Taiwan: Elina Svitolina's Shot Of The Day
Elina Svitolina had Saturday’s shot of the day at the Taiwan Open.
Elina Svitolina had Saturday’s shot of the day at the Taiwan Open.
The Australian Open draw is out – where’s your favorite? And who’s got the toughest quarter – Serena Williams, Simona Halep, Garbiñe Muguruza or Agnieszka Radwanska?
Elina Svitolina talks through her win over Mandy Minella in the semifinals of the Taiwan Open.
MELBOURNE, Australia – On the eve of the Australian Open – where they’ll be going for their third straight Grand Slam title together – Martina Hingis has joined Sania Mirza as co-World No.1.
With Hingis and Mirza now having their best 11 results over the last 12 months as a team – they just won their 11th WTA doubles title together in Sydney – they are finally No.1 in the world together.
Hingis’ first 35 weeks at No.1 in doubles came in six stints, from June 8 to August 2, 1998 (8 weeks), August 17 to October 25, 1998 (10 weeks), November 2 to 22, 1998 (3 weeks), June 7 to July 4, 1999 (4 weeks), August 2 to 22, 1999 (3 weeks) and January 31 to March 19, 2000 (7 weeks).
She will now begin her 36th career week at the top, while Mirza earns her 41st.
“It’s a really nice feeling having that No.1 ahead of your name,” Hingis said after the final in Sydney on Friday. “It’s definitely something I was aiming for, and with Sania I felt like I had the opportunity to get there. When she became No.1 in Charleston I was just as happy as when I did it myself.
“Being the No.1 team for the last 10 months – we’ve proven it with two Slams and the WTA Finals in Singapore – we definitely belong there. It was just a question of time to get that No.1 ranking.”
“I’m so happy for her that 16 years later she’s become No.1 again!” Mirza, who first rose to No.1 last April, commented. “But regardless of what the ranking was, we were the No.1 team in the world.
“I’m so happy that we’re together now not just as the No.1 team, but as individuals as well.”
The Swiss-Indian duo is on a 30-match winning streak that has brought them seven straight titles at the US Open, Guangzhou, Wuhan, Beijing and WTA Finals in 2015, and Brisbane and Sydney this year.
They’ll take that streak – the longest since 1990 – into the Australian Open this fortnight.
Hingis and Mirza are the 11th co-World No.1s in WTA Doubles Rankings history. The full list:
127 weeks – Cara Black & Liezel Huber
82 weeks – Sara Errani & Roberta Vinci
39 weeks – Lisa Raymond & Sam Stosur
20 weeks – Liezel Huber & Lisa Raymond
10 weeks – Kveta Peschke & Katarina Srebotnik
8 weeks – Serena Williams & Venus Williams
7 weeks – Gisela Dulko & Flavia Pennetta
5 weeks – Hsieh Su-Wei & Peng Shuai
3 weeks – Lisa Raymond & Rennae Stubbs
3 weeks – Virginia Ruano Pascual & Paola Suárez
1 week – Martina Hingis & Sania Mirza
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil – The first round of the Olympic tennis event wraps up on Sunday with all of the top seeded women headlining the action, including Serena Williams and Garbiñe Muguruza.
Sunday, First Round
Centre Court
[1] Serena Williams (USA #1) vs Daria Gavrilova (AUS #46)
Head-to-head: Williams leads 1-0
It’s been a somewhat quiet season for Australia’s Daria Gavrilova. Since last year’s breakthrough, she’s succumbed to a string of first and second losses, results at odds with the 22-year-old’s big game and even bigger promise. But despite the early exits, Gavrilova’s reputation as a giant-killer remains intact – she owns four wins over Top 20 players so far, including victories over Petra Kvitova and Simona Halep.
She’ll have to bring every ounce of her dogged belief and determination against what would be the biggest opponent of all: World No.1 Serena Williams. The American is in killer form this year, having played six events and reaching the final in all but one. She’s also fresh off a monumental Wimbledon win, where she won her record-tying 22nd Grand Slam title, and comes to Rio once again chasing history and vying to become the first tennis player – male or female – to win five Olympic medals.
