost too psyched for her meeting with Lucic-Baroni.

“Before a match I either go Maroon 5 mellow or really pump out Kanye West or Jay Z,” she revealed. “Before I got in the car [to go to the courts] I was all pumped up and then I got in the car and I was like, man, I’m a little too pumped up, maybe I should mellow it down so I went Maroon 5 right before I went out there.”

As well as enjoying music, Day is a big fan of Stephen King novels and Netflix series like Grey’s Anatomy and The Vampire Diaries. Her non-tennis talents include speaking fluent Czech, thanks to her mom who was born and raised in the Czech Republic, and making a good butternut squash soup.

– Photos courtesy of Getty Images

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