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News | WTA Tennis English

  • Posted: Jan 01, 1970

INDIAN WELLS, CA, USA – CiCi Bellis will be looking to continue her meteoric rise to tennis superstardom as the American teenager enters a star-studded field at this week’s BNP Paribas Open.

Following on from some impressive victories of late, including a win over Agnieszka Radwanska to become the youngest quarterfinalist at the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships since 2001, Bellis has climbed to No.55 in the WTA rankings and a certain Chris Evert thinks it won’t be long before the precocious talent rises even higher.

“There are a handful of players who are going to overpower her right now, but by the end of the year I wouldn’t be surprised if she was Top 20,” Evert said in a recent interview with the NY Times.

“Her legs are rock hard. I think the off-court training has helped her a lot. Two years ago, she would counterpunch and would sort of absorb power from her opponent, and now she’s giving it.”

It’s hard to believe that Bellis will only turn 18 on April 8. But Evert, who has been mentoring Bellis through a USTA program, has been impressed with a maturity and willingness to learn that could take her to the very top of the game.

“I’ve been so impressed by her maturity and self-reliance and just the hunger she has to learn. Her eyes are wide open to any information that you can give her. Bottom line is no drama. Some of these other girls, when they are practicing, it’s yelling and up and down and emotions and body language, and with her, it’s steadfast.”

Bellis is set to play Belgium’s Kirsten Flipkens in the opening round of her first Indian Wells and, if successful, will face French Open Champion Garbiñe Muguruza in the second round.

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News | WTA Tennis English

News | WTA Tennis English

  • Posted: Jan 01, 1970

Angelique Kerber says the boldest decision she ever made came when she was 17 and decided to play tennis professionally.

Her comments reflect the theme of this year’s International Women’s Day: ‘Be Bold For Change’.

“The toughest decision I made was when I was 17, and I decided to start to play tennis [professionally],” she reveals in an exclusive WTA interview. “I was not able to get through to the university and of course when you are 17 years old that’s always a tough decision, because you don’t know how far you can get and what’s happening the next year.”

Angelique Kerber

It was very much a decision that paid off for the 29-year-old, who enjoyed the best year of her career in 2016. In addition to finishing the year at No.1 in the WTA rankings (making it five years in a row in the Top 10), there was double Grand Slam success at the Australian Open and US Open, plus a WTA win in Stuttgart.

On top of that, there were finals at Brisbane, Wimbledon, Cincinnati and the year-end BNP Paribas WTA Finals Singapore presented by SC Global, and a silver medal at the Olympics in Rio.

International Women’s Day falls on March 8 every year, and celebrates the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women.

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Naomi Broady's Dramatic Comeback

Naomi Broady's Dramatic Comeback

  • Posted: Jan 01, 1970

Drama. The 2016 WTA season already has plenty of it.

A day after notching the biggest win of her career, Britain’s Naomi Broady saved two match points and rallied from 5-2 down in the second set and 5-1 down in the final set to beat Jelena Ostapenko, 4-6, 7-6(4), 7-5 to advance to the quarterfinals of the ASB Classic in Auckland.

Powering down 21 aces, No.122 Broady saved a match point in both the second and third sets to make her second WTA quarterfinal (2015 Québec City). The win came less than 24 hours after she scored her first Top 20 win, beating No.2 seed Ana Ivanovic 7-5, 6-4 behind another top-notch serving performance, hitting 14 aces in the match and serving at 68%.

Beyond Broady’s gutsy comeback, which was aided by a nervous attempt to close the match by the 18-year-old Latvian wildcard – she served for the match three times – controversy nearly derailed the match late in the second set.

At 2-2 in the tiebreaker, Ostapenko ran to chase down a backhand and flung her racket towards the backstop. The racquet bounced off the ground and hit a nearby ballboy. Broady was incensed, believing that Ostapenko should be defaulted from the match for hitting the ballboy. The chair umpire issued a code violation to Ostapenko and the Latvian then pled her case, arguing that the racket slipped out of her hand.

With tempers at a boil, Broady was able to hold onto her lead in the tie-break to force a third but quickly fell behind. Finding some of her best form, Ostapenko settled down and took control from the baseline, running the rangy Brit from side-to-side to open the court and earn errors.

But from 5-1 up, Ostapenko got tight. Her shots began to fall shorter, giving Broady plenty of chances to take big swings with her forehand. Ostapenko’s serve, already shaky for much of the match – she hit 13 double-faults to four aces – increasingly became a liability. From 5-1 down in the final frame, Broady reeled off six straight games to seal the upset.

The two continued to trade verbal volleys after the match, both during the handshake and afterwards. On-court microphones picked up Broady telling Ostapenko after the handshake, “You hit the ballboy with your racket!” before returning to the court to salute the crowd.

Broady took to Twitter after the match to clarify her side of things:

Needless to say, 2016 has not been short of fireworks. Broady plays Sloane Stephens in then quarterfinals after the American needed three sets to beat Carina Witthoeft, 3-6, 6-1, 6-3.

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