Cincinnati: Story Of The Tournament
The story of the tournament from the Western & Southern Open.
The story of the tournament from the Western & Southern Open.
Highlights from the second round action at the Connecticut Open.
An interview with Johanna Larsson after her win in the quarterfinals of the Connecticut Open.
DUBAI, UAE – Ana Ivanovic produced another terrific performance at the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships to knock out top seed and defending champion Simona Halep.
Watch live action from Dubai & Rio de Janeiro this week on WTA Live powered by TennisTV!
In the previous round Ivanovic dropped a solitary game, and she was every bit as impressive against Halep, booking her place in the quarterfinals with a 7-6(2), 6-2 win.
“Honestly, I’m delighted,” Ivanovic said. “It was a great battle in the first set, and she’s such a great player and I really had to raise my game, which I think I did. It was not easy but I’m really thrilled to be through.”
Heavy rain meant the players did not get on court until after 8pm. When they did finally emerge, another interruption was soon forthcoming, as the ball kids hastily tried to towel down the still-damp baseline.
On the resumption, Halep started brightest, opening up a 5-3 lead. However, with the set at her mercy she tightened, netting a couple of routine groundstrokes to surrender her advantage.
With her tail now up, Ivanovic produced some sparkling tennis to take the tie-break before racing through the second set.
“I was a little but anxious because it was stop and go. I think we both wanted to continue playing but it was a little bit slippery. I needed to stay calm and I’m glad I managed to do that,” Ivanovic added when quizzed about the second interruption.
Barbora Strycova, a 2-6, 6-3, 6-1 winner over Julia Goerges earlier in the day, awaits in the quarterfinals, and Ivanovic expects another testing outing.
“She beat Julia, who is playing great, so it’s going to be a tough match,” Ivanovic added. “We’ve played a few times before, but I’m not really thinking about that at the moment.”
DOHA, Qatar – Serena Williams appeared unstoppable in the summer of 2010; the American had just won her fourth Wimbledon title and was the undisputed World No.1 when an out-of-nowhere foot injury ended her season.
“I left ranked No.1,” Williams said nearly a year later in Eastbourne. “That’s what I miss most, just being on top of the game and just playing some really good tennis, the challenges of all the players.”
Things went from bad to worse when her return to the game was further delayed by breathing troubles that turned out to be something even more serious: a pulmonary embolism.
“I honestly just thought I was out of shape, that I needed to get on the treadmill or something. They just said it could have gotten a lot serious a day later or two days later. It could have been really not good.
“It could have possibly been career-ending, but for the grace of God I got there in time and I was able to recover from it.
“I’m just taking it one day at a time. I mean, I’m not just preparing for today or Wimbledon. I’m preparing for the rest of my career.”
From a nadir of No.172 in July of 2011, Williams went on a tear that summer, winning 18 straight matches to reach the US Open final.
Clicking into gear with gusto in 2012, the American reclaimed her Wimbledon crown – her first major title in exactly two years – added an Olympic Gold medal at the Summer Games in Lodon, and capped a near-perfect season with wins at the US Open and WTA Finals.
She came into that next year’s Qatar Total Open having won 56 of her last 59 matches, with a run to the semifinals all she needed to return to No.1. From 4-1 down in the final set, Williams roared past Petra Kvitova 3-6, 6-3, 7-5 in the quarterfinals to cap an emotional comeback.
“I don’t know how I did it – I really don’t know,” she said after the match. “I just hung in there and she was playing so well. Every time I looked around she was hitting a winner.
“I just tried to stay in there.”
Williams has been atop the WTA rankings ever since, adding six more majors to her current total of 21, and is set to pass Martina Navratilova for consecutive weeks at No.1 at 157 straight weeks.
Steffi Graf remains the final frontier for the American, is in position to pass the German’s haul of 22 major titles and 186 straight weeks at No.1.
“In my particular situation, I never thought I’d play again,” she told press that night in Doha. “Then I thought I’d never be able to win tournaments or Grand Slams. No.1 was so far off. It was always a dream, but, you know, I was No.1 when tragedy struck, and it was just an awful thing to happen.
“So I’m happy that I’m back.”
All photos courtesy of Getty Images.
An interview with Agnieszka Radwanska after her win in the semifinal of the Connecticut Open.
Traditionally the Connecticut Open is a time for dotting i’s and crossing t’s, providing a stage for its invariably impressive cast of performers to fine tune their game ahead of the year’s final major, the US Open.
Agnieszka Radwanska grasped the opportunity with both hands, strolling through that draw and to the 19th title of her career. The result elevated her to fourth place on the Road To Singapore leaderboard and closer to qualifying for the BNP Paribas WTA Finals Singapore presented by SC Global, which she so famously won last autumn.
