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Begu Triumphs In Florianopolis Final

  • Posted: Jan 01, 1970

FLORIANOPOLIS, Brazil – Irina-Camelia Begu produced a stirring fightback to defeat Timea Babos and win the Brasil Tennis Cup on Friday.

After looking out of sorts in the first set, Begu dragged herself back into the contest to halt Babos’ charge in the second. A break in the ninth game saw her take the match the distance and despite falling 2-0 behind in the decider she rallied once more to win, 2-6, 6-4, 6-3.

“During the match I didn’t start really well – I was a little bit tense and focusing too much on the negative rather than the positive things I was doing. Then I realized I had to make the most of the situation, if the forehand wasn’t working I needed to use the backhand more,” Begu said. “I think it was more mental because I really wanted to win the title.”

The result secures Begu the third title of her career, reaffirming a love affair with the country which played such a crucial role in her comeback from a serious shoulder injury.

“This country is really special for me. In 2014, I was around 130, 140 [in the rankings], I don’t really remember, and I started with the small tournaments, then Florianopolis and Rio,” Begu said. “Being here for five weeks I got to see that the people are really nice, the food is great, too. I was also doing well, winning some of the tournaments, the $25Ks, so it was a nice comeback for me. If I have the chance I will come back again!”

Victory also provides the perfect send-off ahead of the Romanian’s trip up the coast to Rio where she will compete in her second Olympics, beginning her challenge against Nao Hibino. Babos, whose four-year wait to add to her solitary WTA title continues, meanwhile has a day to lick her wounds before a first-round meeting against Petra Kvitova.

“It was a difficult final emotionally, especially as I felt I had it in my hands, then only at the end I realize I’ve lost,” Babos said afterwards. “Of course I was playing against a very good player – she was fighting all the way – but I thought that I was playing better and I had many, many, many opportunities, so obviously I’m sad to lose this final.”

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Rio Olympics: By The Numbers

Rio Olympics: By The Numbers

  • Posted: Jan 01, 1970

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil – How many people will cram into The Maria Esther Bueno Tennis Stadium to watch next Saturday’s singles final? Which nations are best represented in the draw? And whose record is Venus Williams set to match? These are just a few of the questions answered in an Olympic special of wtatennis.com’s By The Numbers.

10,000 – The Olympic Tennis Center’s main court seats 10,000 spectators and was named after Brazilian legend, Maria Bueno, who won 19 Grand Slam titles in the 1950s and 1960s

63 – Since its reintroduction in 1988, 63 different countries have been represented in the tennis competition

42 – The number of games it took the Soviet Union’s Larisa Savchenko to defeat Sara Gomer in Seoul in 1988. In terms of games played, Savchenko’s 6-7(3), 7-6(3), 9-7 victory remains the longest in the Games’ history

24 – World No.24 Alicia Molik, who won bronze at Athens in 2004, is the only unseeded player to collect a medal at the Olympics

18 – At 18 years old Ana Konjuh is the youngest player competing in the singles draw. In 1992, Jennifer Capriati, then 16 years and 132 days old, beat Steffi Graf to win gold

13 – Venus owns a 13-3 record in singles competition at the Olympic Games, the most match wins since tennis returned in 1988

12 – Serena (9) and Venus (13) boast by far the most singles match wins at this summer’s Games. Caroline Wozniacki (5) is next on the list, while the 14 seeds not named Williams have a combined total of just 12

10 – Atlanta gold medalist Lindsay Davenport was No.10 at the time of the Games. She is the lowest-ranked player to win the singles competition

5 -This will be Venus’ fifth Olympics equaling Arantxa Sánchez-Vicario’s record for most appearances

4 – China, Germany, Russia, and the United States all have the maximum of four representatives in the singles draw

3 – Serena and Venus have picked up doubles gold on each occasion they have competed together (2000, 2008 and 2012)

2 – The top seed has won gold at only two of the seven Games since 1988 – Graf (1988) and Justine Henin (2004)

1 – Serena’s solitary defeat in her two previous bids for singles gold came at the hands of eventual winner Elena Dementieva in the Beijing quarterfinals

0 – Prior to Rio, no Turkish tennis player had competed in the Olympic tennis competition. Cagla Buyukakcay will be the first

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Ozaki Ends Schiavone Hopes In Nanchang

  • Posted: Jan 01, 1970

NANCHANG, China – Risa Ozaki overcame a nervous start to shock No.3 seed Francesca Schiavone in Friday’s Jiangxi Open quarterfinals.

Watch live action from Nanchang this week on WTA Live powered by TennisTV!

