WTA 500 wraps: Ash Barty returns to the court as 2020 Grand Slam champions make their mark
ANOTHER huge day at the two WTA 500 tournaments was had as the Round of 32 continued in the lead up to the Australian Open next week. Ash Barty made a triumphant return to the court at the Yarra Vally Classic for the first time since early 2020, while a number of seeds fell at the Gippsland […]
2021 Grampians Trophy preview: Stacked lineup as players come out of hard lockdown
THE next in a line of WTA 500 events opening the year is the Grampians Trophy, yet another competition added to the womens’ tournament list purely for players forced into hard lockdown once landing in Australia. But while the tournament is new for 2021, the calibre of players certainly is not, with a number of […]
WTA 500 wraps: Seeds prevail as top players enter draws while Round of 64 continues
IT was a successful day across the board for the top echelon of international talent at both the Yarra Valley Classic and Gippsland Trophy, with just one seed falling at each of the two competitions. Both competitions played both the Round of 32 and 64 in a huge day of action, with plenty of tough […]
WTA 500 wraps: Seeds stumble in Yarra Valley Classic as Australians fall across the board
ON the opening day of the WTA Tour’s Summer Series in Australia, all bar one of the host nation’s players fell, while a couple of French seeds bowed out in the first round at the Yarra Valley Classic. Kicking off the 2021 Summer Series in the Yarra Valley Classic, a couple of Americans in Shelby […]
2021 Yarra Valley Classic WTA preview: Barty returns in star-studded tournament
WORLD number one Ash Barty will make her return to the WTA Tour after 10 months off, coming in as top seed at the brand new 2021 Yarra Valley Classic. The 54-player event will feature four Top 10 players, and 16 inside the Top 50, in what is expected to be an entertaining week of […]
2021 Gippsland Trophy WTA preview: Grand Slam winners stack draw
IN the other WTA event running parallel to the Yarra Valley Classic, the 2021 Gippsland Trophy features three Grand Slam winners amongst the seven Top 20 players who have entered the event. With Ash Barty headlining the Yarra Valley Classic, the talking point of the Gippsland Trophy will be that the two most recent Grand […]
Qualifiers confirmed for Australian Open
ALLOWING enough time to quarantine for 14 days, the Australian Open qualifiers have been confirmed following the completion of the three-round qualification stage over in the UAE. Hosted in Dubai three weeks prior to the Australian Open first round kicking off, 16 men and 16 women earned their places in the respective 128-player draws. The […]
Stunning Sabalenka collects third straight title in Abu Dhabi
IT rarely looked ever in doubt from the first serve through to the final point in the tournament, with Aryna Sabalenka dropping just one set on her way to her third straight title. The Belarusian fourth seed stormed through to her ninth overall WTA Tour singles title at the brand new Abu Dhabi WTA Tour […]
Sabalenka eyes off third straight title as she faces first-time finalist in Abu Dhabi
ARYNA Sabalenka has powered her way past some of the world’s best in the past three tournaments, showing a couple of months off and a change of year has not slowed down her remarkable winning streak. The Belarusian star won the final two WTA Tour tournaments of 2020, and has raced through the 2021 Abu […]
Three-set thrillers see come-from-behind victories
ACTION heated up in the quarter finals of the Abu Dhabi WTA 500 event with each of the four matches going the full three sets to determine a winner. In three of those four matches, the winner dropped the first set before coming back to win, including one 6-0 first set loss. That disastrous first […]
