The star of this year’s Singapore so far without a shadow of a doubt has been Svetlana Kuznetsova. While she was the last to qualify and right at the last moment, Sveta is the first player to qualify for Saturday’s semi-finals.
The white group just keeps on delivering dramatic matches… Kuznetsova won her sixth consecutive match with a battling display to see off Karolina Pliskova in a third set tiebreak, 3-6 6-2 7-6(6). It was a see-sawing match that saw both players serve for it in the third set; Kuznetsova claimed the victory with two clean winners at the end including a gorgeous backhand down-the-line winner on match point.
Take a bow, Sveta. Superlatives don’t do her recent exploits justice.
And here’s an always engaging Sveta in press.
A tough one for Pliskova but a nice touch to see her hi-fiving the crowd at the end.
As Kuznetsova sealed her place in the last four, it means that Garbiñe Muguruza is the first player to be eliminated at the round robin stage. Agnieszka Radwanska beat Muguruza in a tight two setter, 7-6(1) 6-3 with a decent display and solid stats.
For Muguruza, it was a tactically muddled display. At times she was particularly passive and at other times she tried to be aggressive; she never looked convinced in her moves towards the net which were often mis-timed or half-hearted – she won just 16 out of 31 net points.
There were more heated discussions with coach, Sam Sumyk on the changeover. I don’t know if it’s just me but Garbiñe often doesn’t seem to take on board the advice. Most of the time she doesn’t say anything but she was vocal in their second chat in the second set. There’s definitely a sense of Muguruza bottling up her frustration on the court but it really came out in the moment below.
I agree with Paul…
While we obviously don’t see what happens on the practice courts,the Muguruza-Sumyk relationship doesn’t come across as a particularly happy or healthy one. It’s been an odd year for Muguruza with such a high with the French Open but not much else to cheer about. I think there’s a lot of physical and mental fatigue right now…
It was a good win for Radwanska and she’ll play Pliskova on Friday with the winner of that match to advance to the semi-finals. Radwanska will be liking her chances having never lost a set in six previous matches against Pliskova. The world number three was much more jolly in press today!
I’ve been waiting and waiting and waiting for an announcement about what is happening with the WTA live streaming next year and finally today some news. Plans for the WTA product to replace WTA coverage from TennisTV were announced with WTA Networks. It all sounds good but still the biggest question, the price, hasn’t been mentioned.
I’m still sceptical and I bet there will be teething problems. I’m intrigued to know whether there will be a catch-up function. TennisTV is so great for me in that regard because most tennis, aside from in the US, happens when i’m at work so I catch-up from most tournaments in the evening. I’m also hoping there will be functionality on all devices but I guess we will just have to wait and see…
This isn’t new and has been announced before but it is worth reiterating that ALL WTA main draw matches will be streamed from next year.
The latest WTA Insider podcast has interviews with Madison Keys and Team Bucie.
And finally, previews for day 6 matches, Angelique Kerber v Madison Keys and Simona Halep v Dominika Cibulkova, are up on the site.
Moo's Tennis Blog 
Digressing a bit @James, quick thoughts on Candice Brown? ..
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Really digressing haha! Right person won in my opinion and happy for Candice although I was rooting for Jane.
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This is the point where I have to calm myself down from getting carried away and thinking Sveta could win this haha! Her head to heads against Halep and Kerber are pretty healthy.
If Keys makes it over Halep then it’d be in Kuznetsovas best interests to come #2 in her group so as to play Kerber, because her record against Madison is pretty dysmal. Let Aga deal with her…
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The Sveta-Karolina game was a fun one to watch but not for the coaches, I suppose. Especially in the third set, there were multiple occasions when you could see that neither of them had a real game plan or (more likely) stuck to it when it mattered the most. At 5-3, and break point for Pliskova, Sveta played an irritating point where she came to the net with hardly any reason at all. And at that time, Karolina had made so many mistakes that it would have been enough to keep the ball in play.
Anyway, I loved to watch the game and the result of course but at times it was too nerve-wracking.
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I watched back the third set… very up and down but enjoyable!
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Go Karolina Go!
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Kuznetsova played very well in her first two matches, I think so did Radwanska and Pliskova but Kuznetsova was very present in the important moments.
Radwanska’a inability to serve out matches is her biggest weakness in my opinion, I have seen it happen more time than I can remember.
Very impressed with Pliskova, she has improved a lot mentally and is a completely different player. She is now clearly thinking before hitting a ball.
Sam’s advice to Muguruza during occ has mostly been horrendous in my opinion. He did great job with Azarenka and made Muguruza win the French Open but personally I find his occ useless.
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Yeah it’s a bit weird. He oversaw Bouchard going from being top ten to a nobody, and aside from the French Open, he really hasn’t delivered with Muguruza either. Was his tenure with Vika a fluke? Zvonereva only really came into her own as a player after she had split with Sam.
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