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Ivanovic Dethrones Halep In Dubai

  • Posted: Jan 01, 1970

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.”

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TBT: Serena Returns To The Top

TBT: Serena Returns To The Top

  • Posted: Jan 01, 1970

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.

Serena Williams

“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.”

Serena Williams

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.

Serena Williams

“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.”

Serena Williams

All photos courtesy of Getty Images.

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Insider Draw Analysis: Can Konta Overcome Kvitova To Win In Zhuhai?

Insider Draw Analysis: Can Konta Overcome Kvitova To Win In Zhuhai?

  • Posted: Jan 01, 1970

The Huajin Securities WTA Elite Trophy Zhuhai is the final event of the season, and the completed draw revealed four exciting groups, with the winner of each advancing into the semifinals. World No.10 Johanna Konta leading a stacked field of 12 that includes two-time Wimbledon winner Petra Kvitova and Australian Open quarterfinalist Zhang Shuai, the latter two presiding over Monday’s draw ceremony.

WTA Insider broke down the four round robin groups; click here to check out the full singles draw.

Azalea Group: (1) Johanna Konta, Samantha Stosur, Caroline Garcia
Both Konta and Garcia head to Zhuhai direct from the BNP Paribas WTA Finals Singapore presented by SC Global. Konta served a first alternate while Garcia, top seed in alongside Kristina Mladenovic, earned a semifinal finish in doubles.

Konta enjoyed a strong finish to her breakout season with a run to the China Open final, and is playing her second tournament since becoming the first British woman to crack the Top 10 since Jo Durie in 1984.

Stosur had her best Grand Slam finish in four years when she upset 2015 finalist Lucie Safarova and 2014 runner-up Simona Halep en route to the French Open semifinals, falling to eventual champion Garbiñe Muguruza.

Garcia not only came within one match of finishing Co-No.1 in doubles, but the youngster also continued to build on her burgeoning singles career, winning two titles on two different surfaces in Strasbourg and Mallorca.

Camellia Group: (2) Carla Suárez Navarro, Timea Bacsinszky, Zhang Shuai
Second alternate in Singapore, Suárez Navarro came perilously close to the WTA Finals for a second straight season, and will look to make her first semifinal in Zhuhai after falling in the round robin stage in 2015.

A knee injury kept Bacsinszky out of Zhuhai last year, but the Swiss star put on a stunning performance to start 2016, winning another title in Rabat and winning back-to-back matches against Agnieszka Radwanska and Halep to roar into the semifinals at the Miami Open.

Rounding out the Camellia Group is one of the most compelling stories of the season in Chinese wildcard Zhang Shuai. Close to retirement, the veteran won her first-ever Grand Slam main draw match in emphatic style, knocking out then-World No.2 Halep as a qualifier before her run ended in the quarterfinals at the Australian Open. Zhang continued to play high-level tennis throughout the year, beating Halep again to roll into the last eight in Beijing.

Petra Kvitova

Peony Group: (3) Petra Kvitova, Roberta Vinci, Barbora Strycova
One of the game’s biggest hitters goes head-to-head with a pair who rely on guile and cunning in the Peony Group as Petra Kvitova takes on Roberta Vinci and Barbora Strycova in her Zhuhai debut.

Kvitova began showing signs of her best tennis at the height of the Asian Swing. The Olympic Bonze medalist decimated an impressive field to win the Dongfeng Motor Wuhan Open. In Beijing, she defeated Muguruza in straight sets before taking a narrow loss in the last eight.

Her countrywoman, Barbora Strycova, had a breakthrough season of her own, moving up to a career-high ranking of No.19 and a pair of Premier finals at the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships and Aegon Classic. Kvitova and Strycova will meet again in a few weeks for the upcoming Fed Cup final against France.

Vinci became the oldest woman to make her Top 10 debut four days after her 33rd birthday, and bookended her season with solid results, winning the St. Petersburg Ladies Trophy and returned to the second week of the US Open a year after stunning then-World No.1 Serena Williams to reach the final.

Rose Group: (4) Elina Svitolina, Elena Vesnina, Kiki Bertens
Svitolina headlines the final round robin group in Zhuhai alongside a pair of comeback kids in Elena Vesnina and Kiki Bertens.

The rising Ukrainian star qualified for the WTA Elite Trophy for the second year in a row; pairing up with 2016 International Tennis Hall of Fame Inductee and former No.1 Justine Henin, she kicked off her season with a title run in Kuala Lumper – surviving a thriller against Eugenie Bouchard. But her best results have come at the end of the season, making the semifinals or better at four of her last six tournaments, including the Toray Pan Pacific Open and China Open.

Vesnina was ranked outside the Top 100 a short nine months ago, but rebounded spectacularly from a low of No.122 to a career-high of No.19. Claiming wins over the likes of Halep, Venus Williams, and Caroline Wozniacki, she qualified into the final of the Volvo Car Open before taking her best major result by dismantling Dominika Cibulkova on her way to the Wimbledon semifinal.

A cancer scare nearly took Kiki Bertens out of the game, but the Dutch powerhouse showed off some of her obvious potential in Paris, upsetting Bacsinszky to find herself in her first Grand Slam semifinal. The run also helped her clinch a berth on the Olympic team.

Zhang Shuai

The doubles teams were split into two groups before the singles draw was made with help of Kvitova and Zhang:

All photos courtesy of Getty Images and WTA Elite Trophy Zhuhai.

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