I knew that whoever prevailed in Sunday’s Tianjin final between Belinda Bencic and Alison Riske, I was going to be happy. I like both Belinda and Alison and had the pleasure of watching them live earlier this year at Eastbourne. In Tianjin, it was Riske who came out on top, defeating Bencic, 6-3 6-4. Bencic…
Roger Federer defeated Novak Djokovic in straight sets to set up a surprise final with Gilles Simon in Shanghai. Federer produced a marvellous performance to beat Djokovic, 6-4 6-4. Right from the start, Federer was ultra-aggressive; he only won 9/19 net points in the first set, but he was in control of the majority of…
Osaka has been dominated by the “rising stars” of the WTA with seven of the eight quarter-finalists aged 21 or below. The 21-year-old, Zarina Diyas has come through from the bottom half and will play the number one seed, Sam Stosur in Sunday’s final. The Aussie has had an all-round solid week and is yet…
A new WTA champion will be crowned in Tianjin as Belinda Bencic and Alison Riske will both contest their first ever WTA final on Sunday. Bencic isn’t a great surprise; in the pre-tourmament poll, Bencic was the most popular pick with 40% of readers picking the Swiss player as their champion. Riske, on the…
Osaka and Tianjin both have three seeds remaining in their line-up of semi-finals and more surprisingly, both of my pre-tournament picks are still in action! In Osaka, Madison Keys was forced to retire from her quarter-final match with Luksika Kumkhum. It’s been a tough few months for Keys, who has played her last competitive match…
Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic will meet in the semi-finals of Shanghai on Saturday (starting at 1pm UK time) for the fifth time this year and the 36th time in their career. A win for Djokovic would see him level the H2H at 18 all. Djokovic was first of the pair into the last four…
Poor old Linz. Eugenie Bouchard was the latest name to pull out of the tournament leaving just one seed, Karolina Pliskova left in the tournament. It’s an unfortunate, but unsurprising turn of events with attention turning to the YEC in Singapore for the likes of Genie and Ana. Moscow is also going to suffer next…
In the biggest match of the day on Thursday, David Ferrer came from a set down to defeat Andy Murray, 2-6 6-1 6-2. It was a surprising result with only 22% in the pre-match poll going for Ferrer. It was a huge match for the Race to London, which gives Ferrer a boost after two…
The draws in both Osaka and Tianjin have seen few upsets so far, therefore meaning my finalists in both tournaments are still alive! However, Linz has been as unpredictable as they come with just two seeds remaining after completion of the first round and some second round matches. On Wednesday, Dominika Cibulkova and Sabine Lisicki…
There were upsets aplenty in Shanghai on Wednesday with the bottom half of the draw looking rather bare in terms of seeds. None of the surprises were particularly surprising; Rafael Nadal lost in straight sets to Feliciano Lopez, but it was revealed yesterday that he has appendicitis. Kei Nishikori lost to Jack Sock, but has…
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