Tennis News

MIAMI, FL, USA – The Miami Open doubles tournament kicked into high gear on Saturday as two of the Top 4 seeds took the court to begin their respective campaigns. Before the storm clouds rolled in for the third straight day, No.2 seeds Ekaterina Makarova & Elena Vesnina and No.4 seeds Andrea Hlavackova & Peng Shuai both advanced into the second round, each in straight sets.

The two teams last met in the finals of the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships, which the Russians won in a tense match tie-break, and could potentially meet in the semifinals of Miami.

Hlavackova and Peng have nonetheless enjoyed a strong start to 2017, reaching the finals of the Australian Open and briefly leading the pack at the top of the Road to Singapore leaderboard.

“The doubles game is improving a lot,” Hlavackova told WTA Insider. “A lot of singles players are playing doubles, and most of the top teams are made up of singles players, so it’s very tough competition. We are very happy to start the season so well; I think it’s pretty special to start the team so well as a new team. We just want to keep going.”

Up against a young team in Naomi Osaka and Monica Puig, the duo edged through a close opening set to roll through, 7-6(6), 6-1, and book a second round clash with Shuko Aoyama and Yang Zhaoxuan.

“They started very strong in the first set. They served really fast and played a very fast baseline game. It was very important to not panic and keep playing and find out time and moment. We got the tie-break and started from there, even better.”

Osaka and Puig each produced exciting results in singles last year, but have yet to hit the same heights on the doubles court.

“They’re young; when they get to our age, they’ll have experience!” joked Peng.

“I think they’re a great team. They play strong and fast. In the first set, we were almost lucky to get the tie-break, but in the second set, we got a break quickly, so the feeling was different.”

Earlier in the day, Makarova and Vesnina each shrugged off tough singles losses on Friday to power through their first doubles match in Miami, ousting Oksana Kalashnikova and Asia Muhammad, 6-0, 6-2.

“We both had crazy singles matches yesterday,” Vesnina said. “I texted her after the match, because I knew she was crying and she was tired. I told her, ‘Katya, don’t even put yourself down. We have a tough sport, but it’s not the end of the world. Cry for another five, ten minutes, and just pack your stuff, go back to the hotel, get sleep, and tomorrow we’ll kick some asses on the court!’

“We needed to regroup and forget our tough losses because it’s tough. You can have a black line in your life, white line in your life, and there can be moments where there are more black lines than white, but you still need to find the positivity though the negative. Sometimes, what doesn’t kill you makes you strong.”

The dynamic duo are set to celebrate their fifth anniversary of doubles at the Mutua Madrid Open, but may leave Crandon Park with an unexpected present; should they win the tournament, they will rise to Co-World No.1 – as long as Bethanie Mattek-Sands falls before the semifinals and Kristina Mladenovic fails to reach the final.

“Before you told me, I didn’t even know! We’ll take it match by match. Katya and I always do that; we’ll just focus on our doubles. We lost our singles, so we’ll try our best to do good in doubles because this is a big tournament.

“Miami is very prestigious and it’s a huge event; we’ve been in the final twice. This year we’ll try to go all the way.”

Up next for the Olympic Gold medalists and reigning BNP Paribas WTA Finals Singapore presented by SC Global champions is the unseeded and dangeous pairing of Anna-Lena Groenefeld and Kveta Peschke.

All photos courtesy of Getty Images.

The WTA Future Stars Clinic made its third stop of the 2016 season on Saturday in Jakarta following successful weekends in Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok. Assisting the platform – which aims to promote the game all over the Asia-Pacific region – in its latest clinic was a woman who has been, in her own words, “opening the door for professional tennis in Indonesia” for the better part of three decades.

“I’ve always followed all the WTA’s plans for growing the game in Indonesia, and hopefully this works,” former World No.19 Yayuk Basuki told WTA Insider.

Working with national representatives and players from her eponymous academy, Basuki spent the day working with the Future Stars on the court, and shared some of her memories of being a professional athlete.

“It’s always great to be able to give back to the next generation,” she said at the clinic led by Melissa Pine, Vice President of WTA Asia-Pacific and Tournament Director of the BNP Paribas WTA Finals Singapore presented by SC Global. “I hope to be able to inspire the children, and show them that anything is possible so long as you put your heart and mind to it.”

Basuki is Jakarta’s hometown hero with an impressive on-court resumé, one that features a run to the quarterfinals of Wimbledon in 1997 in singles and a box set of Grand Slam quarterfinal appearances in doubles – including a semifinal finish at the 1993 US Open. In the 20 years since reaching those heights, she remains the only Indonesian player to crack the Top 50.

