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Mladenovic Battles Into Den Bosch QFs

Mladenovic Battles Into Den Bosch QFs

  • Posted: Jan 01, 1970

‘S-HERTOGENBOSCH, Netherlands – No.3 seed Kristina Mladenovic battled through fatigue and a surging Russian qualifier Natalia Vikhlyantseva to reach the quarterfinals at the Ricoh Open, 5-7, 6-3, 6-4.

Watch live action from ‘s-Hertogenbosch this week on WTA Live powered by TennisTV!

Mladenovic acknowledged that the quick turnaround from the Roland Garros clay – where on Saturday she won a Grand Slam doubles title with partner Caroline Garcia – to the grass of ‘s-Hertogenbosch was tough on her. In fact, it left her participation in the Ricoh Open up in the air.

“I have to be honest, I’m a bit surprised to be in the quarterfinals here,” Mladenovic admitted. “But I love the tournament, grass is one of my favorite surfaces.

“I was thinking about maybe pulling out, because obviously there is fatigue. I’m a bit tired, but I wanted to commit because I love this tournament and that’s why I keep coming back a couple of years in a row.”

Standing between Mladenovic and the quarterfinals was Russian qualifier Vikhlyantseva, who last round scored an upset to oust Denisa Allertova. Vikhlyantseva played far above her No.254 ranking to take the first set from the Frenchwoman, breaking twice to rattle off the last four consecutive games and take it 7-5.

The Frenchwoman grabbed an early break in the second set to rally to a 5-2 lead. Despite Vikhlyantseva getting one back, Mladenovic closed her out at her next chance, 6-3. In the deciding set, Mladenovic again felt pushback from Vikhlyantseva, staying toe to toe with her all the way to 4-4 before pulling away to take the match and her spot in the quarterfinals.

Mladenovic chalked up her first set stumble in part to the unknown factor of playing a new opponent for the first time, although the only thing she’s thinking about now is a well-deserved break.

“I didn’t know much about her,” she said of the 19-year-old Russian. “She’s very young and seems to be very talented and not easy to play on grass. Not much rallying and she has good serve. But I just had to dig in there.”

“To be honest, I’m very satisfied to be into the quarters tomorrow. I guess I will have a day off to try to recover – I still feel like I’m on clay in Roland Garros!”

2014 champion CoCo Vandeweghe is also through to the quarterfinals of the Ricoh Open. Despite an innocuous-looking scoreline of 6-2, 6-3 over Nao Hibino, Vandeweghe survived a doozy with six break of serve in the first set alone. In the second set, she rattled off six straight games to turn around a 3-0 deficit.

“Today was a very tricky day for me, mentally,” Vandeweghe said afterward. “I wasn’t as focused as I would like to be. But I managed to overcome it today.

“That’s kind of the name of the game, to just keep moving on, keep going through the second round.”

Also through are Belgian qualifier Elise Mertens, who defeated Aleksandra Krunic 6-4, 7-6(3); and Madison Brengle, who edged through in a battle against Dutch favorite Richel Hogenkamp, 7-5, 5-7, 7-5.

CoCo Vandeweghe

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WTA Breakthrough Of The Month: Bertens

  • Posted: Jan 01, 1970

Few were as stunned by Kiki Bertens’ Cinderella run to the semifinals of Roland Garros than Bertens herself. The Dutch star celebrated her almost improbable quarterfinal win over No.8 seed Timea Bacsinszky with a shrug.

“I was like, Can you believe it? Because I cannot. And also my parents were like, No, this is not happening. But, yeah, it is.”

Her run of 12 straight wins – not including a doubles victory over the Williams sisters – began as a qualifier at the NÜRNBERGER VERSICHERUNGSCUP, which she won before reaching the second week of a Grand Slam for just the second time in her career, all but guaranteeing her spot on the Dutch Olympic team at the upcoming Summer Games in Rio de Janeiro.

“I think in the preseason I did a lot of work. Like the first three weeks was only physical practices, like two, sometimes three times a day.

“It was a hell really, but I’m really glad we did it. Like with my whole team we were working really hard every day.”

For all of those reasons, Bertens is your Breakthrough Player of the Month!

Final Results for May’s WTA Breakthrough Performance Of The Month

1. Kiki Bertens (69%)
2. Shelby Rogers (16%)
3. Yulia Putintseva (12%)
4. Louisa Chirico (3%)

2016 Breakthrough Performance Of The Month Winners

January: Zhang Shuai
February: Jelena Ostapenko
March: Nicole Gibbs
April: Cagla Buyukakcay

How it works:

Finalists are selected by wtatennis.com
Winner is then determined by a fan vote on wtatennis.com

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News | WTA Tennis English

News | WTA Tennis English

  • Posted: Jan 01, 1970

WTA World No.3 Karolina Pliskova is looking forward to getting her Qatar Total Open challenge underway against Caroline Garcia on Wednesday despite the ever constant threat of rain looming large over the tournament.

Persistent showers wiped out almost the entire day of first round action on Tuesday and the tournament now has a backlog of matches to make up with Pliskova scheduled last on centre court on Wednesday.

With her match being pushed back, Pliskova admits it will be to her advantage to have more rest and preparation time than her first round opponent, who now has to play twice in a day having beaten Madison Brengle.

“I just had my practices today, which was important for me,” said Pliskova on Tuesday. “I was trying to start early so I can hit on the court and get little bit used to it because we were playing indoors. It was a little bit different. I think even if they don’t finish today, they still have to play this match tomorrow. So that would definitely be an advantage for me if they play two matches in a day.

Karolina Pliskova

“Obviously the weather can change so fast. In Czech is minus 10, so with me this weather is fine. Just the rain is not good for tennis, so hopefully it can get better and we can finish all the matches on time.”

Pliskova’s second-round opponent has decided not to take part in the Fed Cup this year, a tournament the Czech is passionate about. But for Pliskova, the decision is not one that bothers her.

“It’s tough always to decide if to play or not. We played this time, we played home, which was much easier for me, you know, to play. So we didn’t have to travel anywhere far. But still I came here pretty late.

“I don’t think it’s a bad idea that she didn’t play. Sometimes it can help you, but sometimes, like I said, it’s difficult to put it in the schedule because there’s a lot of tournaments. It’s not always easy in the week of Fed Cup. You can have lot of matches, tough matches. I think both decisions are fine. There is always something positive about it. But I think this week, what I’ve played has been good. I had two wins. But maybe it’s also good to prepare for the tournament like she did.”

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