Tennis News

DOHA, Qatar – The WTA tour turns from a thrilling Aussie summer to a compelling fortnight in the Middle East, as US Open champion Angelique Kerber and runner-up Karolina Pliskova are the Top 2 seeds at the upcoming Qatar Total Open.

What do you need to know about the first leg of the Middle East Swing?

1. The 2017 Doha winner will join an illustrious list of champions.
With defending champion Carla Suárez Navarro forced to withdraw due to injury, the draw guarantees a new champion from the field of 28 women. Starting in 2001, Qatar Total Open’s honor roll boasts seven players who won – or went on to win – Grand Slam titles, and five World No.1s.

The women who win in the Middle East have also been able to count their Doha trophy as one of many in excellent seasons; check out this infographic tracking how the former champions fared during their title-winning years:

2. Kerber begins her quest to reclaim No.1.
Kerber fell from the top spot after Serena Williams won her 23rd Grand Slam title at the Australian Open, but all is not lost for the German. Should she reach the final in Doha, she could return to No.1 at the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships, where she’d also have to reach the final. With a bye in the first round, the 2014 runner-up will open against either Irina-Camelia Begu or Daria Kasatkina, who upset her at the Apia International Sydney.

3. Pliskova rides Fed Cup victories into Doha.
Pilskova began 2017 riding a nine-match winning streak through the Brisbane International and into the quarterfinals in Melbourne. The Czech shook off the surprise loss to Mirjana Lucic-Baroni with a dominating display over Fed Cup weekend, where she earned wins over Lara Arruabarrena and, most impressively, a 60-minute romp past reigning French Open champion Garbiñe Muguruza. Seeded second in Doha, Pliskova opens against either a qualifier or Caroline Garcia.

4. Can Cibulkova shake off Aussie disappointment?
Dominika Cibulkova ended 2016 on a career-high, winning the BNP Paribas WTA Finals Singapore presented by SC Global, but the World No.5 fell before the second week in Australia to an inspired Ekaterina Makarova. Fresh off a run to the semifinals of the St. Petersburg Ladies Trophy, the Slovak is the No.3 seed in Doha, and will begin her week against either Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova or a qualifier, with No.8 seed Barbora Strycova looming in the last eight.

5. Will Wozniacki renew her rivalry with Radwanska in Doha?
The Asian Swing was dominated by the head-to-head between Agnieszka Radwanska and Caroline Wozniacki. The resurgent Dane upset Radwanska en route to the Toray Pan Pacific Open title but the Pole got the better of Wozniacki in Wuhan and Beijing. Should the former No.1 beat Kiki Bertens, she’ll face the No.4 seed in the second round.

6. Muguruza aims for Fed Cup revenge.
Muguruza shakes off a tough defeat against Pliskova and has a chance to avange the loss in Doha, as they’re projected to meet in the quarterfinals. Standing in her way is wildcard Cagla Buyukakcay, who made her WTA breakthrough at this event last year – upsetting Lucie Safarova en route to the third round.

7. Fed Cup heroes face off.
After a long Fed Cup weekend, plenty of players will aim to take that momentum into the Middle East. One of the must-watch first rounds includes Yulia Putintseva, who reached her first WTA final in St. Petersburg and helped Kazakhstan into World Group II Play-Offs, and No.7 seed Timea Bacsinszky, who led Switzerland into the World Group I semifinals.

8. Hingis unveils new partnership in doubles.
Martina Hingis began the 2017 season continuing her partnership with CoCo Vandeweghe, but the Swiss Miss comes to Doha with Chan Yung-Jan as top seeds. Chan made two straight WTA Finals with sister Hao-Ching, and can certainly fulfill the power dynamic the cerebral Swiss requires in a doubles partner. The pair play their first match against Kiki Bertens and Johanna Larsson.

9. Hlavackova & Peng seek to maintain Melbourne momentum.
Speaking of Chan Hao-Ching, the Taiwanese doubles star begins her new partnership with Christina McHale. The pair will have their work cut out for them against No.3 seeds Andrea Hlavackova and Peng Shuai. The Czech/Chinese duo renewed their partnership at the start of 2017 and roared into the Australian Open final, narrrowly falling to World No.1 Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Lucie Safarova.

