WTA Antwerp, 2nd Round Preview: Bouchard v Barthel, Kerber v Schiavone

Thursday’s schedule in Antwerp is excellent with seven of the eight second round matches still to be played.  On Wednesday, Dominika Cibulkova opened her tournament campaign with a very convincing victory over Kateryna Bondarenko, 6-1 6-2.  It’s always nice when your predicted champion isn’t ousted in the first round!  Antwerp seems to be delivering both…

WTA Antwerp 2015: Preview and Predictions

The women are heading to Antwerp next week for the BNP Paribas Fortis Diamond Games in Belgium.  The tournament originally ran between 2002 and 2009, but this feels like a new tournament to me as I wasn’t following tennis closely then.  Kim Clijsters is the tournament director and the venue looks awesome.  The line-up is…

2015 Australian Open, Semi-Final Preview: Ekaterina Makarova v Maria Sharapova

The first of the women’s semi-finals will pit the number two seed, Maria Sharapova up against the number ten seed, Ekaterina Makarova.  Both of Tuesday’s quarter-final matches were pretty sharpish.  Makarova defeated Simona Halep, 6-4 6-0 in just 69 minutes.  Makarova has now reached back-to-back Grand Slam semi-finals.  I wasn’t majorly surprised that Makarova won,…