Tennis News

TIANJIN, China – Svetlana Kuznetsova kept up her pursuit of a place at the BNP Paribas WTA Finals Singapore presented by SC Global with a hard-fought 2-6, 6-4, 7-6 victory over Naomi Osaka.

The Russian was able to break the 19-year-old’s serve in the first and fourth games of the opening set but failed to hold serve a single time as the World No.42 raced ahead.

However, the 2009 French Open champion rallied in the second, which was on serve until the seventh game, when Kuznetsova moved up a break. Osaka recovered the deficit in the following game but was broken once more and the Russian held her nerve to level the match.

The deciding set was closely contested, without a single break of serve, although Osaka squandered two break points. In the eventual tie-break, Kuznetsova’s superior experience told and she was able to take two points on the youngster’s serve and win it 7-3 to book her spot in the semifinals.

Kuznetsova will meet Alison Riske in the last four after the American overcame Xinyun Han, 6-3, 6-3. The match was a frantic affair in which both players struggled on serve but Riske got the crucial break to move 4-2 up in the opener and closed it out to get a crucial advantage.

The match moved at much the same pace in the second set, with only three games held overall; two of them were by Riske and it was the 26-year-old who advanced.

Monica Puig’s run in the tournament, meanwhile, came to an abrupt end at the hands of World No.65 Danka Kovinic.

The first set was a tight affair, in which the sole break came when the Puerto Rican squandered a 40-15 advantage when serving at 1-1. The Montenegrin held firm from there, closing out the set without any trouble.

Kovinic stormed into a lead in the second, breaking Puig in the opening game and consolidating her advantage by repeating the trick to go 4-1 ahead. Puig enjoyed a moderate recovery, halving the deficit, but was broken once more and crashed out of the tournament.

Kovinic will play Peng Shuai in the last four after the World No.182 received a bye thanks to Agnieszka Radwanska’s withdrawal.

SINGAPORE – For the sixth straight year and eighth time overall in her career, Agnieszka Radwanska has qualified once again for the BNP Paribas WTA Finals Singapore presented by SC Global. And this time she returns not only as the defending champion, but as the most in-form player since the US Open.

Radwanska never expected the Asia-Pacific would become the home of her best tennis, but that’s been precisely the case over the last four years. She’s won 10 titles since the start of 2013 and eight of them have come in the Asia-Pacific. Of course, the biggest title of her career came last here in Singapore, where she scrapped to qualify out of the round robin stage before beating Garbiñe Muguruza in the semifinals and Petra Kvitova in a thrilling three-set final to win the WTA Finals.

The 27-year-old veteran continued that season-ending momentum into 2016. She started the season with yet another title in Asia, winning the Shenzhen Open, and backed that up with a solid run to the semifinals of the Australian Open. In fact, Radwanska made the semifinals or better at five of her first six tournaments of the season, including the BNP Paribas Open, Porsche Tennis Grand Prix, and the Qatar Total Open.

Most notable in 2016 was Radwanska’s more disciplined schedule. She had built a career on playing as much as her body would allow and often ran the risk of arriving to the tour’s biggest tournaments injured or fatigued. This year Radwanska opted for a more limited schedule, backing herself to do well on the surfaces on which she excels. She played just three tournaments on European clay, her worst surface, and shifted to a heavier schedule during the grass season. The gamble did not pay off immediately — she lost in a thrilling three-sets to Dominika Cibulkova in the Round of 16 at Wimbledon — but playing fewer tournaments over the course of the season eventually paid off.

Radwanska found her game during the latter half of the North American hard court season, making the quarterfinals of the Western & Southern Open before rolling to her second title of the year at the Connecticut Open. Then, when the tour turned to Asia, Radwanska turned on the jets. Radwanska insists she doesn’t do anything differently in Asia to get the results she does. It just so happens that when she’s here, the big points go her way.

“As we know, tennis is very tight,” Radwanska told WTA insider in Beijing. “Sometimes you lose because of a couple of points. Now, I’m winning those points more often. Everything might be similar, but at the end of the day, I’m the one winning the key points. It’s not about changing something big as much as it’s about being very focused in important moments and believing in yourself, that you can do it.

“Seriously, the Asian Swing is the toughest for everyone – and for me as well! Maybe because New York is not really for me, I’m always getting home earlier so I can get a good rest and then practice really hard to do well in Asia. I guess I’m just taking my chances here.”

