Social Buzz: USA Fed Cup Team Pitch Perfect
The USA Fed Cup team throws the first pitch at the Tampa Bay Rays – and Sania Mirza heads off on holiday.
The USA Fed Cup team throws the first pitch at the Tampa Bay Rays – and Sania Mirza heads off on holiday.
An interview with Simona Halep after her win in the second round of the BNP Paribas Open.
An interview with Eugenie Bouchard after her second round win at the BNP Paribas Open.
TOKYO, Japan – Former champion Caroline Wozniacki required nearly three hours to see off No.4 seed Carla Suárez Navarro in the second round of the Toray Pan Pacific Open on Wednesday.
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For the first hour and a half of an absorbing contest, Wozniacki seemed on course for a relatively straightforward victory. However, just as she had 24 hours earlier against Belinda Bencic, the Dane was forced to overcome a mid-match hiccup before eventually triumphing 7-6(4), 4-6, 6-4.
“This was such a tough match, we played for such a long time and we really both deserve to be here as winners as the standard was very high,” Wozniacki said. “Luckily I’m the one here and I’m happy to get through.”
Suárez Navarro looked to have turned the match in her favor when she reeled off four straight games to pinch the second set. However, the match took another twist at the start of the third set, a sudden rain delay stopping the Spaniard in her tracks.
On the resumption, Wozniacki reasserted her dominance to build an ultimately decisive lead. “I won the next three games after the rain and managed to regroup. She was on a bit of a roll so it came at a good time.”
Wozniacki, who went all the way to the title in 2010, will meet either Yulia Putintseva or Magda Linette in the quarterfinals.
More to follow…
Ana Ivanovic takes on Camila Giorgi in the second round of the BNP Paribas Open.
SEOUL, South Korea – Kirsten Flipkens has hit her share of hot shots in the past; her tweener at the Connecticut Open was part of August’s Shot of the Month.
But the Belgian upped her flair and brought it to the Asian Swing; after a long rally with Dalian champion Kristyna Pliskova, Flipkens turned the tables on Karolina Pliskova’s twin sister with a behind-the-back backhand passing shot.
She went on to win the match, 5-7, 6-2, 6-2.
Check out the video right here on wtatennis.com!
An interview with Agnieszka Radwanska after her win in the third round of the BNP Paribas Open.
The exits of Angelique Kerber and Garbiñe Muguruza have left the bottom half of the Indian Wells draw wide open.
The flagship website for women’s tennis, www.wtatennis.com, will relaunch on Tuesday, April 25.
The upgrade, which is the culmination of six months’ planning and development, is designed to enhance the digital experience for everyone who follows the sport.
Users can look forward to a cleaner, crisper layout, an improved data service and a significantly upgraded video player.
The core functions will remain including rankings, news & features content alongside player, tournament and other tour information.
WTAtennis.com will also continue to house our exclusive WTA Insider content – including articles, podcasts, interviews and videos – produced by our expert team of writers, editors and producers.
Tuesday’s launch represents stage one of the overhaul of the WTA’s digital channels driven by WTA Networks, a partnership between the WTA and The Social Channel, a digital marketing and content company.
Exciting new features and upgrades are also scheduled to follow in the coming months. In the meantime, we welcome your comments on the changes via Facebook or Twitter.
Naomi Osaka reached the first WTA final of her career Saturday in Tokyo at the Toray Pan Pacific Open thanks to an improved performance in longer rallies later in her 1-6 6-3 6-2 win over Elina Svitolina.
Svitolina surrendered just one game in the opening set of the Toray PPO Tennis semifinal, breaking Osaka twice. SAP Coaches View shows that Osaka won 36% of 3-6 shot rallies, and just 33% of rallies longer than 6 shots in that first set.
In the decisive third set, Osaka did significantly better on those longer rallies. She won 52% of the medium rallies, lasting 3-6 shots.
Osaka showed even more improvement on the longest rallies, winning 71% of the points lasting longer than 6 shots. That’s a vast improvement over her 33% in the first set.
The powerful Osaka also did well on the shortest points of the match, firing seven aces. She has hit a tournament-best 25 aces this week.
The SAP Coaches View combines scoring information direct from the chair umpire with tracking data from HawkEye to allow for an in depth look at five different aspects of a match. Each tracking option can be filtered to narrow the focus to specific situations within a match, such as break points. This information is available directly to coaches in real-time during a match on their SAP tablet and also available to them online after matches.
“Rally hit to” tracking shows where each shot during a rally lands on the opponent’s side of the court. The display, which also shows rally length, differentiates between forehands and backhands. This data can be filtered by a particular score or to only show winners, unforced errors, service returns, the last shot of a rally or the third shot (first rally ball hit by the server).
These tools show that Osaka’s improvement on longer rallies was key to her advancing for a WTA final for the first time.