“Maybe these clinics can encourage players – especially the young ones – so they can get motivated to be able to be up there in the WTA rankings,” she explained on Friday. “Because we really need some new stars from our country.

“At the moment really we don’t have any, only one is ranked inside the Top 600. It’s really that we need some juniors to come up. I’m following some of them; one or two of them are doing quite well on the ITF Junior Circuit. So hopefully we have a better future for the girls in the next coming years.”

A trailblazer for Indonesian tennis, Basuki took charge of a fledgling national career and quickly burst onto the international scene.

“In my time, no one ever thought an Indonesian player could do well as a professional. I had been playing for my country, for the flag, for so many years – for Fed Cup, the Asian Games or the Olympics.

“I was thinking: I don’t want to just play for my country; I want to turn pro. Within six months of doing that, I was Top 50. I stayed up there until I reached my highest ranking of Top 20.”

Retiring from singles at the start of the new millennium – after having won six WTA titles, – Basuki was eager to offer advice to the next generation of Indonesian stars. She became a WTA mentor to Angelique Widjaja, who defeated future No.1 Dinara Safina to win the first of two junior Grand Slam titles in 2001.

“I was looking forward that more players would follow me and what I did.”

Widjaja appeared on course to match – even surpass – what Basuki had achieved in her first two years on the WTA tour, rocketing up to No.55 in singles and No.15 in doubles, where she reached four Grand Slam quarterfinals. But injuries and burnout took their toll and Widjaja was gone from the game by 2008.

“I’ve tried to encourage her to come back and to play some – even if it was just for doubles – but she says she doesn’t have the motivation anymore and that’s such a pity.”

Undaunted by the setback, Basuki sought to grow the game herself by returning to tennis at nearly 40 years old, playing doubles on the ITF Circuit.

“I know that there was no way for to completely come back at my age, but it was more about trying to motivate the younger players. I was trying to say, ‘Come on, I’m 40 and I still can do it; why can’t they?’ I wanted to encourage them.”

The comeback might not have yielded the result she wanted, but it made her realize she needed to do something even bigger to change the way her country viewed professional sport.

“It’s so hard to get children involved in sports, or even to be an athlete, because most of the parents are thinking, ‘If I put my kid into athletics, what are they doing after?’ You know, what is life after sports? They’re all worried about that.”

Returning to Indonesia after coaching in Hong Kong, Basuki was encouraged to run for political office in 2013; within a year, she was a member of parliament working to reform sports and education.

“They don’t give enough attention for the sport,” she said of the government. “What they need is to put in more effort, to give more of the budget for the Indonesian sport. I’d already tried to work for the National Olympic Association, where I was Vice President. I tried to help as an advisor in the Indonesian ministry, as well. But nothing has worked, so the only thing right now is to get into the system, which was to become a house representative.

“During the campaign, it was clear not many people knew I used to be the ex-tennis player who turned into a politician. But I got enough votes!”

Between her political endeavors and the growing initiatives spearheaded by WTA Future Stars, Basuki is optimistic about the state of the sport – not only in her country, but also throughout the region.

“So far my country is giving more attention to education. But at least in sport, as well, we’re trying to make up for that in the budget. So in the beginning, for example, the budget was let’s say only 30%, but now it’s becoming three times larger than where it started when I first became a politician.

“I’m trying to create a system, one where athletes won’t have to worry about their future by creating pension plans and ways for them to develop skills for after their careers. I can share a lot of my experience, so hopefully we’ll be able to make progress.

“I’ve dedicated 26 years to Indonesian tennis, as a player, as a Fed Cup captain, and as coach as well. So what I’m looking forward to are some new players who really have their goals and their dreams. To tell you the truth, I haven’t found it yet. Hopefully at the clinic, I can see some of the younger ones who might have a brighter future.

“I’m hoping.”

All photos courtesy of the WTA.

AUCKLAND, New Zealand – Former World No.1s Ana Ivanovic and Caroline Wozniacki, two of the biggest draws at this year’s ASB Classic, went to Newmarket on the weekend to play street tennis, sign autographs and meet the press. Here are 10 of the best photos, courtesy of www.photosport.nz.

Andrea Petkovic made her major breakthrough five years ago at the Australian Open – defeating Maria Sharapova en route to a debut Grand Slam quarterfinal in 2011 – but how close was the German to skipping the tournaments Down Under altogether?

