Tennis News

LONDON, England – There are fast starts and there are fast starts. And Sabine Lisicki’s opening game at this year’s Wimbledon certainly falls into the latter category.

Three aces and another booming serve down the T saw Lisicki wrap up the opening game of her first-round match with Shelby Rogers in just 52 seconds.

The German, a finalist at the All England Club in 2013, barely slowed down as the match progressed, living up to her ‘Boom Boom’ nickname by hitting 19 winners and wrapping up a 6-1, 6-3 victory after a minute shy of one hour on court.

In the second round she will face Samantha Stosur, a 7-5, 6-3 winner over Magda Linette.

Sabine Lisicki wastes no time.

She won her first #Wimbledon 2016 game in under a minute. https://t.co/6mq8IcASjj pic.twitter.com/rfpHZg2Gou

— BBC Tennis (@bbctennis) June 27, 2016

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia – Kristina Mladenovic continued her stunning run at the St. Petersburg Ladies Trophy with another shock victory, this time in the quarterfinal over the reigning champion, Roberta Vinci, 6-1 6-4.

The unseeded world No.51 continued with the approach that had seen off Venus Williams in the surprise of the second round. She tore into the 33-year-old’s serve in the first set, winning all three of the Italian’s service games. Facing set point at 30-40 in the final game, Vinci produced a wonderful drop shot down the line from deep in the court to take it to deuce, but Mladenovic was undeterred and came through for a 6-1 win.

A rocket of a return from @KikiMladenovic! @Formula_TX pic.twitter.com/2eXZkScAly

— WTA (@WTA) February 3, 2017

Vinci, facing Mladenovic for the first time since the 2015 US Open, faced break point once again at the start of the second set. This time, though, she proved more resilient and held for the first time in the match.

“Roberta is a big fighter,” said the 23-year-old of a more even second set, “and she is very smart on the court. She tried different tactics and almost turned it around in the second set. I’m happy I stayed calm and all the time responded with a game plan as well.”

The second serve increasingly proved key. Mladenovic won 50% of the points behind hers in contrast to 25% for Vinci and, although the French player served three double faults to her opponents’ one, it was that one that was crucial. A double fault from Vinci at 30-40 and 4-4 in the set gave the underdog the chance to serve for a meeting with Russia’s Natalia Vikhlyantseva in the last four.

Wonderfully delicate touch from @Roberta_Vinci! ? pic.twitter.com/LU8a5BBLaR

— WTA (@WTA) February 3, 2017

Mladenovic grew more aggressive, coming forward more with the win in sight. Serving at 5-4 she rushed too quickly to the net and gave up three break points. However she showed great composure to save all three. In a tense finale, the pair went to deuce four times before, at the third time of asking, Mladenovic converted match point with a top-spin heavy cross-court winner to qualify for her third career Premier semifinal.

“We played against each other last year in Hertogenbosch on grass and I won in three sets,” she said of Vikhlyantseva. “I discovered this young lady there for the first time and I thought she had an amazing great quality and game and potential for the future. I’m not surprised at her improvement and her ranking climbing up.”

Meanwhile the defeated champion said: “It was a difficult match, a tough match. Kiki played incredible tennis first set. In the second set I started to play much better than in the first – a bit more aggressive – I had some chances to break her, but she played too good. I played so so – this is tennis! I’m happy I managed to make it back to the quarter-final.”

At this year’s Wimbledon, some of the most famous names in women’s tennis are once again lending their support to the StarCards charity auction, raising money for Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital in London.

The WTA has been helping the charity since 2002, raising thousands of pounds. Among the lots at this year’s auction are items from Serena Williams, Agnieszka Radwanska, Caroline Wozniacki and StarCards’ official celebrity supporter Ana Ivanovic, who has signed and donated her 2016 French Open player accreditation.

“With the tremendous support of the WTA we have raised over £100,000 for the charity, tennis fans around the world each year contact us in advance of to make sure they don’t miss out on the new collection. We are extremely grateful to the WTA and our official supporter Ana Ivanovic who help us every year to raise funds for Great Ormond Street Hospital Children’s Charity,” StarCards founder Paul Bretta said

The auction, held on the StarCards website, started on June 30 and will finish on July 10.