10. Mirza & Strycova soldier on.
Fresh off her excellent Fed Cup weekend – in which she pushed Muguruza to three sets and ousted Arruabarrena to clinch victory for the Czechs – Barbora Strycova reunites with Sania Mirza as the No.2 seeds in Doha. As they remain together, they face Raquel Atawo and Xu Yi-Fan, one of 2017’s newer pairs, in the first round.

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.

“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.”

DUBAI, UAE – Reigning Olympic Gold medalist Monica Puig continued her solid February form, beating Yaroslava Shvedova, 6-3, 4-6, 6-4 to advance at the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships.

After a slow start to the season, which saw her go 1-3 in January, Puig opted to refocus her training on the practice courts after the Australian summer. Out of the spotlight and back at her base in Boca Raton, Florida, the 23-year-old was able to put in the work that was missing in the pre-season.

“I think post-Australian Open was a really big change for me, because I really just buckled down and I said, ‘Look, this can go one of two ways: It can go really bad or it can go really well.'” she told press after the match. “I’m just going to work as hard as I can. If I lose, at least I know that I’m doing everything in my power to come out and win. And then I go back to the drawing board and just fix it.”

The hard work paid off immediately. In her first tournament since Melbourne, she made the semifinals of the Qatar Total Open last week, her first semifinal since the Olympic tennis event in Rio de Janeiro.

“Right now that’s on my mind is just trying to become the best I can be, and I know that the only way to do that is by working. I don’t mind staying on the tennis court a little while longer.”

Puig’s motivation has never been in doubt but she has been candid about how her incredible run to the gold medal last summer led to a cloud of pressure and negativity that bled into her game.

“It was a great week for me in Rio, and it was really good, but the fact of the matter is I didn’t back it up afterward,” she said. “So right now I’m just trying to get back to feeling comfortable, playing at that level consistently. And right now I’m doing a great job, I think. I’m working really hard. I’m giving my 100% in tennis, and I’m just focused on this right now. This is consuming my whole life.

“I just really want this really bad. So I’m going to do whatever it takes. If that’s training more, if that’s fixing the little things, it doesn’t matter for me. I really love what I do and I really love playing tennis. I’m just going to work really hard to accomplish some more of my dreams.”

In order to plug into her game, Puig has had to unplug from social media. In January, Puig told WTA Insider that the constant negativity she received on social media after her sub-par finish to the season dragged her down. After a three-week break from social media platform during the off-season, Puig took a concerted effort to take a step back.

“My New Year’s resolution is to not get caught up in what other people say about me,” Puig said in January. “I can go lingering into social media and that’s not a good thing. I have gotten a lot of negative comments. I have a lot of people who don’t really like me. I look at it and it’s really bad.

“They don’t know what we’re going through, they don’t know the struggles. They don’t know what goes on behind the scenes and they don’t know how hard we work. If they were put in our position maybe they would appreciate it a little bit more. So this year I’m trying to block the noises outside the court that affect me negatively.”

“It used to make me happy,” Puig added of social media. “All of a sudden it makes me miserable. So why should I continue to do something that makes feel this way. I just don’t really want to be there anymore. I get on it when I need to post something or if I get a notification of something I have to do, then ok. But I don’t really like to get caught up in it too much.

“My main goal this year is to be happy. Even though I won Rio, there were a lot of moments at the end of 2016 when I was very unhappy when I let the results get the best of me and I let the negative voices get the best of me and that brought me down into a little bit of a depression.”

“I’m doing what I love for a living and if I’m not happy, what am I doing?”

Slowly but surely, Puig is finding the answers by focusing on the basics and simplifying her outlook. The gold medal from Rio sits in her home and she still brushes it off every now and then to remind herself that anything is possible on any given week. But for now, it’s more about working and less about dreaming.

“I do have my goals and I have them set, but right now I think the biggest thing is focusing on the process, because if I get too result-oriented, then I lose sight of what’s important,” Puig said. “And right now what’s important is to continue to grow as a tennis player and as a person.

“I feel like maturity is something that I have to work on and that I’m going to continue to work on. I’m in no rush to get anywhere. I proved that to myself that anything great can happen at any time. I just have to work really hard to get there.”

Puig next plays No.15 seed Caroline Garcia in the second round.

All photos courtesy of Getty Images.