Despite reaching the semifinals of the Miami Open and spending much of the spring ranked in the Top 10, Petkovic’s 2015 ended with a thud and a 6-0, 6-0 loss at the Huajin Securities WTA Elite Trophy Zhuhai. Worn out and wounded, she spent the start of her off-season wondering whether her career was something she truly wanted to continue.

“It was very tough. The first week I was basically just at home. I didn’t go out at all.”

Her malaise nearly caused her to cancel a much-anticipated vacation to New York. Though she ultimately took the trip, a week in the Big Apple led to one last soul-searching moment.

“[My friend] had to check something with her luggage because it got lost on the way in, and there was one point where I took my wallet and I looked inside of it. I had a hundred bucks left, and I was like, ‘I could just stay here. I could make it in New York. I could leave my life behind and take a cab back. It would be enough to get back to the city, to just stay here and see where life takes me.’

“It was like in a movie,” she later told WTA Insider, “because then my friend came back and asked, ‘are you ready to go?’ and I said, ‘yeah, yeah, sure, let’s go.’

“I thought about it again while I was in the airplane, and I was like, ‘OK, you’ve made a decision to go back to your real life, or your actual life that you are leading in Germany. You have to figure out if you want to do that 100%, otherwise you’re not coming back [to tennis].'”

That desire to escape was the apex of Petkovic’s quarter-life crisis, one that had caused her to question the path she had taken at the expense of other opportunities that no longer felt possible.

“In my early 20s, I felt like, ‘I can be an actress, a singer, a lawyer, a doctor, a chef, or a professional tennis player,’ that all of the doors were open. Then, all of a sudden I realized some of those doors were closing; I’m never going to lead a normal student life, living in a dorm and partying all night. That’s not going to happen for me, and I think I was at a part of my life when I thought, ‘but maybe I wanted that; why didn’t I do that?’

“I found myself in an identity crisis, and I think when you’re 27, 28, everyone asks themselves the same questions when are that age or older. That was the first time you really grow into an adult – for me, at least.”

Ironically, the very thing that might have made going on feel all the more overwhelming was that which catalyzed Petkovic’s own resolution to continue.

“The Olympics saved me – rather, it saved my tennis career – because I didn’t want to go out not having played the Olympics. Especially being in Rio and Brazil, I think that’s a city and a country that really is fitting to me and my personality; I’ve never been there, so I wanted to experience that.”

With a goal in her pocket and a new coach in Jan de Witt at the helm, the 2014 French Open semifinalist was able to calm the storms in her mind and focus on little else beyond her own love of the game.

“I may not always be in love with the world around it, but I love the raw essence of the sport, and that’s why I picked it up in the first place. It was me who made the choice; nobody pushed me into becoming a professional tennis player. So, I made my peace with that, for at least another couple of years!”

At once effervescent and analytical, Petkovic admits to having her share of neuroses, but is taking a calm approach to what promises to be a crazy season with four major tournaments and an Olympic Games.

“This is the first time I’m giving away responsibility because I’m someone who really wants to have control, and I’d never really found the coach that I could trust 100%, where I could just let it go and say, ‘I trust you, you do my schedule, and that’s in your hands. I’m going to have a say every now and then but you know better on what I should be doing because I’m too emotional in some aspects to be objective and to actually have a contribution to the plans that makes sense.'”

Tracing back the trail of self-doubt that followed her through 2015, she now believes she never mentally recovered from her very first match in Brisbane, a loss to former champion Kaia Kanepi. There were few such problems a year later in a 6-1, 6-2 win over Brazil’s own Teliana Pereira; the German feels ready and, thanks to her new coach, more than just physically fit.

“Jan is a very intelligent person; he’s very straightforward, very honest and very structured, and that has helped me tremendously because I immediately felt like I could give more control to him. He was very careful with my health, measuring my lactic acid every second day, sending me to doctors, yoga, osteopathy, flexibility and mobility.

“So when I say ‘fitter,’ I mean healthier and that has helped me with my mind. That was a big part of everything I was feeling last year; I was never 100% healthy; I was never really injured but there were always little things that were bothering me. Now that I feel healthy and pain-free, I’m just much more myself and more centered. There is something to this whole mind-body relationship!”

She may not have pursued that new life in New York, but her decidedly Empire State of Mind could be exactly what the veteran needs to make another splash in 2016.

Listen to Petkovic’s thoughts on the new season and more during the latest episode of the WTA Insider Podcast: