Tennis News

The BNP Paribas Open caused some seismic shifts to the Road to Singapore leaderboard; while Australian Open champion Angelique Kerber remained atop the standings, No.2 Serena Williams and No.3 Victoria Azarenka are hot on her heels as the tour turns to the Miami Open.

Kerber suffered a second straight WTA loss in the second round of Indian Wells, losing a tight contest to Denisa Allertova. By contrast, Williams and Azarenka made it all the way to the final, with the Belarusian winning her fourth career match over the 21-time Grand Slam champion and her second title of the season after the Brisbane International.

Not far behind is reigning BNP Paribas WTA Finals Singapore presented by SC Global champion Agnieszka Radwanska; the new WTA World No.2 reached another big semifinal in Indian Wells, narrowly losing to Williams in two tough sets. Drawn to face the American again in the semifinals, Radwanska rounds out the Top 4 on the RTS Leaderboard.

Qatar Total Open champion Carla Suárez Navarro saw her progress on the RTS Leaderboard stunted when a right ankle injury took her out of Indian Wells, while a left foot injury caused St. Petersburg Ladies Trophy winner Roberta Vinci into retiring in the fourth round – leaving the veterans at No.5 and No.6 respectively.

Johanna Konta took out Allertova en route to the second week, losing a three-setter to eventual semifinalist Karolina Pliskova; the Australian Open semifinalist not only became the highest-ranked British woman since 1987 (Jo Durie), but she also kept ahead of No.8 Belinda Bencic, who dropped out in the third round to Magdalena Rybarikova.

An upper respiratory illness likely kept Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships runner-up Barbora Strycova from making a bigger leap; already moving up three spots to No.9, the Czech veteran retired down a set to Simona Halep, whose own run saw her jump nearly 50 spots and into the Top 40.

Meanwhile, Co-No.1s Martina Hingis and Sania Mirza retained the top spot on the RTS Leaderboard in doubles, while Bethanie Mattek-Sands and CoCo Vandeweghe debuted at No.7 following their championship win over Pliskova and Julia Goerges, who are all the way up to No.4 with two strong results in Melbourne and Indian Wells.

Click here to see the singles and doubles leaderboards heading into the Miami Open.

MELBOURNE, Australia – The bottom half of the Australian Open draw concludes the quarterfinal match-ups in Melbourne, featuring the much-anticipated clash between six-time champion Serena Williams and Johanna Konta, the in-form semifinalist from last year. No.5 seed Karolina Pliskova also hopes to continue her unbeaten run in 2017 against Cinderella story Mirjana Lucic-Baroni, who is into her first major quarterfinal in nearly two decades. 

We preview all the Day 10 matchups right here on wtatennis.com.

Wednesday, Quarterfinals

[5] Karolina Pliskova (CZE #5) vs Mirjana Lucic-Baroni (CRO #79)
Head-to-head: Pliskova leads, 3-2
Key Stat: Both Pliskova and Lucic-Baroni are playing in their second Grand Slam quarterfinals (Pliskova, 2016 US Open, Lucic-Baroni, 1999 Wimbledon).

Pliskova made her first 17 Grand Slam appearances without making the second week, but the Brisbane International champion is making up for lost time in her second straight major quarterfinal since reaching the US Open final.

It was a much longer drought for Lucic-Baroni, who needed 18 years to back up her breakthrough run at the 1999 Wimbledon Championships after a mix of personal and financial problems kept her off the tour for almost a decade.

The 34-year-old veteran takes on Pliskova for the first time since the 2015, when the two split their two meetings that season; Lucic-Baroni lost their most recent encounter in a third-set tie-break at the Dongfeng Motor Wuhan Open.

Pliskova has dropped just two sets all season, emerging victorious from a 10-8 final set against Latvian youngster Jelena Ostapenko to brush aside No.22 seed Daria Gavrilova in front of her home crowd.

Can Lucic-Baroni win the battle of big hitters to continue her fairytale run, or will Pliskova continue her newfound dominance at majors and reach another semifinal?

[9] Johanna Konta (GBR #9) vs [2] Serena Williams (USA #2)
Head-to-head: First meeting
Key Stat: Konta has dropped serve twice in four matches (tournament leader).

With defending champion Angelique Kerber out at the hands of CoCo Vandeweghe, Serena Williams suddenly found herself in a solid position to reclaim the No.1 ranking from her rival. To do it, she’ll also need to take home the Open Era record of 23 Grand Slam titles and her seventh Down Under.

Standing between her and the semifinals is an unfamiliar foe in Johanna Konta, the fastest rising force in women’s tennis since her initial 16-match winning streak in the summer of 2015.

Konta has been ruthless through four rounds, knocking out former No.1 Caroline Wozniacki and 2015 semifinalist Ekaterina Makarova en route to her second straight quarterfinal in Melbourne.

Serena has taken out on-fire opponents in the past; can she solve the unflappable Brit on Rod Laver Arena, or will Konta keep up her potentially Slam-winning form into the final four?

Around the Grounds…

The women’s and mixed doubles events are rounding into form, and both feature doubles No.1 Bethanie Mattek-Sands. The American rejoins Lucie Safarova to take on the unseeded Japanese duo of Eri Hozumi and Miyu Kato. Meanwhile, top seeds Caroline Garcia and Kristina Mladenovic will need to turn around from their three-set thriller over Aussies Ashleigh Barty and Casey Dellacqua to play No.12 seeds Andrea Hlavackova and Peng Shuai, who dispatched reigning Olympic champions Ekaterina Makarova and Elena Vesnina in two tight sets on Tuesday.

In mixed, No.2 seed Sania Mirza will partner Ivan Dodig for a second day in a row as they try to reach a second straight Australian Open semifinal; aiming to stop them are an unseeded pair in Gabriela Dabrowski and Mirza’s countryman, Rohan Bopanna.

All photos courtesy of Getty Images.