Rome: Best Shots
The best shots from the Internazionali BNL d’Italia.
How have Serena Williams, Agnieszka Radwanska, Angelique Kerber and the rest of the Roland Garros contenders fared in their past visits to the French capital?
STRASBOURG, France – Caroline Garcia advanced to the final of the Internationaux de Strasbourg after coming through an epic encounter with fellow Frenchwoman Virginie Razzano.
Watch live action from Strasbourg this week on WTA Live powered by TennisTV!
Leading 5-3 in the final set Garcia looked on course to close out the match in relative comfort. However, lucky loser Razzano ensured a dramatic finish by breaking back in the next game before eventually succumbing, 6-7(3), 6-4, 7-5.
“It feels great. I’ve watched Virginie for as long as I can remember,” Garcia said. “She’s a great player and a bit of an idol, so to not only play her but beat her was an amazing experience.
“It’s important for my confidence to get wins like this and in finals, especially ahead of Roland Garros next week. It was a fighting performance. Losing that first set was tough but I came back and got through.”
Later on, hopes of an all-French final were dashed in spectacular fashion as qualifier Mirjana Lucic-Baroni dismantled No.4 seed Kristina Mladenovic, 6-1, 6-1, in exactly an hour.
In 1997, a teenage Lucic-Baroni lost to Steffi Graf in the final, and despite her long week she is quietly confident of making it second time lucky.
“Nineteen years in between the finals. It’s amazing. It’s like coming home now for me in Strasbourg,” she said. “Will I become French after this? No! If I would change it would be to Italian. My husband is Italian.”
Garcia has won all three of her previous meetings with Lucic-Baroni, including earlier this year in Miami. “Against Garcia, I’ve always posted negative results,” she added. “But hopefully that will change tomorrow! I’m playing some great tennis and haven’t been on court very long, despite coming through qualies.
“I’ve just got to keep this going, keep on playing strong, and hopefully I can get the title.”
WTA World No.1 Serena Williams came in at No.5 on Sports Illustrated’s Fittest 50, a list of athletes across all sports disciplines that an expert panel named as the fittest in the world.
The 21-time Grand Slam champion’s overall fitness was evaluated and her unmatched strength, power, agility and quickness stood out to SI’s experts, as well as her longevity: at 34 years old Williams now owns 70 career titles and doesn’t look ready to slow down any time soon.
To come up with the Fittest 50, the editors of SI worked with a panel of trainers, strength and conditioning coaches, performance experts, pro athlete coaches and more. Athletes were assessed based on characteristics that define fitness and conditioning: strength, speed, endurance, agility, flexibility and skill in their respective sports.
No.22-ranked Sloane Stephens also joined Williams on the list at No.38, and it’s no surprise why with three WTA titles under her belt this year already. The American’s fitness routines are well-documented on her social media: she typically does a morning workout in the gym followed by a couple of hours of work on the tennis courts.
SI’s experts highlighted her gym routines, which include battle ropes, Bosu balls and pull-ups.
Visit Sports Illustrated’s Fittest 50 for a complete list of the world’s fittest athletes in all of sports.
The French word for perfect is parfait, and while we’re in Paris it’s only fitting that USANA Ambassador Eugenie Bouchard shared with us her recipe for the perfect pre-match snack.
Yogurt is naturally loaded with nutrients like protein, calcium, and probiotics, while Genie adds fruits and grains for extra sweetness and crunch.
Here’s everything you need to make her delicious parfait:
USANA is the Official Vitamin & Supplement Supplier of the WTA, and over 170 Athletes – including 8 out of the Top 10 and 15 out of the Top 20 use USANA products. Former No.1 Caroline Wozniacki, Samantha Stosur, Eugenie Bouchard, and Madison Keys are among several USANA ambassadors, and 2016 marks the 10th Anniversary of the USANA-WTA partnership.
Agnieszka Radwanska takes on Caroline Garcia in the second round of Roland Garros.
PARIS, France – Defending champion Serena Williams outlasted an inspired Kristina Mladenovic and weathered a two and a half hour rain delay to advance to the second week of Roland Garros, 6-4, 7-6(10).