Competing in just the second WTA quarterfinal of her career, the occasion appeared to overwhelm Ozaki at first, Schiavone taking full advantage to rattle off four unanswered games. But as the contest wore on, Ozaki found her rhythm and a foothold.

While it was too late to salvage the first set, Ozaki turned the match on its head at the start of the second, surging into a 4-0 lead as she emphatically leveled the match. The Japanese player carried this momentum into the decider, building an early advantage before withstanding the inevitable Schiavone comeback to close out a 5-7, 6-1, 6-2 victory.

“It’s not easy to play Schiavone. She was a great player who won a Grand Slam before,” Ozaki said. “I was nervous in first set, but refocused at the start of the second. I think I moved very well in the third set but my serve was not ideal. Anyway, I won in the end, which is the most important thing so I’m very happy.”

Meeting Ozaki in her maiden WTA semifinal will be No.6 seed Vania King, who defeated Zhang Kai-Lin, 6-0, 6-4.

In the bottom half of the draw, Duan Ying-Ying continued her terrific week by knocking out No.2 seed Kurumi Nara, 6-1, 7-5. Earlier in the day, Nara had returned to complete her rain-delayed second round with Chang Kai-Chen in two tight sets. Against Duan, these exertions, and the sweltering on court conditions, contributed to a sluggish start from which she never fully recovered.

Duan faces another Japanese player in the semifinals after Misa Eguchi brushed aside Liu Fangzhou, 6-1, 6-2.

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Olympic Memories: London

  • Posted: Jan 01, 1970

The seventh and final stop-off on wtatennis.com’s trip down Olympics memory lane is the 2012 Games in London, which saw Serena Williams add a golden sheen to a magical summer…

London, United Kingdom, 2012
All England Club
Grass

Twelve years after watching courtside as her sister won gold in Sydney, Serena Williams produced arguably the performance of her career to finally follow in her footsteps.

Injury in 2004 and a shock defeat to Elena Dementieva four years later left Serena, the outstanding player of her generation, with one gap remaining on an otherwise flawless resume: an Olympic singles gold medal.

Of all the players in the draw, perhaps only Venus could match Serena’s joy at hearing of the All England Club’s selection as an Olympic venue. With a record second to none on Wimbledon’s hallowed lawns – she lifted the Venus Rosewater Dish for a fifth time three weeks prior to the start of the Games – even as No.4 seed, Serena started as most people’s favorite for the tournament.

So often a slow starter at tennis’ flagship events, Serena hit the ground running at a curiously liveried All England Club. She fired out an early warning shot, brushing aside former No.1 Jelena Jankovic for the loss of four games in the opening round.

Ominously for her title rivals, she got better as the rounds progressed, clinically dispatching the top seed Victoria Azarenka in the semifinals.

This set up a showdown with French Open champion Maria Sharapova. Serena had won the pair’s last seven meetings, and she continued this mastery of the Russian, whom she brutally overwhelmed with a combination of masterful serving and bullet-like groundstrokes.

At one point near the end of the first set, Serena had hit more aces than her opponent had won points. The American struck 10 aces and 24 winners in all and made only seven unforced errors in her 63 minutes on court.

Gold saw the 30-year-old become the first player ever to win all four Grand Slams and the Olympics in both singles and doubles, an achievement which dotted the i’s and crossed the t’s in modern tennis’ most comprehensive of careers.

“Oh, my gosh, this one is so high up there,” Williams said after the final. “Being Olympic gold champion, being Golden Slam champion in singles and doubles, that’s pretty awesome.

“I did something nobody’s done. So I’m really excited about that.”

——

Olympic Memories: Beijing
Olympic Memories: Athens
Olympic Memories: Sydney
Olympic Memories: Atlanta
Olympic Memories: Barcelona
Olympic Memories: Seoul

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WTA Player Of The Month: Halep

WTA Player Of The Month: Halep

  • Posted: Jan 01, 1970

Simona Halep completed her best month of the 2016 season with a second title in three weeks at the Rogers Cup – knocking out the likes of Svetlana Kuznetsova, Angelique Kerber, and Madison Keys en route to her third title of the season.

“I mean, I’m tired. It’s normal,” she told press after the final. “I had so many matches here, tough matches, also emotional. Was not easy.”

Coming to Montréal after a winning week at home in Bucharest, Halep did double duty in Canada, playing singles and doubles with partner Monica Niculescu – reaching the final of both events with a win over reigning French Open champions Caroline Garcia and Kristina Mladenovic in the latter.

“I had a lot of confidence coming here that I won five matches in a row in Bucharest.

“It was tough to come from the clay court to the hardcourt. But if I have confidence, I can play my game easy and I can win matches.

“Here I won matches with top players. That makes me more, like, happy and relaxed that I have a good level of tennis in this moment.”

