Daria Kasatkina was the first player into the semi-finals of Moscow with a 6-4 6-3 victory over Aliaksandra Sasnovich. There were 12 breaks in 19 service games as both players struggled on serve, yet were potent on return. Kasatkina has now won 12 of her last 16 matches and by virtue of this result, will…
Upsets are common at the end of a long, tiring season and Moscow has certainly delivered on that front with the top four seeds exiting the tournament on Wednesday. The number one seed, Kristina Mladenovic managed to win her first set since August but couldn’t stop the rot, losing her tenth consecutive match to Aliaksandra…
We’re nearing the end of the 2017 season with the WTA Finals in Singapore fast approaching – the draw will be unveiled this Friday and the tournament begins with round robin action on Sunday. As the line-up is all set (unlike this time last year!), I have profiled the eight finalists and their 2017 seasons…
A battle between two recent WTA finalists, Maria Sharapova and Magdalena Rybarikova, was one of the highlights in Moscow on Tuesday. Moscow has never been one for big crowds – it was great to see the stands packed! It didn’t pan out as the crowd would have liked as Rybarikova maintained her excellent form from…
Monday saw the start of main draw action at the final WTA regulation tournaments of 2017 in Moscow and Luxembourg. The first match of the day in Russia saw Katerina Siniakova score a rare win, beating Donna Vekic, 6-0 6-2 in 49 minutes. This was Siniakova’s first win since Wuhan and in the second round,…
Maria Sharapova won her first WTA title since 2015, beating the 19-year-old, Aryna Sabalenka in Sunday’s Tianjin final of bold and fearless ballstriking, 7-5 7-6(8). If you like big hitting then this was the final for you! It was a thoroughly entertaining watch with the drama peaking in the second set tiebreak – even the…
Thursday was a disappointing day for the crowd in Hong Kong as half of the scheduled singles matches didn’t take to the court – the number one and three seeds, Elina Svitolina and Caroline Wozniacki respectively were both forced to pull out of the tournament ahead of their second round matches. Nicole Gibbs received a…
The first four second round matches took place on Wednesday in Hong Kong. The first result of the day saw the number seven seed, Daria Gavrilova turn the tables on Shelby Rogers from their recent encounter that broke records at the US Open. Gavrilova won, 6-1 2-6 6-2 in one hour and 44 minutes, taking…
The stars came out to play in Hong Kong in a terrific order of play for an International event. Agnieszka Radwanska and Venus Williams headlined the day session on Centre Court and came away with straight set wins. Radwanska didn’t face a break point in a 6-1 6-2 victory over Zhang Ling, while in a…
This is the penultimate week of regulation WTA tournaments in 2017 with three Internationals in Hong Kong, Linz and Tianjin. It’s a shame to see that the latter two are not being streamed on WTA TV. I’m a tad surprised about Tianjin since Maria Sharapova and Petra Kvitova are both competing. It seems that Linz…
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