After breezing through her first two matches here in less than one hour each, Williams faced her first big test of the tournament against French No.1 Mladenovic, who relishes playing on big stages in her country. In fact, of Mladenovic’s five career Top 10 wins, four have come here in Paris with two of those taking place right here in Roland Garros.
Mladenovic seemed comfortable as ever on Philippe Chatrier, the biggest stage of all, though ahead of the match she admitted to feeling the mixed emotions many players experience when playing against the World No.1.
“I have to take it very positively,” she said in her press conference. “This is an experience, something to do, it’s a dream. I grew up watching Serena play. Then I’m going to play against her.
“I’m extremely happy because this is a challenge. Well, this being said, it’s going to be very difficult.”
Mladenovic and Williams kept pace during a tense first set, which saw Williams brush away all four of Mladenovic’s break point chances while letting slip away two of her own. Mladenovic’s sneaky drop shots caught Williams wrong-footed on more than one occasion, and made for some spectacular rallies during the course of the contest.
(Very Very) Hot Shot de Kristina Mladenovic contre Serena Williams ! ??? #RG16 https://t.co/r8ZLJJ1IFd
— Roland Garros (@rolandgarros) May 28, 2016
But Williams turned up the heat when it counted. A drawn out battle at 4-4 saw Mladenovic bring up three break points, but the American blasted back to back aces to deny her. A lone break in the final game gave Williams the first set after almost an hour.
In the second set, Williams continued to keep the pressure on the Frenchwoman’s serve: Williams made her have to come back from 0-40 down to hold serve at 2-2, and then again in her next service game.
A Mladenovic ace sent the match into a tiebreak right as the rain, which had been threatening all match long, finally broke into a downpour.
Two and a half hours of rain delay later, the players were back on the court for the decisive battle. Mladenovic quickly built up a 3-0 lead, but it was short-lived as Williams broke back and rattled off four straight points to bring up her first of five match points.
Mladenovic rallied valiantly, saving match point after match point – including one with a gutsy drop shot, her go-to weapon in this match – but the World No.1 wouldn’t be denied a fifth time, and Williams took the match after a two-hour and thirteen minute thriller.
“I just made it a point to play my game,” Williams said of the tiebreak. “Up until that point I had not been playing my game. I was playing really defensive. It’s not me.
“So I just wanted to be Serena out there.”
Huge celebration from @serenawilliams. How much do you think that win meant to her? #RG16 #InsideRG pic.twitter.com/cIl9hKxiLm
— Roland Garros (@rolandgarros) May 28, 2016
The stats reveal just how evenly matched Mladenovic and Williams were throughout the match: both players hit three aces and struck 27 winners, though Williams hit 31 unforced errors to Mladenovic’s 35. The difference makers proved to be Mladenovic’s vulnerable serve – she hit seven double faults in total – and Williams’ dominance at the net, winning 15 of 25 net points.
“I think she played well,” Williams said afterwards. “I feel like I made a tremendous amount of errors. But, you know, I feel like she kind of forced me to. She forced me to go for it.”
With the win, Williams brings up a fourth round match against Elina Svitolina, who earlier in the day defeated former champion Ana Ivanovic.
BOL, Croatia – A quartet of Americans shined in the Croatian sun at the Bol Open, a WTA 125K Series event staged in the coastal town of Bol, Croatia. No.2 seed Varvara Lepchenko, Anna Tatishvili, Sachia Vickery and Jennifer Brady took advantage of the famously mild Adriatic climate and all notched wins at the inaugural event.
Watch free live streaming from Bol, Croatia all week right here on wtatennis.com!
The No.2 seeded Lepchenko tamped down a late surge from Croatian wildcard Ana Vrljic on her way to a 6-1, 7-5 victory. Despite Vrljic keeping the score line more competitive in the second set, the American showed more consistency during the key points throughout the match – Lepchenko converted on all five of the break chances she created, compared to Vrljic’s two of seven.
