Brisbane: Garbiñe Muguruza vs Svetlana Kuznetsova
Garbiñe Muguruza takes on Svetlana Kuznetsova in the quarterfinals of the Brisbane International.
Garbiñe Muguruza takes on Svetlana Kuznetsova in the quarterfinals of the Brisbane International.
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
Karolina Pliskova produced a clinical display on Friday night, swatting aside Elina Svitolina to take her place in the final of the Brisbane International.
WTA Insider Courtney Nguyen | After advancing to the Brisbane final, Alizé Cornet took a moment to pay tribute to a man who always reminded her to be thankful for her lot.
LONDON, Great Britain – Elena Vesnina bested her good friend and doubles partner Ekaterina Makarova in a 5-7, 6-1, 9-7 thriller to make her way to the quarterfinals of a Grand Slam for the first time.
The pair of unseeded Russians battled it out on Court No.3, weathering a mid-match rain delay during their two-hour-and-forty-seven-minute contest. Vesnina kept her margins cleaner, firing 52 winners to 30 unforced errors against Makarova’s 31 winners and 24 unforced errors. Vesnina was also ruthless at the net, winning 85 percent of her 26 net points.
With the victory, Vesnina also notched her first ever WTA-level win over Makarova, having lost in straight sets in each of their previous six encounters.
Next up for the Russian is Dominika Cibulkova, who edged past No.3 seed Agnieszka Radwanska in an epic three sets earlier in the day.
Pavlyuchenkova Dashes Vandeweghe Hopes
Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova knocked out last year’s quarterfinalist CoCo Vandeweghe in a commanding 6-3, 6-3 win. Pavlyuchenkova kept the American’s powerful serve in check throughout the match, allowing her just three aces and 49 percent of first serve points. She struck 13 winners to seven unforced errors against Vandeweghe’s 18 and 22.
The Russian, who’d previously never made it past the third round at the All-England Club, is now into the quarterfinals of Wimbledon for the first time.
Her reward? A matchup against defending champion and top seed Serena Williams.
“I just find out from my coach that I’m going to play the winner of Serena or Svetlana,” Pavlyuchenkova said afterward. “I have no clue actually what part of the draw I’m in and stuff like that.
“I’m still sort of like happy with the match I just won. It’s tough to talk about Serena or anyone.”
Shvedova Books Venus Showdown
Yaroslava Shvedova, No.96 in the world, dealt a round of 16 upset to the No.28 seed Lucie Safarova, dispatching the Czech in a comfortable straight sets, 6-2, 6-4. With the win she moves into the quarterfinals of Wimbledon for the first time.
The Kazakh’s strong serving proved to be the difference; she fired off seven aces and won 81 percent of points behind her first serve. Shvedova also didn’t face a single break point all match long and converted on three of the thirteen chances she brought up against Safarova.
Up next, she’ll face the five-time Wimbledon champion Venus Williams for the first time.
All photos courtesy of Getty Images.
Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Sania Mirza produced a near flawless display to overwhelm Ekaterina Makarova and Elena Vesnina, 6-2, 6-3. The result ensures that Mattek-Sands will replace Mirza as the World No.1 when the new rankings are released on Monday.
Highlights from all of Saturday’s finals action at the Brisbane International.
SYDNEY, Australia – No.5 seed Svetlana Kuznetsova began her title defense at the Apia International Sydney with a decisive 6-1, 6-4 win over Irina-Camelia Begu.
“I started the year quite good with the feeling on court,” she said in her post-match press conference. “Sometimes the results don’t go with how you’re feeling, but I feel very good at the start of the year.”
It was a year ago that Kuznetsova came to Sydney to begin what would become her best season in nearly six years, but shrugged off the pressure of going for a second straight victory.
“I’m not thinking about defending my title. The trophy is at home and nobody can take it away from me. This is another year and another opportunity to play. I always feel like I need a lot of matches at the start of the year. I remember going to Auckland and not winning a single match. Then I came here and it gave me matches, confidence.