With many of the other leading contenders for Singapore resting up or travelling early to New York, other movement was restricted to lower down the leaderboard. Elina Svitolina produced some of her best tennis of 2016 to reach the final, a result that took her from No.30 to No.20.
One of Radwanska’s victims, another former WTA Finals champion Petra Kvitova, was rewarded for her semifinal run with a jump from No.33 to No.25 on the leaderboard, while Elena Vesnina is up to No.14 from her previous position of No.15.
The campaign’s final major usually has a significant say in who will be Singapore-bound, with Garbiñe Muguruza, Radwanska and Simona Halep all hoping secure their spot alongside the first two qualifiers, Serena Williams and Angelique Kerber.
RTS Ranking Movers
Petra Kvitova: No.33 to No.25 (+8)
Elina Svitolina: No.30 to No.20 (+10)
Elena Vesnina: No.15 to No.14 (+1)
Agnieszka Radwanska: No.5 to No.4 (+1)
Click here to see the full Road To Singapore leaderboard standings following New Haven.
SINGAPORE – Agnieszka Radwanska’s strong return of serve was key to her win over Karolina Pliskova 7-5 6-3 in the final round robin match of the BNP Paribas WTA Finals Singapore presented by SC Global. The victory earned Radwanska a spot in the event’s semifinals.
One of the best returners in the game, Radwanska was facing one of the best servers in the game in Friday’s match.
Through this season, Radwanska is among the Top 3 on the WTA for return points won (49%), return games won (49%) and break points converted (54%).
She was facing an opponent in Pliskova who led the WTA in aces (530) and was second for first serve points won (74%) in 2016.
The SAP Coaches View shows that it was Pliskova’s second serve that was vulnerable to Radwanska’s return, with the Pole winning 61% of those points.
The “Return of Serve” tracking with Coaches View shows that a key to Radwanska’s success was her aggressive approach in taking those Pliskova second serves. Radwanska returned 78% of Pliskova’s second serves from inside the baseline.
During the first two round robin matches of the tournament, Pliskova won 47% of second serve points, compared to 36% against Radwanska. Neither of her first two opponents, Svetlana Kuznetsova and Garbiñe Muguruza, were as aggressive as Radwanska in taking the ball early. Kuznetsova returned 57% of Pliskova’s second serves inside the baseline, while Muguruza did so just 10% of the time.
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.
“Return of serve” tracking shows where each service return was struck, differentiating between first and second serves, with an emphasis on how many serves are returned from inside the baseline. This data can be filtered by a particular score.
Radwanska broke Pliskova five times in 10 games during Friday’s match, giving the defending champion a berth in the semifinals as she aims for a second straight WTA Finals title.
NEW YORK, NY, USA – No.11 seed Petra Kvitova overcame a losing head-to-head record against 19-year-old Jelena Ostapenko to win 7-5, 6-3 in her opening round match at the US Open.
Kicking off the day’s action on Court 12, the two-time Wimbledon champion was dealt a tricky opening match against the young Latvian. Ostapenko has defeated Kvitova twice already in 2016, notching three-set wins at Doha and Birmingham.
“I knew that I had to return better, especially on her second serve, which I did today at the end of the match,” Kvitova explained in post-match press. “I was struggling a little bit at the beginning, kind of tight and couldn’t really move. I know that she hits big and fast, and I was trying to eliminate that.”
Ostapenko has been on the rise all year: she started out the season ranked No.84 and now at No.36, she just narrowly missed out on getting a US Open seeding. And against Kvitova, whose bronze medal at the Olympic tennis event has been the highlight of an otherwise quiet season, the Latvian’s big hitting always spells out big trouble.
Ostapenko kept to the script out on Court 12 today as well, breaking Kvitova twice to power ahead to a 3-0 lead. The Czech rallied to grab a break back, playing consistent tennis to force the errors to leak from the 19-year-old’s backhand wing. Kvitova finally leveled the set at 5-5, and rattled off the next two games to take the opening set.
Kvitova continued her romp into set two, where she tamped down three of Ostapenko’s break opportunities to roll to a straight sets victory. The Czech hit just six winners to five unforced errors during the match, but overall kept her margins cleaner than Ostapenko’s four winners and 11 unforced errors.
“I feel like I had a breakthrough here at the US Open,” Kvitova said. I didn’t really like it before; I don’t know why, but I feel the courts aren’t as fast as I wish they’d be. But I made a great success last year, and I hope it’s not the end. I know how difficult it is with the air and the humidity is not the best for me, but today I played good and didn’t have any troubles with that.”
She’ll face Turkey’s No.66 Cagla Buyukakcay in the second round, who recorded the first win of the day when she knocked out No.75 Irina Falconi in her US Open main draw debut.
“I haven’t played her yet, but it’s nice that someone is making stories like she is,” Kvitova said of the Turkish trailblazer. “It’s nice that she’s showing her tennis to Turkish people so more people play there.”
