Birmingham: Shot Of The Day (Monday)
Madison Keys has Monday’s shot of the day at the Aegon International Birmingham.
Madison Keys has Monday’s shot of the day at the Aegon International Birmingham.
Highlights from all the third round action on Day 4 of the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships.
An interview with Garbiñe Muguruza ahead of her participation at the Mallorca Open.
DUBAI, UAE – Chan Hao-Ching and Yaroslava Shvedova shocked top seeds Caroline Garcia and Kristina Mladenovic to make it through to the semifinals of the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships.
The fifth-seeded pair won through in a thrilling decider to take the match 7-5, 3-6, 10-3.
“We lost in a super tiebreaker and still I think we had lots of opportunities,” said Mladenovic afterwards. “We had a big lead in the first set and I think we should have closed it out and won probably, but it’s tennis, and the girls are playing well as well and in the third set anything can happen.”
Mladenovic was not too disappointed, however, adding that she and Garcia were both working on their singles game while competing in doubles.
“It’s not easy, it’s just our second tournament of the year,” she said. “I still think we had a good run in Melbourne – lost in the semis – here we had a tough tournament. It’s our goal this year, we are going to be more focused on our singles and we are trying new things, like we are switching sides every set and like really working on our singles game.”
The 23-year-old remains hopeful that she and her partner will impress over the course of the year.
“It’s just the beginning of the season,” she pointed out. “We are looking forward, the season is very long and Indian Wells, Miami coming up soon so everything is positive.”
Second seeds Ekaterina Makarova and Elena Vesnina progressed in a topsy-turvy clash with Canada’s Gabriela Dabrowski and Latvia’s Jelena Ostapenko, winning 6-1, 3-6, 10-5.
Andrea Hlavackova and Peng Shuai had a straightforward quarterfinal against Chan Yung-Jan and Martina Hingis, winning in straight sets, 6-4, 6-2.
Angelique Kerber has Thursday’s shot of the day at the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships.
CoCo Vandeweghe takes on Agnieszka Radwanska in the first round of the Aegon Classic.
DUBAI, UAE – Sixth seeds Andrea Hlavackova and Peng Shuai will move to the top of the Road to Singapore leaderboard on Monday after their brilliant run to the final of the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships.
They beat Chan Hao-Ching and Yaroslava Shvedova 6-1, 6-3, to set up a final clash with Ekaterina Makarova and Elena Vesnina.
“It was closer than it looked,” admitted Hlavackova afterwards. “The second set got trickier…I’m very happy to go through.”
The Russian pair were first to book their place, beating third seeds Sania Mirza and Barbora Strycova, 6-4, 6-3.
“It was really important to win this game, and I’m just so happy that we’re in the final now in Dubai,” said Vesnina afterwards.
More to follow.
Nineteen-year-old Jelena Ostapenko showed great resolve in holding off Petra Kvitova for a 6-4 4-6 6-3 Thursday as the 2014 Wimbledon junior champion defeated the 2014 Wimbledon champion in Birmingham at the Aegon Classic. The SAP Tennis Analytics for Coaches shows one of the keys to her victory was forcing Kvitova to rely heavily on her backhand during the final set.
Kvitova hit 61% of shots during third set rallies from her backhand Thursday. While she only had one unforced error from that side, she did not hit any backhand winners during that final set.
That high percentage of backhand shots for the left-handed Kvitova really stands out when compared to the 36% of rally shots from the backhand side in the second set, which she won. During her straight sets opening round win, Kvitova hit just 40% of her rally shots from the backhand side.
Ostapenko kept Kvitova under pressure the entire third set. In addition to dictating play to the backhand, she had break points in all five of Kvitova’s service games, converting three, while also winning eight of nine second serve points.
The SAP Coaches View combines scoring information direct from the chair umpire with tracking data from HawkEye to allow for an in depth look at five different aspects of a match. Each tracking option can be filtered to narrow the focus to specific situations within a match, such as break points. This information is available directly to coaches in real-time during a match on their SAP tablet and also available to them online after matches.
“Rally hit from” tracking shows where each ball is struck during a rally. The display differentiates between forehands and backhands. This data can be filtered by a particular score or to only show winners, unforced errors, the last shot of a rally or the third shot (first rally ball hit by the server).
For Ostapenko on Thursday, forcing Kvitova to hit from her backhand side was a winning strategy.
Highlights from all the semifinal action at the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships.