WTA Frame Challenge: Hao-Ching Chan & Yung-Jan Chan
Together the Chan sisters are a world class doubles team, but today on the WTA Frame Challenge it’s Hao-Ching vs Yung-Jan. Find out which sister came out on top!
Together the Chan sisters are a world class doubles team, but today on the WTA Frame Challenge it’s Hao-Ching vs Yung-Jan. Find out which sister came out on top!
Kristina Mladenovic has Friday’s shot of the day at the Abierto Mexicano Telcel.
An interview with Lesia Tsurenko after advancing to the final at the Abierto Mexicano Telcel.
Ashleigh Barty takes on Han Xinyun in the semifinals of the Alya WTA Malaysian Open.
ACAPULCO, Mexico – 27-year-old Lesia Tsurenko captured her third WTA title at the Abierto Mexicano Telcel after a commanding victory over Kristina Mladenovic, 6-1, 7-5.
“I’m really happy to start the season like this: I had the semifinal in Hobart International and now this title here in Acapulco,” Tsurenko said after the match.
“It’s three of three now, it’s a 100% result for me and this makes me very happy,” she added, referencing her perfect success rate in WTA finals. “I’m very happy with this result, and to win the title here it’s just amazing.”
The No.2 seeded Mladenovic, who was seeking her second title in five weeks, found herself outhit from the start on Saturday night. The Ukrainian’s strong play from the baseline didn’t allow Mladenovic to find her rhythm; she was broken twice by Tsurenko and found herself down 4-0 after just 15 minutes, and was only able to hit 3 winners in the opening set.
.@LTsurenko thanks the @AbiertoTelcel fans for the great support ? #AMT2017 pic.twitter.com/h6lpwtuf4u
— WTA (@WTA) March 5, 2017
But it was far from smooth sailing after that, with eight consecutive breaks of serve starting out the second set.
It was Mladenovic who gritted out the crucial hold first and established a late foothold at 4-5, but Tsurenko stayed mentally strong to earn her own first hold of the set straight after. She broke once more and took the match with a strong service game for her first Acapulco title.
“It was a very difficult match, I felt very comfortable in the first set but in the second I felt quite nervous,” Tsurenko explained, decked out in the traditional Acapulco winner’s blue sombrero.
“She played better, and I think I was realizing that I could get the title and that was making me nervous. She really pushed me to play my best tennis because she was attacking a lot. I was just focusing on myself and doing everything that I can. I’m really happy to win.”
Love the Sombrero!
Congrats @LTsurenko, lift that @AbiertoTelcel trophy ? pic.twitter.com/JEGRbw7xAW
— WTA (@WTA) March 5, 2017
“I just want to congratulate Lesia,” Mladenovic said, delighting the Acapulco crowd by giving her runner-up speech in Spanish. “You’ve played great today and all week, and especially with these tough conditions. Congrats on the title and on the rest of the season.
“Acapulco is a very special place for me because three years ago was the first time I played the tournament, and I won the title in doubles.
“This year is just the second time I’ve played here and I’ve reached the singles final!”
Annika Beck battled back from a set down to oust Eugenie Bouchard from the BNP Paribas Open and book a second-round clash with Kristina Mladenovic.
INDIAN WELLS, CA, USA – Kristina Mladenovic is happy to have found a new doubles partner in the highly experienced Russian grand slam champion, Svetlana Kuznetsova.
It was something of a shock when Mladenovic announced that she and Caroline Garcia were putting an end to their doubles ambitions for the foreseeable future.
Mladenovic and Kuznetsova got their partnership off to the best of starts at the BNP Paribas Open, defeating Anna-Lena Groenefeld and Kveta Peschke 6-4, 6-1. They next face Andrea Hlavackova and Peng Shuai in the second round.
Svetlana and Kiki all happy and such.
They're moving on here in the desert. ?? pic.twitter.com/n6fxTc30EA— Christopher Levy (@tennis_shots) March 9, 2017
The French pairing of Mladenovic and Garcia enjoyed no shortage of doubles success, winning the French Open in 2016 as well as being runners-up at the US Open later in the same year.
INDIAN WELLS, CA, USA – Reigning French Open champion Garbiñe Muguruza came through a tense finish against Kirsten Flipkens, 6-2, 6-3, in her opening round match at the BNP Paribas Open. Up next for the No.7 seed is 17-year-old Kayla Day, who stunned Australian Open semifinalist Mirjana Lucic-Baroni in three sets.
“I think it was a difficult match,” she said during her post-match press conference. “I think she’s very talented and she can hit some critical shots and she can be tricky. I’m happy because it was not a first, easy match, like a first round. I don’t know. It was a big win for me, actually.”