Earlier in the day, Anna Tatishvili survived a two-hour-and-forty-minute battle against Paula Kania to advance 6-4, 6-7(4), 7-5. Her countrywomen Sachia Vickery and Jennifer Brady had a more straightforward road to the second round, advancing past both of their opponents in straight sets. Vickery posted a 6-2, 7-5 win against Croatian wildcard Tena Lukas while Brady scored the upset of the day over No.8 seed Patricia Maria Tig.
Ipek Soylu – who made Turkish tennis history at the French Open when she became one of two players to compete in the main draw of a Grand Slam for the first time – was back to her winning ways in Bol against Israel’s Julia Glushko. Soylu weathered a second-set shutout to come back with a 6-3, 0-6, 6-1 win.
Also through to the second round are Stefanie Voegele, who defeated Andreaa Mitu 6-3, 6-2; Ivana Jorovic, who defeated qualifier Isabella Shiniakova 7-5, 6-2; and Bulgarian qualifier Elitza Kostova, who defeated qualifier Ekaterina Alexandrova 6-1, 7-6(4).
Tomorrow the No.1 seed Anna Karolina Schmiedlova and Croatian favorite Ana Konjuh highlight Day 3 action as they take the court in their Bol openers.
Timea Bacsinszky takes on Venus Williams in the fourth round of Roland Garros.
Courtney Nguyen, Point: When World No.1 Serena Williams takes to Court Philippe Chatrier on Saturday for the Roland Garros final, she’ll be looking to match Stefanie Graf’s Open Era record of 22 major singles title, successfully defend her French Open title for the first time in her career, and capture her fourth French Open title. And she’ll be the underdog.
No really, bear with me.
Serena arrives at her second major final of the season on the slightest of sputters. In three of her last four matches she’s looked nervous, out-of-rhythm and, at times, injured. The World No.1 has dropped just one set en route to the final but looked far from convincing in her last two matches, a three-set win over Yulia Putintseva in the quarterfinals and a narrow straight-set win over Kiki Bertens in the semifinals.
After the semifinals she reluctantly confirmed a report that she was dealing with an adductor injury. Due to the rainouts and scheduling shuffles, Saturday’s final will be the 34-year-old’s fourth consecutive day of play.
Serena has not faced a Top 10 opponent all tournament and she’ll see a huge step up in quality when she faces No.4 Garbiñe Muguruza. The Spaniard brushed off a nervous, three-set opening win over Anna Karolina Schmiedlova to roll through her next five matches without losing a set. She is fit, she is healthy, and she is confident. And she has the confidence in knowing she handed Serena one of her worst losses ever at a Slam, a 6-2, 6-2 rout here in Paris two years ago. Muguruza is in-form. Serena has looked shaky.
But how much will that matter, if at all, in the final?
For all of Serena’s ups and downs, we know she wins on one significant metric: experience. That’s what got her through against Putintseva. The youngster from Kazakhstan was five points away from the win, but it was Serena who stood tall and found her best when her back was against the wall. Similarly, Bertens was up a break in both sets and held a set point in the tie-break. Serena snuffed out the charge by sheer force of will. Flash back to the third round when the American rallied from 2-5 down in the second set tiebreaker to Kristina Mladenovic to seal a 12-10 win.
This is simply what Serena Williams does. Even in a year when she’s perceived to be slumping, her run in Paris has vaulted her up to No.1 in the Road to Singapore Leaderboard.
“Obviously I want to do well and I would like to win tomorrow,” Serena said. “But, you know, I think Muguruza has been playing really well. She’s been playing a really aggressive game and going for her shots. Regardless, I think it will be a good match. I mean, last time we played here in France she was able to win the match.
“I learned so much from that match. I hate to lose, but when I do, you know, I hope it was worth it. That match was definitely one of those that was kind of needed and worth it.”
Serena holds a 3-1 edge in her head-to-head against Muguruza. All their matches have come at the Slams, with the most recent being the 2015 Wimbledon final, which Serena won 6-4, 6-4. Muguruza gave her a tough test that day but again, Serena’s willpower, weapons, and yes, experience, led to the win. Muguruza was green then and she will be less green on Saturday when she competes in her second major final. But again, Serena has been here before. Many times. And more often than not she’s come through.
