April 03, 2017
Kirsten Flipkens, Elena Vesnina, Bethanie Mattek-Sands, Venus Williams, and Caroline Wozniacki – who will win March’s WTA Shot Of The Month presented by Cambridge Global Payments? Vote now!
Simona Halep wasn’t sure she would even make it to the BNP Paribas WTA Finals Singapore presented by SC Global this year. The World No.4 overcame illness and injury at the start of the season and finally found her footing on her beloved clay. She never looked back. With every match she won – finishing the regular season at 44-16 – she grew in confidence and became one of the tour’s most reliable winners.
Now she’s put herself in position to finish the season in the Top 5 for the third straight year.
The 25-year-old Romanian began her year behind the eight-ball. After finishing last year at a career-high No.2, Halep’s off-season training block was cut short due to illness that left her hospitalized for a few days. To make matters worse, in her race to prepare for the start of the season she re-injured her Achilles. Halep is a confidence player and the foundation of her game is her body. If she can’t trust it, everything else falls apart. She would win just two matches in her first four tournaments.
All of a sudden, Singapore felt like a world away.
“At the beginning of the year, the first four months were very tough for me,” Halep told WTA Insider. “I didn’t know if I could play this year because I was very sick and I couldn’t play 15 minutes on court. I had infections.”
But after a solid training block with her coach Darren Cahill at the conclusion of the Middle East swing, Halep began to find her game. She scored back-to-back quarterfinals in Indian Wells and Miami, and continued that steady momentum to capture her first title of the season at the Mutua Madrid Open. Her confidence slowly grew from there.
“I won Madrid and then I thought there was a chance I could go to Singapore, but I didn’t even think until the US Open that I could qualify. I said that I had a chance but I didn’t believe 100% that I could go there. So I’m really happy I could go there for a third year.”
In addition to Madrid, Halep would go on to make the quarterfinals at Wimbledon and then go on a 13-match win streak, winning the Bucharest Open and Rogers Cup in Canada. In fact, Halep finished her season by making the quarterfinals or better at six of last seven tournaments of the regular season.
“I feel from the practices that my level is very high,” Halep said. “Of course you never know when you go on court and playing against one tough opponent, but still I’m confident my game is in my hands. At the beginning of the year it was very difficult to think like this.”
Despite her slow start to the season, Halep would ultimately become the third woman to qualify for Singapore, behind Angelique Kerber and Serena Williams. Given her start to the season, it is a credit to her work ethic and resilience that she found a way to turn her season around.
“After May in Madrid, I played very well. I lost a few matches against Serena and Kerber in the last three, four months. So, yeah, I feel good. I feel that I deserve to be there. Of course, I didn’t win a Grand Slam yet, but still I played very well in the big tournaments.”
Halep has always counted Singapore as one of her favorite tournaments. It’s the site of her biggest career win, over then No.1 Serena Williams in group play in 2014. With the good vibes of the city and a good amount of rest and recovery, Halep is looking to improve on her 2015 performance, where she failed to advance out of group.
“You have to play well there because everyone from the top eight is playing crazy tennis, so I have to be ready.”
All photos courtesy of Getty Images.
The Brit’s victory over Venus Williams at the Miami Open was applauded by the one of the game’s greatest players.
Sara Errani takes on Yulia Putintseva in the quarterfinals of the Volvo Car Open.
Sara Errani had Friday’s shot of the day at the Volvo Car Open.
Elena Vesnina and Daria Gavrilova took to the heart of historic Charleston for the Volvo Car Open’s annual Iconic Photoshoot.
The pair played a mini-tennis match in front of Randolph Hall at the College of Charleston.
Built between 1828 and 1829, Randolph Hall is a National Historic Landmark and one of the oldest college buildings still in use in the United States.
Elena Vesnina and Daria Gavrilova at College of Charleston.
Elena Vesnina and Daria Gavrilova at College of Charleston.
Elena Vesnina and Daria Gavrilova at College of Charleston.
Elena Vesnina and Daria Gavrilova at College of Charleston.
Elena Vesnina and Daria Gavrilova at College of Charleston.
Elena Vesnina and Daria Gavrilova at College of Charleston.
An interview with Sloane Stephens after her win in the semifinals of the Volvo Car Open.
On this episode of the WTA Insider Podcast, we recap last week’s action at the Volvo Car Open and Katowice Open, which saw Sloane Stephens grow her title collection with her third title of the season and Dominika Cibulkova end her title drought. Then we debut the Coach’s Corner, a recurring feature that puts the spotlight on the hard working men and women sweating away in the players’ box.
David Taylor may have started as “just” a hitting partner for Martina Hingis, but he’s now one of the premier coaches in professional tennis. He has coached Australia’s two best prospects in the modern era into the Top 10, taking Alicia Molik and Sam Stosur into the upper echelons of the game and he was there, heart in his throat, when Stosur fired that inside-out forehand return on match point to win the 2011 US Open. He’s seen the highs and he’s lived the lows, and he was happy to talk about it all.
On being Hingis’ traveling hitting partner: “You could see the way Martina practiced was just translated into what she had to do. It was very specific. That was a time when the Williamses were coming onto the scene and she was definitely the Queen of that time and the other ones were coming. It was an interesting time. A lot of things were constructed on how to deal with the power of Davenport, Serena and Venus, and Capriati.”
On how the game has changed: “The skill has gone down but the striking of the ball has gone way up. So the ability to hit the ball amazingly fast and with power has increased. That’s what tennis is about. But a lot of the skill, because it’s so fast, has gone out of the game now. It’s interesting. It’s not better or worse. It’s just what it is.”
On conflicts of interest: “It’s a funny set up in tennis because the player is paying the coach, while in other professional sports they’re paid for by an outside body. Like basketball, the players don’t pay their coach. They all work for the organization, coach included. In tennis it’s very personal. I don’t think it’s that great a set up. I don’t see the alternative though.”
On the need for weapons: “I believe to be a great player you have to be able to win points on your own terms. And that’s reflective of any great player that we’ve had in recent times. That’s where we’re at. That doesn’t mean there isn’t a market for all types of players. Being aggressive doesn’t have to be cracking the ball hard. It can be playing from a very aggressive court position. Halep’s an aggressive player. She doesn’t hit a tremendous amount of winners, but she’s an aggressive player. It’s not just hitting the ball hard. It’s where you play from, your mentality, what you can do under pressure.”
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MONTERREY, Mexico – Angelique Kerber cut the ribbon as the Abierto GNP Seguros officially unveiled its brand-new stadium court: Estadio GNP Seguros.
The World No.1 was one of the guests of honour as the crowds were treated to a real show in Monterrey – culminating in a stunning fireworks display.
Kerber opened her campaign on court by beating Francesca Schiavone in three sets, 4-6, 6-0, 6-4.
– All photos courtesy of Abierto GNP Seguros