Muguruza had split her first four meetings with the 2013 Wimbledon semifinalist, losing both of their meetings on grass. But hardcourts have proved more fertile ground for the Spaniard, who won her third straight match against her rival on concrete after 90 minutes on court.
.@GarbiMuguruza makes a flying start against Flipkens! #BNPPO17 pic.twitter.com/6H7n5UdXfv
— WTA (@WTA) March 10, 2017
“I think grass is a very tricky surface; you never know what’s gonna happen,” the 2015 Wimbledon runner-up said during her on-court interview. “I just played my game; sometimes she plays better, sometimes I do – that’s what tennis is! – but I played better today.”
Racing out to a set and 5-0 lead, things got more complicated from there as Flipkens forced her way into the second set. Ultimately, Muguruza broke through for the sixth and final time in the match, striking 24 winners to 28 unforced errors, and came to the net an impressive 33 times – winning 21 of those points.
.@GarbiMuguruza at her very best! #BNPPO17 pic.twitter.com/qLGNiLERle
— WTA (@WTA) March 10, 2017
“It’s always difficult to close out your first match. She’s a very talented player, unbelievable, with a very different game. I got nervous!”
Muguruza is making her fifth appearance in Indian Wells, and hopes to make the quarterfinals; her previous result came on her 2013 debut, when she reached the fourth round as a qualifier.
.@GarbiMuguruza picks up 10th win of 2017!
Downs Flipkens 6-2, 6-3! #BNPPO17 pic.twitter.com/sEqGkQHwFk
— WTA (@WTA) March 10, 2017
“I never know my expectations for the tournament. I believe every time I play the tournament I see myself holding a trophy, for sure. I want to believe I’m one of these women that can win the tournament.
“After that, I could lose in third round. I just want to go out there, my next match, and try to play well, try to do my game.”
What a win for the 17 year old!!@kaylaeday upsets Lucic-Baroni 6-4, 5-7, 7-5! #BNPPO17 pic.twitter.com/HQWlw3JoxY
— WTA (@WTA) March 10, 2017
Standing between her and a second round of 16 run is Day, the American teenager who survived No.32 seed Lucic-Baroni, 6-4, 5-7, 7-5.
“This means a lot to me,” Day told press. “I was really grateful to get offered this wildcard into the tournament, and it really means a lot that I can be able to see that I can play with some of the best players in the world.”
Lucic-Baroni retired from her last tournament due to a GI illness, but nonetheless served for the match in the final set.
“It was a really close match throughout the entire match. I think I started to really believe I could win at 6-5 in the third. It was still a really tough game, because I was a little bit tight to close it out. But my serve had been giving her a lot of problems, so I knew if I stuck to my game it might work out.”
Day turned heads last summer when she took home her first Grand Slam title at the US Open girl’s singles event, and withstood the Croat’s firepower to win the final four games of the match and book a meeting with Muguruza.
“She’s such a great player. I’m really excited to go out there and play her, one of the greatest in the game right now, so it should be really fun and a great experience for me.”
BRISBANE, Australia – No matter who wins Saturday’s final at the Brisbane International, one player will walk away with a drought-busting win. No.22 Victoria Azarenka is in her first final since Doha and aiming for her first title since Cincinnati in 2013, nearly two and a half years ago. Looking to stop her is No.10 Angelique Kerber, who will try and snag her first win in six tries over Azarenka.
The first week of the year began with much hand-wringing over the withdrawals and retirements of the Top 3 seeds in the tournament, with defending champion Maria Sharapova, World No.2 Simona Halep, and No.3 Garbiñe Muguruza exiting the tournament under a cloud of injury. It will end with a rematch of the best women’s match of 2015, when Azarenka got the better of Kerber in the third round of the US Open, winning 7-5, 2-6, 6-4 in a grueling match.
“We always bring the best out of each other, I think,” Azarenka said. “I mean, I hope we do. It was a pretty amazing match, so I hope we can put on a good show. I think the final deserves that.”
Azarenka has been in blistering form all week. She has dropped just 13 games in four matches, posting two bagel sets along the way. Her run in Brisbane most assuredly puts her on the shortlist of favorites at the Australian Open – she is, after all, a two-time champion in Melbourne – but Azarenka doesn’t want to get ahead of herself.
“I’m feeling pretty good right now,” she said. “I’m not saying anything besides that. It’s irrelevant. Tomorrow is a match. I’m looking forward to that. I never jump ahead. It can seem so close, yet so far. Done those mistakes before, and I’ll stick to being present.”
