Doha: Shot Of The Match (Radwanska)
Agnieszka Radwanska had a third shot of the match in the quarterfinals of the Qatar Total Open.
Agnieszka Radwanska had a third shot of the match in the quarterfinals of the Qatar Total Open.
Six-time champion Serena Williams came through her first significant test at this year’s Australian Open, defeating Lucie Safarova in two high-quality sets.
DOHA, Qatar – Carla Suárez Navarro captured the biggest title of her career at the Qatar Total Open, charging back from a set down against 18-year-old Jelena Ostapenko to triumph, 1-6, 6-4, 6-4.
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“I started a little bit nervous and she started really good,” she said in her on-court interview. “It’s not easy to play like this, and I lost the first set but I believed, I fought, I run, and finally I won.”
Ostapenko had beaten the Spaniard in their only prior encounter at last year’s Wimbledon Championships, and started in similar form with a nearly flawless first set in her second WTA final, cracking eight forehand winners en route to winning the opening set.
Playing in her 10th career final, Suárez Navarro drew on her wealth of experience and confidence earned from big wins like the one against No.3 seed Agnieszka Radwanska in the semifinal, and stayed with the young Latvian as the teenager – already set to join fellow 18-year-olds Belinda Bencic and Daria Kasatkina in the Top 50 – began to leak errors off the backhand (30 from that side alone). In the end, Ostapenko hit 35 winners to only 9 from the No.8 seed, but 47 total unforced errors made the difference from the Spaniard, who only hit 25.
“It was a great week for me, and congrats to Carla for such a great match today,” Ostapenko said during the trophy ceremony. “I was just trying to play how I can and show my best; I hope you enjoyed watching me play.
“It’s great but it’s just the first step,” she said of adding to the largest sum of Top 50 teens since April 2009 (Caroline Wozniacki, Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, Sorana Cirstea). “My goal is to be even higher, so I hope I can make it.”
For Suárez Navarro, Doha is her second WTA title, one that brings her up to a career-high ranking of No.6, and No.2 on the Road To Singapore standings behind reigning Australian Open champion Angelique Kerber.
“It’s amazing, a dream come true. I was in Top 10 last year but not No.6, so it’s a special number.
“This tournament was really tough. The best players in the world were here, and it’s so special. You have to play every day, and it’s not easy.
“But these wins give me a lot of confidence, the experience that I take from this. I’ve lost a lot of finals, so I’m really happy and excited about this tournament.”
MELBOURNE, Australia – Mirjana Lucic-Baroni caused the biggest upset of this year’s Australian Open by knocking out No.3 seed Agnieszka Radwanska in the second round.
In little over an hour on Margaret Court Arena, Lucic-Baroni struck 33 winners to complete a 6-3, 6-2 victory and set up a third-round meeting with another unseeded player, Maria Sakkari.
Lucic-Baroni will turn 35 in March and last progressed beyond the first round at Melbourne Park in 1998. However, even after dropping serve at the start of the second set, she refused to be derailed, reeling off the next six games to seal victory, and hand Radwanska her earliest loss at Melbourne Park in eight years.
Mirjana #LucicBaroni has that winning #AusOpen feeling in 2R pic.twitter.com/i3WQOQLBTS
— #AusOpen (@AustralianOpen) January 19, 2017
A one-time teenage prodigy, Lucic-Baroni has returned to the limelight in recent years, winning a third career title at Québec City in 2014, and upsetting Simona Halep at the French and US Opens. These performances have imbued the Croat with the confidence that on her day she can compete with the game’s best.
“That was my first big win in a while and it was a shock,” Lucic-Baroni said when asked about her win over Halep at the 2014 US Open. “I know I have some good tennis in me still, that’s the reason I’m still out here playing at 34 – I’m no spring chicken – to get these moments and these feelings. It was really fun tonight.
“I know that I have the game to win a big match. I didn’t go in there to see a big court, I went in with a gameplan. I’ve been around too long to just gain experience.”
Like Halep, Radwanska proved powerless in the face of a barrage of winners, responding with just eight of her own.
“There’s not a lot I could do; she’s playing without pressure, full power. It’s hard to comment because it all went so fast,” Radwanska said in her press conference. “It’s always disappointing when you lose in the first week of a Grand Slam. I need to come back next year and do better.”
Lucic-Baroni now faces Sakkari, another player appearing at this stage of the tournament for the first time.
“I don’t feel like I’m that old. I’ve missed a few years on tour, but this time around I don’t have anything to prove, I’m just enjoying myself, playing for myself. I’m enjoying it, enjoying the moments and just trying to go as far as I can,” Lucic-Baroni added.