Court 1
Mariana Duque-Mariño (COL #82) vs [2] Angelique Kerber (GER #3)
Head-to-head: Duque-Mariño leads 1-0
Mariana Duque-Mariño got her first taste of gold at last year’s Pan Am Games in Toronto when she became Colombia’s first women’s tennis player to bring home the medal. Since then, Duque-Mariño has toiled through qualifying rounds and posted her career second appearance at a WTA final in Nurnberg earlier this year.
The Colombian has fond memories of the last time she played against her first-round opponent; Duque-Mariño defeated Angelique Kerber to win the title in Bogota, her hometown, back in 2010.
Kerber’s season skidded a bit after the high of winning her first Grand Slam title in Australia, but rumors of her downfall were greatly exaggerated. The German has reached the semifinals or better at seven events this year, including an appearance at the Wimbledon final and her run to the semifinal of the Rogers Cup just last week. Despite facing travel difficulties, the German arrived to her second Olympic Games in good form and primed for another deep run.
Around the grounds…
No.3 seed Garbiñe Muguruza kick starts her Olympics campaign against former No.1 Jelena Jankovic on Centre Court. Meanwhile No.11 seed Petra Kvitova and No.13 seed Samantha Stosur take to Court 2 to face off against Timea Babos and Jelena Ostapenko, respectively.
An interview with Elina Svitolina after her win in the final of the Taiwan Open.
MELBOURNE, Australia – When the top half of the 2016 Australian Open women’s singles draw gets rolling on Monday in Melbourne, fans won’t be left wanting for star power. Four Top 6 seeds will take the court, led by six-time champion Serena Williams and 2008 champion Maria Sharapova. Here’s a rundown of key matches to see.
Monday, Day 1
First Round
[1] Serena Williams (USA #1) vs. Camila Giorgi (ITA # 36)
Head-to-head: Williams leads 2-0
Key Stat: Williams has won 8 of 14 major titles since Patrick Mouratoglou became her coach.
Four words can neatly summarize Serena Williams’ mood as she prepares her Australian Open title defense. “I don’t look back,” says Williams, who is ready, willing and able to kick off her 2016 with a continuation of a march to history that was temporarily halted in New York last season. But her first challenge, against the highest-ranked unseeded player in the draw, promises to be a tricky one.
Italy’s Camila Giorgi pushed Williams to a tie-break during Fed Cup action last season, and she’ll hope to take advantage of the 34-year-old’s lack of match play- Williams pulled out of Hopman Cup with knee inflammation but says she’s injury-free in Melbourne – to gain an early upper hand. But Williams knows a thing or two about overcoming challenges early in Slams. She holds a 60-1 lifetime record in first rounds at majors, and has never lost one in Australia.
Pick: Williams in three
[25] Samantha Stosur (AUS #27) vs. [Q] Kristyna Pliskova (CZE # 114)
Head-to-head: First meeting
Key Stat: Stosur has never been past the round of 16 at Melbourne.
One of the most beloved Aussie athletes in recent history has yet to find her mojo at the Happy Slam, but hope springs eternal as former US Open champion Sam Stosur prepares to make her 14th career appearance in Melbourne. Though she’s only made the second week twice (and not since 2010), the experienced Stosur knows that if she plays her tennis she’ll have an opportunity to rack up a win over the talented yet unheralded Pliskova. “I want to handle myself well, play well, do the things that I need to be doing, put myself in good positions hopefully to win many matches,” Stosur said. “If I can do all that and play to my ability, then I’ll be happy.” Pliskova, the identical twin of No.9 seed Karolina Pliskova, has mustered a 5-9 lifetime record at majors, and has not appeared in the main draw of the Australian Open since 2013.
Pick: Stosur in three
[4] Agnieszka Radwanska (POL #4) vs. Christina McHale (USA # 65)
Head-to-head: Radwanska leads, 3-0
Key Stat: Radwanska has dropped only seven games in three matches versus McHale.
Many pundits are predicting a big year for Poland’s Agnieszka Radwanska, and the 26-year-old has already started on the right foot by taking the Shenzhen title without the loss of a set. Radwanska, a semifinalist at Melbourne (2014) and a five-time quarterfinalist here, will face a player that has given her very little trouble in the past. The youthful, talented McHale has been troubled by the Radwanska match-up, and with red-hot Radwanska having won 22 of 26 matches dating back to last year, the challenge of coping with the unorthodox stylings of the crafty Pole promises to be even more difficult for the American.