In fact, all Serena needs to look back on for inspiration is her title run here in Paris a year ago. On the brink of defeat match after match, and suffering from a virus, she won five three-set matches during the fortnight, four in which she dropped the first set, including three back-to-back to win the title. As Putintseva so eloquently put it after her three-set loss: “I think the match was very close and very far from being on my side.”
That’s the pressure you feel when you’re up against the sport’s greatest escape artist, who has at her disposal some of the greatest weapons the game has ever seen. Muguruza will no doubt come out firing. But with a 21-5 record in Slam finals, Serena has the resources she can count on to get to the finish line.
David Kane, Counterpoint: Garbiñe Muguruza’s two weeks on the terre battue could easily serve as a microcosm of her season thus far. A slow start in the first round against Anna Karolina Schmiedlova caused many to wonder whether the Spaniard was ready to win the requisite six matches to reach her second Grand Slam final.
But Muguruza recovered, and has looked better and better as the tournament progressed, easing past 2009 champion Svetlana Kuznetsova in straight sets and weathering the storms – both literal and figurative – to outlast Shelby Rogers in the quarterfinals.
The first Spanish woman in a French Open final since Conchita Martinez in 2000, Muguruza could become the second-ever from Spain to lift the Coupe Suzanne Lenglen after Arantxa Sánchez Vicario, who won the event three times (1989, 1994, 1998). But Muguruza admits she found herself idolizing another of her compatriots as she grew up and into the game.
“With Arantxa, the problem was that I was very young. I didn’t watch her. I watched her after, when I was, you know, more into tennis. But when I was that young I was not even watching tennis, so I didn’t catch her.
“But I caught more of Rafa when I was younger and like looking at him here, you know, every year winning, like, ‘No way! He did it again and he did it and he did it!’ So I think he inspired me more.”
Barring a slight hiccup when it came time to serve for the match, her semifinal victory over 2010 finalist and No.21 seed Samantha Stosur was her most emphatic of the fortnight, one that featured 20 winners and five aces, three of which arrived in the final game to extinguish a late Stosur surge.
Her biggest result may have been at Wimbledon, but her breakthrough came in Paris, when she stunned World No.1 Serena Williams in the second round en route to the quarterfinals. Her rivalry with Williams has been reserved for the game’s biggest stages, as all four of their matches have come at major tournaments; though the last two matches have gone the way of the American, Muguruza led by a set at last year’s Australian Open and played tough through two sets at the aforementioned All England Club encounter.
While Muguruza has soared, Serena has struggled, getting within five points of a loss to Yulia Putintseva in the quarterfinals and edging past an injured Kiki Bertens on Friday.
“I think that she and I are players who like dictating the game. We like dominating the game. I think I’m going to fight for each point. There will be moments when she’ll be dominating, and maybe at times I will be dominating.
“I think I can be a tough opponent, too.”
Muguruza has built a reputation for hot streaks throughout her surge up the rankings, yet her 2016 had been a season of subtle gains and steadily improving results, narrowly losing to Victoria Azarenka in Miami and Madison Keys in the semifinals of Rome.
Her coaching partnership with Sam Sumyk seems to have come into its own after a rocky start. Ahead of Saturday’s final, she could have few better in her corner than the former coach of Azarenka, who helped the Belarusian reach the No.1 ranking and earn back-to-back final wins against Serena in 2013.
“I have learned a lot how to control my emotions inside the court and outside the court. I think it’s very important, because sometimes it’s not too good to show them or to not be in control of them.”
The Spaniard has made no secret that the French Open is a tournament she grew up dreaming of winning, and at 22 years old, she just may be ready to make that dream come true.
“Here at Roland Garros, it’s special for Spanish people. I think for everyone, but Roland Garros in Spain is, like, everything. I don’t know. It’s like a second home here.”
-All photos courtesy of Getty Images.