Serena Withdraws From Indian Wells, Miami
23-time Grand Slam champion Serena Williams announced her withdrawal from both the BNP Paribas Open and Miami Open due to a left knee injury.
23-time Grand Slam champion Serena Williams announced her withdrawal from both the BNP Paribas Open and Miami Open due to a left knee injury.
Monica Puig takes on Danielle Collins in the first round of the BNP Paribas Open.
Jelena Ostapenko scored her first win at the BNP Paribas Open while Monica Niculescu emerged victorious from an all-Romanian clash – catch up on more Day 1 results right here.
LONDON, England – On Saturday afternoon Serena Williams tied Steffi Graf’s long-standing Open Era record of 22 Grand Slam titles with victory over Angelique Kerber in the Wimbledon final.
To celebrate the historic feat, wtatennis.com is going to run down 22 of the more memorable numbers from a truly remarkable career…
750,000 – The amount in dollars Serena received for winning her first major, the 1999 US Open; the prize money for victory at this year’s Wimbledon was around $2,590,000
346 – It has taken Serena 346 matches to win her 22 majors; Graf won her 22nd title (1999 Roland Garros) in her 303rd match
304 – Serena has the second-most Grand Slam match wins in Open Era with 304 (Martina Navratilova 306)
83 – At all four Grand Slam tournaments, Serena has an 83% or better winning percentage: Australian Open (74-10, 88%), Roland Garros (60-12, 83%, Wimbledon 66-10, 90%), US Open (84-10, 89%)
79 – Serena has won nearly 79% of her 28 Grand Slam finals. Her only defeats came at the 2001 US Open (to Venus Williams), 2004 Wimbledon (to Maria Sharapova), 2008 Wimbledon (to Venus Williams), 2011 US Open (to Sam Stosur), 2016 Australian Open (to Kerber) and 2016 Roland Garros (to Garbiñe Muguruza). This is the second-best winning percentage in the Open Era after Court (11-1)
64 – Remarkably, Serena has won more than a third of the 64 Grand Slams that she has contested
30 – Nine of Serena’s 22 majors have come after turning 30; by winning the Wimbledon final, Williams (who is 34 years and 287 days old at the end of the tournament) also broke her own record as the oldest Open Era Grand Slam champion
22 – She has now equaled Steffi Graf’s Open Era record of 22 Grand Slam titles and moved within touching distance of Margaret Court’s all-time leading tally of 24
20 – Since Serena lifted the 1999 US Open, 20 different women have tasted Grand Slam success
18 – The age Serena won her first Grand Slam title, at the 1999 US Open
16 – Serena has the longest winning span between majors of any woman in the Open Era at 16 years and 10 months between 1999 US Open and 2016 Wimbledon (Chris Evert, Navratilova and Graf had 12-year spans)
14 – Of her 22 Slam final victories, 14 have come in straight sets
12 – This fortnight Serena was playing her 22nd major as the No.1 seed. She has won 12 of them
9 – Nine of Serena’s Grand Slam titles have come alongside current coach Patrick Mouratoglou
8 – Serena won eight straight Grand Slam singles finals between 2012 Wimbledon and 2015 Wimbledon; losses on each side were 2011 US Open (Samantha Stosur) and 2016 Australian Open (Kerber)
7 – Victory over Kerber brought Serena her seventh title at Wimbledon – her most successful Grand Slam venue; she has six titles at both the Australian and US Opens, and three at Roland Garros
6 – Serena has successfully defended major titles on six occasions during her career: 2003 Wimbledon, 2010 Australian Open, 2010 Wimbledon, 2013 US Open, 2014 US Open, 2016 Wimbledon
5 – Against Top 5-seeds at Grand Slams Serena has a better record than any other player in the Open Era (minimum five matches), winning 26 and losing just four
4 – On two separate occasions in her career, Serena has held all four Slams simultaneously – 2014 US Open to 2015 Wimbledon, and 2002 Roland Garros to 2003 Australian Open
3 – Third time’s a charm: before Saturday, the only woman in tennis history who had won the third major of a year after losing in the first two finals – as Williams has now done – was Navratilova in 1987
2 – Just two of Serena’s 22 major final wins have come over left-handers (2015 Roland Garros – Lucie Safarova, 2016 Wimbledon – Kerber)
1 – Serena’s only victory at a major as an unseeded player came at the 2007 Australian Open, when she had slipped to No.81 following a series of injuries.
Dominika Cibulkova talks about the BNP Paribas Open.
It’s time to crown June’s WTA Shot Of The Month. There were some incredible shots to choose from this month, and we narrowed it down to the five best – have a look at the nominees in the above video and cast your vote for your favorite shot before voting ends Thursday at 11:59pm ET!
The winner will be announced Friday, July 15.
How it works: five shots are selected by wtatennis.com, and the winner is then determined by a fan vote on wtatennis.com.
Annika Beck battled back from a set down to oust Eugenie Bouchard from the BNP Paribas Open and book a second-round clash with Kristina Mladenovic.
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.
Svetlana and Kiki all happy and such.
They're moving on here in the desert. ?? pic.twitter.com/n6fxTc30EA— Christopher Levy (@tennis_shots) March 9, 2017
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.
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.
.@GarbiMuguruza makes a flying start against Flipkens! #BNPPO17 pic.twitter.com/6H7n5UdXfv
— WTA (@WTA) March 10, 2017
“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.
.@GarbiMuguruza at her very best! #BNPPO17 pic.twitter.com/qLGNiLERle
— WTA (@WTA) March 10, 2017
“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.
.@GarbiMuguruza picks up 10th win of 2017!
Downs Flipkens 6-2, 6-3! #BNPPO17 pic.twitter.com/sEqGkQHwFk
— WTA (@WTA) March 10, 2017
“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.”
What a win for the 17 year old!!@kaylaeday upsets Lucic-Baroni 6-4, 5-7, 7-5! #BNPPO17 pic.twitter.com/HQWlw3JoxY
— WTA (@WTA) March 10, 2017
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.”
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.
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.
“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