Main draw action kicked off in Wuhan on Sunday with a surprisingly solid crowd on hand for what was an eventful opening day on the Centre Court. In the first match of the day, the Chinese wildcard, Xu Shilin was forced to retire due to heat exhaustion at 0-5 down in the third set tiebreak…
The Wuhan draw is pretty great. Replacing Tokyo as a Premier 5 event, all the top players are here for this new event on the calendar. Some of the stadiums look pretty insane and it is always exciting when there’s a new event on tour, particularly one of this stature. The one big casualty is…
Caroline Wozniacki and Ana Ivanovic will contest the final of the 2014 Toray Pan Pacific Open. It has been another great week in Tokyo and the draw has held up surprisingly well. Wozniacki was first into the final with a 6-4 2-6 6-2 victory over Garbine Muguruza. This was Caroline’s first win over Muguruza in…
Moo’s Tennis Blog is becoming somewhat of a tribute to Lucie Safarova of late! Many thanks to Kim (@kimdv11) on Twitter for alerting me to another great video of Lucie Safarova and Rob Steckley during a changeover. Regular readers will know i’m a huge fan of their partnership and I was bowled over by a…
First and foremost, today’s big news saw confirmation of the growing cloud of rumours as Li Na retired from tennis. I wasn’t a huge fan of Li’s game, but I really loved her personality and what she brought to the WTA. It’s such a shame that she won’t get to play in her home town,…
In the biggest upset so far in terms of seeding, Garbine Muguruza defeated Jelena Jankovic, 7-6(4) 6-4 in Tokyo on Thursday. Jankovic served for the first set twice and had a mini-break in the tiebreak, but Muguruza competed extremely well to bag the opening set. Jankovic became increasingly frustrated in the second set and after…
The big match of the day in Tokyo saw Ana Ivanovic score her first victory over Victoria Azarenka since 2010, coming through 6-3 6-4. Ivanovic went in as the favourite and continued to demonstrate her improvements this year by serving out the victory in one hour and 39 minutes. Azarenka is someway near her best,…
I had my preview all written for Wednesday as I thought I had guessed the schedule for Tokyo correctly… wrong! The highlight of the tournament so far will see Victoria Azarenka take on Ana Ivanovic, which is not before 9am in the UK. There are two other tournaments this week in Guangzhou and Seoul. After…
I am really enjoying Tokyo so far and the wall-to-wall coverage on TennisTV has been great. I have one more day of holiday so it’s a bonus to have been able to watch a little bit more tennis than usual. The first four second round matches will take place on Wednesday. If you need a…
The Asian swing has seen a shake-up this year with Wuhan replacing Tokyo as the Premier 5 event. We have three WTA tournaments this week, which feels a little excessive. It is also a little odd to have so many of the top players in action just one week after the conclusion of the US…
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