@serenawilliams thanks for supporting #wta #Wimbledon charity auction for @GreatOrmondSt at https://t.co/9day5Ddgf4 pic.twitter.com/XumMa8kAlE

— StarCards (@STARCARDS4GOSH) 27 June 2016

LONDON, Great Britain – No.3 seed Agnieszka Radwanska dug deep from her bag of tricks to see off Katerina Siniakova in a straight sets tour de force, needing just 63 minutes to advance to the fourth round 6-3, 6-1.

Radwanska put on a clinic on the No.3 Court against Siniakova, who at 20 years old was the youngest woman left in the draw. Against the big hitting Czech, Radwanska employed her famous ability of drawing out her opponent’s errors with her signature mix variety and anticipation, running Siniakova ragged all along the court.

The first set unfolded as a tightly-contested affair with Radwanska bringing up and converting the only break point for a lead at 4-2. She struck early on in the second set, frustrating Siniakova with a drop shot after pushing her out far behind the baseline.

Radwanska grabbed the second break of the second set at 4-1 when she fetched a wide-angled return with a vicious forehand loaded with sidespin, then calmly put away the next shot at the net. Siniakova was forced to hit one more ball as her would-be winners were returned time and time again.

Siniakova clawed to her first break point of the match at 5-1, but it was calmly brushed aside as the Pole looked locked in, breaking Siniakova once more and crushing a swinging crosscourt forehand pass to move on to the second week of Wimbledon for the eighth time in her career.

Cibulkova awaits Radwanska in the fourth round after the Slovak put away former finalist Eugenie Bouchard in straight sets earlier in the day.

Agnieszka Radwanska produces some wonderful tennis to see off Katerina Siniakova 6-3, 6-1. The Pole is into the 4R. pic.twitter.com/QTDjatxfeE

— Wimbledon (@Wimbledon) July 2, 2016

LONDON, Great Britain – WTA CEO Steve Simon joins the WTA Insider podcast after a busy week of meetings in London to discuss the future of the tour and the changes coming down the pipeline. In particular, Simon breaks down the current discussion surrounding a possible change in the tour’s current circuit structure, the future state of the WTA’s broadcast and content business, and his vision for a tour that continues to push forward and grow to become a worldwide sporting power.

On his vision for the circuit structure:

“What I would like to see is a tour that provides clarity, which I’m not sure we have today. I’m not sure a lot of our fans know the difference between an International series event and a Premier series event. I would like to have a system where every event has a purpose and a meaning. Then we can begin to storytell from it and take our fans on tour for a year and understand why this event is happening and the relevance of it, and the relevance of the athletes, as opposed to being a faceless event, which I’m afraid happens too often.”

On the current state of the WTA broadcast business:

“I think it’s an exciting time because in 2017 we are embarking on a new broadcast agreement. The basis for this agreement is that we will now be producing every main draw singles match played, and every semifinal and doubles final played. So we’re going to go from producing approximately 800 matches a year to over 2,000, which is a significant jump. Through our partnership with Perform we will now have a global audience going into 2017 at record levels that we have never seen before. We’ll be entering the market at nearly 400 million people in our audience universe right away.”

On his desire to expand the tour’s competitive landscape:

“We’re very proud that we’re the No.1 professional women’s league and I think it’s well deserved. You don’t become No.1 because you didn’t produce and you should take a lot of pride in that. The next step from that from my perspective is we want to not just be the No.1 women’s professional tour, we want to compete with professional sports. What that means is that we’re now drawing the audience levels that are similar to other professional sports, and we need to grow our audience levels. They’re not at the levels that I want them to be at.”

On the state of play:

“We are in a transition now. We have Serena in the argument as one of the best players to ever play this game and other great champions that are with us. But when I look at what’s coming I’m just very excited about it. We can see the transition happening. We can see it in the results. Every week this year we’ve seen a lot of upsets. Well those upsets are consistently this new era coming through and challenging the existing stars and that’s very healthy.”

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LONDON, England – Moments after completing another regal performance at Wimbledon, the queen of tennis Serena Williams was rubbing shoulder with a very different type of royalty.

Making her annual homage to the home of tennis, future Queen Kate Middleton was alongside All England Club Chairman Philip Brook to witness Williams’ semifinal masterclass against Elena Vesnina.

And with the applause still rippling around Centre Court, the Dutchess was hot-footing it out of the royal box to get an introduction – and a selfie – with the World No.1.

Serena and Kate ? pic.twitter.com/wzsmKkJJyh

— Shanice Bajin (@SWilliamsFans) 7 July 2016