Pick: Radwanska in two.
[5] Maria Sharapova (RUS #5) vs. Nao Hibino (JPN # 56)
Head-to-head: First meeting
Key Stat: Sharapova has played just seven tour-level matches since Wimbledon 2015.
Can Maria Sharapova shake the rust off in time to get past rapidly-rising Nao Hibino on Monday in Melbourne? The Russian has not played since the Fed Cup final last November, but she is confident that her short, sweet off-season training block and her experience will help get her through the early rounds in Melbourne. “Yes I might be more rusty,” Sharapova told reporters on Saturday, “but I’ve always been someone who treats practice as meaningful and I can take that into matches. I’m ready to go.” In Hibino, Sharapova will face one of the breakout performers of 2015. The 21-year-old won her first WTA title at Tashkent and finished a season inside the Top 100 for the first time.
Pick: Sharapova in two.
More must-see tennis: Eugenie Bouchard will look to continue her fine run of form against the always-dangerous Aleksandra Krunic in the pair’s first-ever meeting. Bouchard reached her first WTA final in well over a year over the weekend in Hobart… Italy’s Roberta Vinci begins her final Grand Slam season with a battle against Austria’s Tamira Paszek. Though Paszek is ranked more than 100 places lower than Vinci, she owns a 2-0 record versus the Italian and has never dropped a set against Vinci… Luksika Kumkhum pulled one of the biggest upsets of the 2014 Australian Open when she upset sixth-seeded Petra Kvitova in the first round. Will lightning strike twice for the Thai qualifier, or will Kvitova get her revenge… France’s Kristina Mladenovic got an exceptionally tough draw this year at Melbourne. Seeded for the first time at the Aussie Open, she drew former finalist Dominika Cibulkova, whom she has lost all five previous encounters against.
Action is hot and heavy in Rio on Monday as all 16 second-round clashes will take place. Wtatennis.com contributor Chris Oddo previews the action.
Elina Svitolina thanks the fans after her win in the final of the Taiwan Open.
MELBOURNE, Australia – The last time Yulia Putintseva played on Hisense Arena, she pushed Agnieszka Radwanska to the brink in a topsy-turvy three-setter back in 2014; on Monday afternoon she went one better against former No.1 Caroline Wozniacki, recovering from a set and break deficit to defeat the Dane, 1-6, 7-6(3), 6-4.
The Kazakh, a former junior finalist at the 2012 Australian Open, recently turned 21, but hadn’t won a WTA main draw match since last summer, and appeared close to another defeat when she fell behind a set and 4-2 to her more experienced opponent.
Yet, Putintseva displayed impressive resolve to turn the tables in a second set tie-break and weathered a final set surge from Wozniacki to serve out the win in just over three hours.
In her on-court interview, the smiling youngster admitted she was dealing with cramps from early in the third set, and played some impressive mind games to keep calm when it came time to complete the upset.
“I tried to keep my emotions inside, and actually imagine I was losing. It’s easier that way.”
Ending the match with a whopping 42 winners, Putintseva also out-aced Wozniacki, hitting two back-to-back in the middle of the second set tie-break while maintaining an impressive 74% first serve percentage.
For Wozniacki, the loss completes a string of progressively disappointing losses in Melbourne; since reaching the semifinals in 2011 – when she had a match point against Li Na – she has ended her tournament one round worse in each successive year, a pattern that was on her mind as early as last year, when she fell in the second round to Victoria Azarenka.
“I think it’s a curse I’ve gotten here,” she said in 2015. “Hopefully, I’m going to break that next year and start going the other way.”
In the same section of the draw as World No.1 Serena Williams, Putintseva not only takes out one of the American’s closest rivals, but she next plays China’s Han Xinyun, who benefitted from the 6-2, 2-1 retirement of Mariana Duque-Mariño.
Putintseva pulls off upset win on Hisense Arena #ausopen https://t.co/Rq8mh1PKlz
— Australian Open (@AustralianOpen) January 18, 2016