The Pole surged through the fall season, making the semifinals at the Toray Pan Pacific Open, quarterfinals at the Dongfeng Motor Wuhan Open, before rolling to her biggest title of the season at the China Open. Radwanska did not lose a set in Beijing and became just the fourth woman to own three or more Premier Mandatory titles, joining a club that includes Serena Williams, Maria Sharapova, and Victoria Azarenka. Radwanska finished her 2016 regular season with three titles and a 51-16 record.

Having now qualified for her sixth consecutive WTA Finals, Radwanska now holds the longest streak among active players. She will also finish the season in the Top 10 for her sixth consecutive season. She has been a steady Top 10 stalwart and her ability to do so without having a typical power game makes her career all the more inspiring. Most other players rely on pure power or athleticism to work their way to the top. Radwanska’s creativity and guile proves that there is another path to the upper echelons of the game, one that can enthrall fans, light up the hot shot highlight reels, and earn her some of the best nicknames in the game.

“I really like ‘La Professora’,” Radwanska said with a smile, when asked what for her favorite nickname was. “I think it comes from Spanish and Italian coaches or players. It’s great to hear this kind of nickname. It means I playing really good, perfection tennis.”

HOBART, Australia – Lucky loser Veronica Cepede Royg needed five match points but eventually prevailed over former World No.9 Andrea Petkovic to reach the quarterfinals of the Hobart International.

The Paraguayan recovered strongly from being blanked out of the second set, completing a 6-3, 0-6, 6-4 comeback to book her place into her first WTA quarterfinal since June.

“Petkovic is a great player, she’s tall and so she has a great serve,” Cepede Royg told press afterward. “It was a tough match, but I’ve had tough matches before and I think I know how to play against the top players.

“I had to do my game, be aggressive and move. And I think I did.”

The No.129-ranked Cepede Royg opened the match with a break, playing confident and aggressive tennis against the former Top 10 German.

But Petkovic found her groove in the second set, cutting down on the unforced errors and dictating play with her backhand. And as the German’s lead grew, the Paraguayan’s confidence seemed to diminish, responding passively and second-guessing herself.

“It’s not easy to see the score at 6-0,” Cepede Royg said. “But my coach came and said to just relax, enjoy this moment, do your game and fight for every point.”

“You have to change your mentality. I was thinking too much in the match, so I focused more in my game.”

With that renewed mindset, the World No.129 turned it around in the decider and broke back to stop Petkovic’s run at 1-1 and keep the German under pressure.

They stayed on serve until a marathon final game, which saw Petkovic save four match points to keep herself alive but couldn’t serve it out. The Paraguayan eventually prevailed on the fifth time of asking, finally breaking the Petkovic serve to take the match and a spot in the quarterfinals.

“Oh man, I was thinking, ‘Oh my god, I’ve had five match points!'” Cepede Royg laughed. “I tried to be more aggressive and not think too much, just put the ball in the court and go for it. It was so difficult but I did it.”

The victory, her first WTA main draw win in almost six months, puts her through to the second quarterfinal of her career since last year’s Mallorca Open. She’ll play the winner between Australia’s Lizette Cabrera and Croatian qualifier Jana Fett for a spot in the semifinals.

SINGAPORE – Dominika Cibulkova will round off a fantastic season by appearing at the BNP Paribas WTA Finals Singapore presented by SC Global for the first time in her career.

Victory over Viktorija Golubic in the final of the Generali Ladies Linz confirmed Cibulkova as the eighth qualifier for the season-ending showpiece, joining Angelique Kerber, Serena Williams, Simona Halep, Agnieszka Radwanska, Karolina Pliskova, Garbiñe Muguruza and Madison Keys in the singles field.

The 2016 season has been a comeback year for Cibulkova, as the 27-year-old claimed three titles at the Katowice Open, Aegon International Eastbourne and most recently at the Generali Ladies Linz. Cibulkova reached three additional finals at the Abierto Mexicano TELCEL, Mutua Madrid Open and the Dongfeng Motor Wuhan Open, which helped set a career-high ranking of No.8. The Slovak also advanced to the quarterfinals at Wimbledon.

“I can’t describe with words what qualifying for the WTA Finals Singapore means to me,” said Cibulkova. “After such a tough year last year, this year has been amazing – so reaching the WTA Finals is a dream come true. It was my goal to be a consistently great player and I have achieved that this year. I want to enjoy it, play good tennis and end the year the best way I can.”

The current Road to Singapore Leaderboard as follows (as of October 10, 2016):