Svitolina’s Roland Garros run defies own expectations
HAVING given birth to her first child last October, Ukrainian Elina Svitolina admitted she never would have dreamed to reach a Roland Garros quarter final within eight months. But coming off a title in Strasbourg in the lead-up to the Paris event, Svitolina has ground her way through the first four matches to set up […]
Blinkova back to best, repeats shock upset
FRANCE’S best hope of a Roland Garros title was eliminated overnight, with fifth seed Caroline Garcia suffering a shock defeat at the hands of Russian Anna Blinkova. In a case of history repeating itself, Blinkova came back from a set down to win in three and advance through to the third round of the French […]
Around the Tours – Jan 5: Qualifiers surprise in Adelaide
QUARTER finalists have been determined in Auckland, Adelaide and Pune, with one semi-final also already set to take place in the latter’s ATP250 event. While we have provided daily coverage on the United Cup the past week, the other four majors events – including the Adelaide ATP and WTA events – have been running concurrently […]
Thiem returns home, reaches second round
FORMER world number three Dominic Thiem has returned home to much support, winning through to the second round of the ATP 250 event in Kitzbuhel. The Austrian star’s homecoming – at the tournament where he made his debut 11 years ago – was a sweet one, putting away lucky loser, Alexander Shevchenko in straight sets. […]
Waltert breaks three-year drought to repeat history
SWISS 21-year-old Simona Waltert is pretty good at knocking off number one seeds in Lausanne. Earning another wildcard at her home tournament, the right-handed talent who has almost exclusively played on the ITF Tour the last few years, stunned American Danielle Collins in three sets. Most remarkably, she faced three break points in the deciding […]
No rest for Mladenovic as 2021 WTA Tour concludes
WHILST the majority of the WTA Tour were enjoying a nice month’s break, plenty of lower ranked talents were trying to gain some momentum in the month off ahead of the Australian Summer. Most amazingly, 28-year-old Frenchwoman Kristina Mladenovic played all three tournaments, choosing to travel to Korea over Christmas – and just falling short […]
2021 WTA Tour preview: Open fields in Chicago, Nur-Saltan
THE CHICAGO Fall Tennis Classic has been dealt a blow this year, with a number of top talents unable to play in what is an open field of entrants. Whilst the likes of Ash Barty, Aryna Sabalenka, Iga Swiatek, Naomi Osaka and – after a late withdrawal – Maria Sakkari will not take part, there […]
WTA Tour wrap: Venus falls on rough day for Americans
THE second day of the Tennis in the Land and Chicago Women’s Open events saw plenty of big results during the Round of 32, with a seed falling at each of the tournaments. At the Tennis in the Land in Cleveland, the top two seeds came away relatively unscathed, as top seed Daria Kasatkina asserted herself with […]
WTA Tour wrap: Poland and Palermo see upsets on opening day
TWO clay events began overnight in Italy and Poland, respectively, with the women’s draws providing plenty of intriguing results on the respective opening days. Palermo saw three seeds compete with the day’s favourite in Liudmila Samsonova crumbling at the first hurdle in a shaky 6-3 6-2 loss to Chinese 18-year-old Zheng Qinwen, with the youngster stunning […]
WTA Tour wrap: Upsets aplenty as rain delays continue
THE Round of 16 has continued in Hungary and Czech Republic overnight, with the Ladies Open in Switzerland seeing yesterday’s delayed matches complete before rain forced proceedings to a stop once more with three of the six Round of 16 matches suspended until tomorrow. In Hungary, just second seed Danielle Collins survived in a day of upsets […]