Though she walked away with the runner-up trophy at the Qatar Total Open, Jelena Ostapenko’s run to the final of Doha nonetheless cut her ranking in half, moving up from No.88 to earned her a career-high ranking of No.41 – her Top 50 debut.
The Latvian joins fellow 18-year-olds Belinda Bencic (No.8) and Daria Kasatkina (No.46) to become the largest cohort of youngsters since April of 2009 (Caroline Wozniacki, Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, Sorana Cirstea).
“It’s great but it’s just the first step,” she said during the trophy ceremony – with all the impatience of youth. “But my goal is to be even higher, so I hope I can make it.”
Roaring through an effortless opening set, Ostapenko ultimately fell to Carla Suárez Navarro, 1-6, 6-4, 6-4; the 27-year-old Spaniard earned a second WTA title and rocketed up from No.11 to a career-high ranking of No.6, one away from her 2016 goal of being ranked among the Top 5 in the world.
“It’s amazing, a dream come true. I was in Top 10 last year but not No.6, so it’s a special number.”
Who else made big leaps in the last week?
Elena Vesnina (+29, No.118 to No.89): The 2016 Australian Open mixed doubles champion had struggled in singles for the last two years, but arguably played better than ever in back-to-back upsets over No.2 seed Simona Halep and former No.1 Caroline Wozniacki – a player she had only beaten once in seven previous encounters – to reach the quarterfinals in Qatar and return to the Top 100 for the first time since August 2015.
Zheng Saisai (+10, No.73 to No.63): Fellow Qatar Total Open quarterfinalist Zheng Saisai had a phenomenal day in Doha when she defeated top seed and reigning Australian Open champion Angelique Kerber, and later coming close to ending Martina Hingis and Sania Mirza’s then-40-match-winning streak in doubles. Zheng edges close to a Top 60 debut and returns to No.1 in China, taking the spot back from Melbourne quarterfinalist Zhang Shuai – a potentially crucial development looking ahead to Olympic qualifying.
Donna Vekic (+10, No.104 to No.94): The Croatian youngster also returned to the Top 100 following a solid week in Doha, qualifying for the main draw and pushing Suárez Navarro through two tight sets.
Eugenie Bouchard (+9, No.61 to No.52): Bouchard earned her first wins since the Australian Open; the 2014 Wimbledon finalist saved match points against qualifier Anastasija Sevastova in the opening round as she moves within striking distance of the Top 50.
Dominika Cibulkova (+9, No.66 to No.57): The 2014 Australian Open finalist made her first final in nearly two years at the Abierto Mexicano Telcel in Acapulco, playing an epic match against Sloane Stephens that ended in a final set tie-break.
Cagla Buyukakcay (+34, No.162 to No.128): A wildcard in Doha, the 26-year-old took out defending champion Lucie Safarova in the second round, rocketing up the rankings as she aims to make a long-awaited Top 100 debut.
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The nominees for the prestigious Laureus World Sports Awards have been announced and after a near-perfect season, World No.1 Serena Williams is up for the biggest award of them all, Laureus World Sportswoman Of The Year.
The Laureus World Sports Awards began in the year 2000 and in the 16 previous editions, Laureus World Sportswoman Of The Year has gone to WTA players four times – Jennifer Capriati in 2002, Williams in 2003, Justine Henin in 2008 and Williams again in 2010. Williams and pole vaulter Yelena Isinbayeva are the only two women ever to win the award twice – Isinbayeva won it in 2007 and 2009.
No woman has ever won the award three times – if she wins this year’s, Williams will be the first.
In addition to the American, the other nominees for Sportswoman of the Year include Genzebe Dibaba (athletics), Anna Fenninger (skiing), Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce (athletics), Katie Ledecky (swimming), and Carli Lloyd (football).
Williams was a wall-to-wall No.1 for the second time in her career, finishing the season atop the WTA rankings for the fifth time (2002, 2009, 2013, 2014). She won a WTA-leading five titles, including the first three Grand Slams of the season at the Australian Open, French Open, and Wimbledon – winning her second Non-Calendar Year “Serena Slam” and becoming the closest to achieve the Calendar Year Grand Slam since Steffi Graf in 1988. With a 53-3 record, she earned the most prize money in 2015 – surpassing her 2014 record for second highest total prize money won in a single season at $10,582,642.
The 21-time Grand Slam champion is the only WTA player nominated this year, and one of three tennis members of the tennis world, alongside Novak Djokovic and the British Davis Cup Team.
Largely considered “the Oscars of sports”, the Laureus World Sports Awards have been held in major cities all over the world with an all-star cast of hosts, including Jeff Bridges, Heidi Klum, Morgan Freeman, Kevin Spacey and Benedict Cumberbatch. This year’s awards are in Berlin on April 18.
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