SINGAPORE – Garbiñe Muguruza ended her breakout season with one last win at the BNP Paribas WTA Finals Singapore presented by SC Global, ousting an on-fire Svetlana Kuznetsova and blitzing the Russian in the final two sets of a 3-6, 6-0, 6-1 victory.
Read how the match unfolded in the WTA Insider Live Blog.
– Muguruza wanted this win.
For a player who won their first Grand Slam and ascended to a career-high ranking of No.2 just four months ago, few eyes were on Muguruza heading into Singapore.
“I suffered a lot in the last month,” she said in her post-match press conference. “I was wondering if I’m going to qualify, if I’m not going to qualify. I really wanted to qualify.
“I had the opportunity to go to Linz to play, and then I twisted my ankle and it was drama for me.”
The drama continued at the WTA Finals; down a set to Karolina Pliskova in her first round robin match, the Spaniard roared back and got perilously close to victory, only to lose the last five games.
“It was a very tough tournament. I had a match point in my first match; then the second match [against Agnieszka Radwanska] was tough.”
Mathematically out of contention to advance into the semifinals, there was little more pressure on Muguruza than the amount she put on herself.
“I have to be honest. Going into this match, it was extremely hard for me. Minutes before I was like, ‘This is going to be is difficult one for me.’
“At the end it was about my desire of wanting to be here and competing against the best. It became a challenge for me today, to see how I was going to react.”
Losing a decisive first set to Kuznetsova, who already qualified first in their round robin group, the reigning Roland Garros winner reacted well, dropping just one more game and hitting 31 winners to end her week with a 1-2 record.
“For sure a victory like today’s is going to keep me a little bit happier. I felt I took my opportunities in this one. Well, it was too late, but I still did it!”
A season of ups and downs put extra emphasis on an ostensibly low-stakes match; from her emotional reaction on court and in press, it was clear how much the win meant to her.
A relieved @GarbiMuguruza gets a win at 2016 @WTAFinalsSG. And nice words from @AndrewKrasny. #WTAFinals pic.twitter.com/zJYNXmfJwE
— WTA (@WTA) October 28, 2016
– Fatigue finally caught up with Kuznetsova.
The Russian had already advanced into the semifinals. For the first time in two weeks, she didn’t need to win a match to keep her season alive. Kuznetsova pointed to that inherent lack of intensity as being crucial to the loss on Friday.
“I’ve done the most important job in the past matches,” she said after the match. “You definitely don’t want to lose a match. You try to fight.
“Sometimes the lack of energy just won’t let you do that.”
Still, she noted her superb level of tennis in the first set, and how it only took a few tight games in the second set to turn things towards the Spaniard.
“I want to give credit to Garbine because I think she played way better in the second and third set.
“I don’t feel exhausted like that or something. But of course, to push yourself to the limit, you got to really go hard. I just want to do it tomorrow, try to do my best.”
She’ll have her opportunity tomorrow in the semifinal, where she takes on another surprise semifinalist in Dominika Cibulkova. Trailing 3-5 in their head-to-head, Kuznetsova’s lost her last five matches with the Slovak, including a three-set thriller at the Dongfeng Motor Wuhan Open.
“I do remember quite a bit of that match. I know I will try to make the changes on what I think didn’t work for me in that match.
“Of course, obviously, I’m not going to tell it now,” she added with a smile.
Garbine on the scene. @GarbiMuguruza takes a near 13 minute game. 2-0 in set 3 #WTAFinals pic.twitter.com/llIXns86bZ
— WTA (@WTA) October 28, 2016
– Muguruza is looking towards 2017.
It may be too soon for any player to sum up their season right after their last match, but Muguruza had a clear picture of what went right and wrong in 2016.
“I started the year thinking, ‘Okay, this is an important year for me. I finished well last year. Let’s try to keep doing well.’
“But the results weren’t there at the beginning, so I was like struggling. I was like, ‘Man, I’m practicing and doing everything and I am not winning matches.’ So it created a lot of frustration.
A top drop shot from @GarbiMuguruza. #WTAFinals pic.twitter.com/nxuEqkuomr
— WTA (@WTA) October 28, 2016
“I calmed down and then finally had the results, but then everything changed. All these responsibilities, all these emotions. It was hard for me to deal with this for the next tournaments. But I wouldn’t change anything, obviously.”
She’ll have to spend the off-season adjusting to what she cannot change, but after a heavily scheduled season, the former World No.2 will be looking to relax over the next few weeks.
“I didn’t really plan things because I didn’t know when I was going to finish here. Right now I’m just going to see how many days I have, see where can I go, who’s available.”
What she hopes will emerge will be the “dangerous opponent” she believes herself to be.
“I don’t really care who’s in front of me. Obviously the situation and the tournament, these can affect me, but I always think I have a chance to win.”