“If I played five weeks in a row at the end of last year, I can do three or four weeks here.”
The Russian veteran showed off similar form for much of the match against Begu, who struggled through the 31 minute opening set.
.@SvetlanaK27 has found her range early! pic.twitter.com/Gie2qUY2z3
— WTA (@WTA) January 8, 2017
Winning 10 of the first 12 games, the former World No.2 was on course for a seamless victory before the Romanian mounted a mini-comeback, drawing even at 4-4 in the second.
“What happened? What typically happens in a tennis match. I think I started to play more defensively, and she felt like she had nothing to lose. I got too passive.
“We practiced in December because she was also in Dubai; we played a practice match and that was good because I was able to remember her game.
“It’s a different style; she stays farther behind the baseline, not so much inside. She serves good, and it was hard to read.
.@Irina_Begu is on ?!
She breaks again to level the second set at 4-4! #SydneyTennis pic.twitter.com/FR3QXYMWRy
— WTA (@WTA) January 8, 2017
Kuznetsova closed the door from there, and served out her spot in the second round, where she’ll meet either 2011 US Open champion Samantha Stosur or compatriot Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova.
“Overall, I think I did good, except for those four games when I didn’t play so good.”
.@SvetlanaK27 starts @SydneyTennis title defense with 6-1, 6-4 win over Begu! pic.twitter.com/fMeKx8at2m
— WTA (@WTA) January 8, 2017
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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SYDNEY, Australia – No.10 seed Caroline Wozniacki survived a titanic tussle against Olympic tennis event winner Monica Puig, 6-3, 2-6, 6-4, to advance into the second round of the Apia International Sydney.
“It’s a tough match, because, you know, you kind of feel, like, oh, I’m winning pretty comfortably right now, but then she can go on a streak, starts hitting winners, has such a good serve,” the Dane explained in her post-match press conference. “That’s where it started going in in the second set, and then the third set I tried to stay closer to the baseline and maybe play a little deeper.
“It paid off. But, yeah, win is a win. I’ll take it.”
Wozniacki had just come off a quarterfinal appearance at the ASB Classic, while Puig was looking for her first win of the season, having dropped her opening round match to Elina Svitolina at the Brisbane International. The No.10 seed broke at her first opportunity and held on for dear life to start the match, gutting out a five-deuce game to hold for 5-2 and ultimately serve out the opening set in 47 minutes.
This perfect backhand has helped @CaroWozniacki save three break points! #SydneyTennis pic.twitter.com/GZaRauEliO
— WTA (@WTA) January 9, 2017
Puig served notice last summer when she took home Puerto Rico’s first ever Olympic gold medal, but was even more impressive off the return in the second set, break serve three times to level the match.
Not a bad way for @CaroWozniacki to save break point! #SydneyTennis pic.twitter.com/8EX3RtLwTt
— WTA (@WTA) January 9, 2017
Much like the first set, Wozniacki broke early in the third and never let go, even as Puig showed all her mettle to hold in a six-deuce game at 3-1 in the decider.
“I changed up my practice quite a bit. I did a lot of other things, probably spent more time on court than I have in a long time and less time in the gym, actually.
“That was a big change for me, because I have worked so hard on my fitness and worked so hard on trying to prevent injuries.
“But at the end of the day, I think I sometimes need to ease off a little bit. I guess I’m not a spring chicken anymore. Sometimes less is more.”
Clinching victory on her first match point, Wozniacki booked a second-round encounter with Yulia Putintseva.
“I was proud of how I managed to just keep grinding today. I feel pretty good. I’m not nervous about my form. I think it’s going to be fine.”
.@CaroWozniacki starts @SydneyTennis campaign with 6-3, 2-6, 6-4 win over Puig! pic.twitter.com/QwCEg3qz3D
— WTA (@WTA) January 9, 2017