IT was a bit of a mixed bag of results across the WTA Tour’s two grass court events yesterday, with two seeds making their way through in each of the Viking Classic and Bett1Open quarter finals, whilst in the other two matches the underdog prevailed. In Berlin, fifth seed Belinda Bencic advanced through to the final four with a hard-fought three-set win over Russian Ekaterina Alexandrova 6-4 4-6 7-6, needing two hours and 31 minutes to dismiss her opponent.
The Swiss star will now face Frenchwoman Alize Cornet who stunned Grand Slam winner and sixth seed Garbine Muguruza in an epic contest, winning in a third set tiebreaker, 7-5. The overall match saw Cornet come from behind to post a 4-6 6-3 7-6 win over the Spanish seed in two hours and 40 minutes to claim her spot in the final four. Cornet won 76.6 per cent of his first serve points and broke twice from her two chances, whilst rallied hard against a solid Muguruza who broke twice form four chances, and won 67.9 and 70 per cent of her first and second serve points.
“It was a long match with a lot of emotion, especially in the tiebreak,” Cornet said post-match. “I can’t believe I made it at the end. She’s a champion, she never gives up. I should have gone for a it a bit more, I was waiting for a mistake and I was a bit tight – it’s normal. But I was very resilient too, I was always behind in the score in the third set but I kept grinding, I kept fighting to the end and it’s a really nice victory.
“I had a really tough clay season, I couldn’t play well and I don’t know why – but to play well on grass, it’s unexpected but beautiful.”
TEENAGE star Mirra Andreeva made history overnight as the youngest WTA1000 winner in history after the 17-year-old shook off an early challenge from Denmark’s Clara Tauson to win 7-6 6-1 in the Dubai Tennis Championships final overnight. The format began in 2009 and Andreeva – aged 17 years and 299 days – broke new group […]
TWO FIRST-time WTA Tour 1000 finalists will face off in a historic Dubai Tennis Championships final after both Mirra Andreeva and Clara Tauson beat their more experienced, Grand Slam-final opponents in the semi-finals of the tournament overnight. Andreeva in particular will break special ground, with the 17-year-old becoming the youngest ever WTA 1000 finalist since […]
DAMAGING Russian young gun Mirra Andreeva took out the highest remaining seed at the 2025 Dubai Tennis Championships, with the 17-year-old eliminating world number two Iga Swiatek in the quarter finals overnight. In a match that lasted one hour and 36 minutes, Andreeva closed it out rather easily 6-3 6-3 to advance through to the […]
FOR THE greatest current hard court player, world number one Aryna Sabalenka sure is making a habit of losing on hard courts of late. Since her run to the Australian Open final – and narrowly missing a three-peat – the Belarussian has won just one match – against qualifier Veronika Kudermetova – and lost three, […]
FOR SUCH an incredibly talented young player, world number three Coco Gauff has two major weaknesses in her game. The first is her serve, which she deliberately targeted at the end of the 2024 WTA Tour season by hiring technical coach Matt Daly to improve her high number of double faults that were costing her […]
MAKING the final in the Qatar Open proved to be a poison chalice for the Dubai Tennis Championships as both Doha champion Amanda Anisimova and runner-up Jelena Ostapenko suffered shock losses in the first round overnight. Ansimova had just cracked the Top 20 for the first time but went down to compatriot McCartney Kessler 6-2 […]
SNAPPING a four-game losing streak, British wildcard Emma Raducanu won her first match since the Australian Open with a straight sets victory over Greek talent Maria Sakkari, 6-4 6-2 in the Dubai Tennis Championships. Sakkari’s form of two wins from her past five was not much better, but in a battle of two players desperately […]
A FORMER world number 21 who faced her struggles over the last few years, Amanda Anisimova is a WTA Tour champion at the 1000 level. The American ended the run of Latvian Jelena Ostapenko at the Qatar Open overnight by winning 6-4 6-3 and securing her first Tour title in more than two years, and […]
OF COURSE it just had to be ‘Penko’. The only player in four years that could stop Iga Swiatek in Doha, Latvian hard-hitter Jelena Ostapenko not only beat the world number two in the event where she has won the past three titles, but completely humbled her in a one-sided contest. Ostapenko ran out a […]
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