Here more from Halep in the latest WTA Insider Podcast:

A good level might be an understatement for the young Romanian, who will ride a 10-match winning streak into the Western & Southern Open, a tournament where she reached the final in 2015. By her side will be coach Darren Cahill, whom she credits with her steady return to the form that took her as high as No.2 in the world.

“It helps me when he’s more relaxed than me; he just shows me that I have a good game and it’s good if I practice everything for the future, not just for the tournament.”

Back into the Top 3 for the first time since February, Halep did more than enough to earn her the mantle of July’s WTA Player of the Month!

Simona Halep

Final Results for July’s WTA Player Of The Month

1. Simona Halep (84%)
2. Venus Williams (9%)
3. Johanna Konta (5%)
4. Madison Keys (2%)

2016 WTA Player of the Month Winners

January: Angelique Kerber
February: Carla Suárez Navarro
March: Victoria Azarenka
April: Angelique Kerber
May: Garbiñe Muguruza
June: Serena Williams

How it works:

Finalists are selected by wtatennis.com
Winner is then determined by a fan vote on wtatennis.com 

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WTA Breakthrough Of The Month: Kucova

WTA Breakthrough Of The Month: Kucova

  • Posted: Jan 01, 1970

Kristina Kucova

Nearly a decade after winning the 2007 Junior US Open crown, Kristina Kucova made her long-awaited Top 100 debut after a career week at the Rogers Cup.

“I enjoyed every minute here in Montréal,” she told press after her semifinal match against Madison Keys. “I really like everybody here.

“I’m so happy about all week because it was the greatest week of my life so far. So I’m very happy.”

Making it through qualifying – where she took out Christina McHale just to reach the main draw – Kucova knocked out a pair of Top 20 opposition in Carla Suárez Navarro and Johanna Konta. In the round of 16, she stunned former World No.5 Eugenie Bouchard in front of her home crowd, recovering from a set down under the lights.

“They were all supporting Bouchard, but in the end I felt like I was winner over all these people. I don’t know, I felt very happy that moment. Also I was happy that I could beat her after what happened in Fed Cup. I’d lost to her before, so I was happy that I could win against her.”

Her run came to an end in the final four, but she nonetheless became the first qualifier to reach the semifinals since Zi Yan in 2007, a full circle moment for Kucova, who won the girl’s singles title at the US Open over Urszula Radwanska a few weeks after Zi’s run.

“It means a lot for me, this success, but it’s not only my success. It belongs to my whole family. Especially to my parents and to my sister which brings me to the tennis from very young age.

“I have many people now around which also this success belongs to them. I would like to just say thank you also for them.”

For all of those reasons, Kucova is your Breakthrough Player of the Month!

Final Results for July’s WTA Breakthrough Performance Of The Month

1. Kristina Kucova (49%)
2. Johanna Konta (34%)
3. Laura Siegemund (12%)
4. Viktorija Golubic (5%)

2016 Breakthrough Performance Of The Month Winners

January: Zhang Shuai
February: Jelena Ostapenko
March: Nicole Gibbs
April: Cagla Buyukakcay
May: Kiki Bertens
June: Elena Vesnina

How it works:

Finalists are selected by wtatennis.com
Winner is then determined by a fan vote on wtatennis.com

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WTA Shot Of The Month: Halep

WTA Shot Of The Month: Halep

  • Posted: Jan 01, 1970

July was packed with plenty of amazing shots – we narrowed it down to the five best.

In the end it was Simona Halep who turned thrilling defense into stirring offense on Daria Gavrilova at the Rogers Cup.

Playing her first hardcourt match since the Miami Open, Halep turned around what looked like an unwinnable point against the young Aussie, who was forced to hit one (or two or three) extra shots before finally succumbing to a fast-advancing Halep. 

Click here to watch all of July’s finalists.

Simona Halep

Final Results for July’s WTA Shot Of The Month

1. Simona Halep (79%)
2. Eugenie Bouchard (9%)
3. Angelique Kerber (6%)
4. Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova (3%)
5. Johanna Konta (3%)

2016 WTA Shot of the Month Winners

January: Caroline Wozniacki
February: Agnieszka Radwanska
March: Agnieszka Radwanska
April: Monica Niculescu
May: Simona Halep
June: Agnieszka Radwanska

How it works:

Five shots are selected by wtatennis.com
Winner is then determined by a fan vote on wtatennis.com 

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Insider Draw Analysis: Olympics

  • Posted: Jan 01, 1970

WTA Insider Courtney Nguyen | What are the biggest stories worth following at what promises to be an exciting Olympic Games? Check out a full draw analysis right her at wtatennis.com!

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