Kerber has looked just as sharp this week. Aside from dropping the first set of her tournament to Camila Giorgi, Kerber has been untouchable, notching wins over Giorgi, Madison Brengle, Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, and Carla Suárez Navarro. Most notably Kerber has unveiled a more aggressive gamestyle. A change of strings during the off-season – she now uses a Yonex hybrid and natural gut – has given her more pop on her groundstrokes.
“I was working a lot in the last few weeks on this, so I’m trying to transform it to the matches,” Kerber said of her newfound aggression. “It works good right now. Of course I must take the decision and just go for it and not hope that the other one will miss. I will try to make the points by myself.”
Looking towards Saturday’s final, the big focus point will be Kerber’s serve. Azarenka is one of, if not *the* best returner in the game when she’s at her best. Much of her 5-0 record against the German is a result of her ability to dominate Kerber’s second serve. Kerber hopes her off-season work on her serve will pay off now.
“I worked a lot in my off-season on my serve, and I’m feeling that the serve is also a little bit faster,” she said. “Also I’m trying to go for it with my second serve, not only pushing the ball. Of course that needs time. I think I’m on the good way. I’m feeling better on my serve.”
So will we see another three-set epic on Saturday? Kerber’s 2015 was defined by her participation in the year’s best matches. Earlier in the week Kerber’s compatriot and doubles partner Andrea Petkovic – the two are into the doubles final against Martina Hingis and Sania Mirza – was asked why her friend always finds herself embroiled in dramatic matches against the game’s best.
“I think one part of her game style is that she plays fast but just not too fast to make the other girls play well,” Petkovic said. “She’s too good for the lower-ranked players, but for the top players I think she [hits] exactly the pace they need to play really well.
“But Angie is somebody, when she gets challenged, she gets the best out of her as well. So I think these two things coming together just make for Hollywood, popcorn, great movie nights.”
Come back on Saturday as WTA Insider live blogs the final from Brisbane. The final begins at 7:30pm local time, 9:30am GMT.
INDIAN WELLS, CA, USA – Kayla Day has a beaming smile, one of those smiles which lights up a face, and while this week in the desert has given her plenty to smile about, it seems that she’s the kind of person who doesn’t need many excuses to crack out a grin.
When asked to describe herself in one word she chooses “hilarious”. The 17-year-old admits to being “pretty funny, I’m serious sometimes but I like to crack jokes a lot and laugh.” She clearly enjoys life and with the kind of impressive talent that saw her take out No. 32 seed Mirjana Lucic-Baroni on her way to the third round at the BNP Paribas Open, there is plenty to be happy about.
The California native first picked up a racket at the age of seven after watching her mom play in a women’s interclub match. She thought tennis looked ‘fun’ and subsequently signed up for a week’s tennis camp, loving it so much she ended up playing ‘every day all summer’ before locking in to regular lessons in her hometown of Santa Barbara.
A few years later she started making the four-hour round trip to Carson twice a week with her mom and she still trains there today under the watchful eye of Henner Nehles.
“My dream was always to be a professional but I really started thinking about it when I was 15,” said Day, who won the first Grand Slam match she played when she defeated Madison Brengle at last year’s US Open. That victory set up a second round meeting with Madison Keys on Louis Armstrong Stadium.
“It was such a good experience. I mean, I got two matches,” said the lefthander. “I got to play one of the great American players right now, Madison Keys. And I got to play on such a big court, and that was the first time I had ever been on such a big court.”
It was quite a fortnight for Day who claimed her first Junior Grand Slam title at the same event and also finished as runner-up in the girls’ doubles competition with Caroline Dolehide. Her junior successes ensured she ascended to World No. 1 in the junior rankings – a position she hopes to hold one day in the senior ranks, although she is having to practice the art of patience in the pursuit of her career dreams.
“I want my results to come, like, now. I want everything to be as fast as possible,” she admitted. “I think my coach is really good about telling me, like, focus on the process and improving and the results will come.”
Day is bubbly and confident and seems to be taking her success in her stride. She certainly doesn’t struggle for motivation either, divulging she was almost too psyched for her meeting with Lucic-Baroni.
“Before a match I either go Maroon 5 mellow or really pump out Kanye West or Jay Z,” she revealed. “Before I got in the car [to go to the courts] I was all pumped up and then I got in the car and I was like, man, I’m a little too pumped up, maybe I should mellow it down so I went Maroon 5 right before I went out there.”
As well as enjoying music, Day is a big fan of Stephen King novels and Netflix series like Grey’s Anatomy and The Vampire Diaries. Her non-tennis talents include speaking fluent Czech, thanks to her mom who was born and raised in the Czech Republic, and making a good butternut squash soup.
– Photos courtesy of Getty Images