Sunday, July 21, 2019

Wk.29- Summer, Summer, Summertime...



Since Wimbledon has been dragging on and on forever around here, it's time for something of a "bare(r) bones" shortcut around this week's recap, while still managing to essentially achieve the desired result in the end.

Now to not get wet in the pool water.



*WEEK 29 CHAMPIONS*
BUCHAREST, ROU (Int'l/Red Clay Outdoor)
S: Elena Rybakina/KAZ def. Patricia Maria Tig/ROU 6-2/6-0
D: Viktoria/Kuzmova/Kristyna Pliskova (SVK/CZE) def. Jaqueline Cristian/Gabriela Ruse (ROU/ROU) 6-4/7-6(3)
LAUSANNE, SUI (Int'l/Red Clay Outdoor)
S: Fiona Ferro/FRA def. Alize Cornet/FRA 6-1/2-6/6-1
D: Anastasia Potapova/Yana Sizikova (RUS/RUS) def. Monique Adamczak/Han Xinyun (AUS/CHN) 6-2/6-4


PLAYER OF THE WEEK: Fiona Ferro/FRA
...in Lausanne, the new site of the Swiss Open (formerly based in Gstaad), 22-year old Pastry Ferro claimed her first tour singles title. After an opening round win over Mona Barthel, she rallied from 6-1/5-2 down to defeat Mihaela Buzarnescu, then swept through Samantha Stosur and Bernarda Pera to reach her maiden WTA final. Waiting for her there was countrywoman and defending champ Alize Cornet. It took three sets, but Ferro controlled the 1st and 3rd stanzas, securing both at 6-1, to get the win. She'll jump 23 spots to a new career high of #75 on Monday.



Ferro should think about an offseason home in Switzerland, since it must be some sort of good luck charm for her. Earlier this season, she reached her first career tour-level semifinal in Lugano.
===============================================
RISER: Barbora Krejcikova/CZE
...one thinks Krejcikova is doing what she can to put an end to tweets like this one:



In Bucharest, the Czech once again showed a commitment to improving her standing on the singles side of the equation, this time on the tour-level stage. Krejcikova, a WTA singles finalist in Nuremberg in 2017 before re-establishing a highly-successful junior/early pro career doubles partnership Katerina Siniakova at the start of 2018 (with both getting to #1 and winning a pair of slam crowns) has taken time away from her usual doubles activity this season to win four ITF singles crown. This week she posted MD wins over Gabriela Ruse and Aliona Bolsova (the RG qualifier who reached the 4th Rd. in Paris was forced to retire) to reach her first WTA singles QF in two years (Bastad '17).

With this week's results, Krejcikova is 26-4 in singles on all levels in '19, and 18-9 in doubles. She'll rise to a career high of #115 in singles on Monday.
===============================================
SURPRISE: Martina Di Giuseppe/ITA
...while Italy (except for when Camila Giorgi has one *those* stretches) no longer sports any true top-level players on tour, the nation's contingent isn't short on try-hard grinders, overachievers and late bloomers. Di Giuseppe likely fills a few of those categories as, at age 28, she finally made her WTA MD debut in Bucharest. She reached the semifinals.



Di Giuseppe first had to make it through qualifying, then the world #211 outlasted Varvara Lepchenko, Veronika Kudermatova and Barbora Krejcikova. Her loss to eventual champ Elena Rybakina ended her six-match run, but it was still a banner week for a player who'd previously put together a 19-20 mark this season on the lower levels, but who'll now jump 62 spots in the rankings into the Top 150 for the first time.
===============================================
VETERAN: Alize Cornet/FRA
...Cornet came within a set of a successful title defense of her Swiss Open title. The Pastry posted wins over Martina Trevisan, Jasmine Paolini, Natalia Vikhlyantseva and Tamara Korpatsch to return to the final, the 13th tour-level championship mach of her career, but lost out in a 6-1 3rd set vs. French youngster Fiona Ferro in the decider.
===============================================
COMEBACK: Patricia Maria Tig/ROU
...another week, another noteworthy personal triumph on the Most Interesting Tour. After taking seventeen months off tour to deal with injuries and then have a baby, 24-year old Tig returned to action in April. Since then, she'd gone 25-6 on the ITF circuit and won a pair of $15K challengers. But due to the braindead-but-only-belatedly-admitted-as-such new ITF rankings rules instituted at the start of the season (since rescinded and/or altered, starting in August, thanks to an avalanche of criticism and maybe-they'd-avoided-it-had-they-consulted-anyone-about-it-who-would-soon-suffer-for-it evidence of the unworkable and nonsensical results of the actions of the Powers That Be) Tig got no WTA rankings points for her efforts on the ITF's lowest rung of competition (for the record, she was the "ITF #42" coming into Week 29).

In Bucharest, the unranked Tig was granted a wild card into the qualifying rounds and all she did was win three matches to reach her first tour-level MD since September '17, then knock off #1 seed Anastasija Sevastova, Kristyna Pliskova and Laura Siegemund to reach her first WTA final since 2015 in Baku (a loss to Margarita Gasparyan). She lost to Elena Rybakina, but will jump back into the rankings at #264 on Monday.


===============================================
FRESH FACE: Elena Rybakina/KAZ
...in all truth, Rybakina's maiden title run in Bucharest was of little surprise. In the months and weeks leading up to Wimbledon, it'd become obvious that the 20-year old had turned a significant corner.



Already with three ITF titles early in the season, the Kazakh qualified at Roland Garros to make her slam MD debut, then reached the semis at Rosemalen. The hope was that she'd make it through Wimbledon qualifying, as well, and become a dangerous MD floater at SW19, but she stumbled in the final round.

In her first tour-level event since, just the seventh in her WTA career, Rybakina swept through the event without dropping a set, downing Paula Badosa, Jaqueline Cristian, Viktoria Kuzmova, Martina Di Giuseppe and, in the final, Patricia Maria Tig. In three of the five matches she dropped under five games, and lost two or less in two, including the 2 & love victory in the final. Her recent run gives Rybakina a combined 16-5 record (on three different surfaces) since the beginning of her RG qualifying stint. She'll break the Top 100 for the first time this week, coming in at #65.
===============================================
DOWN: Julia Goerges/GER
...2019 has been a tough season for Goerges, as her results and health have taken her all over and to parts known over the first seven months o fplay. After opening with a successful title defense in Auckland, she endured a 7-11 stretch with two retirements. She went 6-2 on the grass, with her Wimbledon result (a big step back from her SF in '18) only improved her '19 mark in majors to 2-3. She then went to Lausanne this past week and retired again (right wrist), down 3-2 in the 3rd set to wild card Swiss teen Simona Waltert (WTA #562).
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ITF PLAYERS: Marie Bouzkova/CZE and Viktoriya Tomova/BUL
...coming off her LL-to-Wimbledon 1st Round winner run in London, 20-year old Bouzkova picked up the biggest of her twelve career ITF singles titles in the $80K challenger in Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan with a win in the final over Natalija Kostic. Bouzkova also picked up the doubles crown alongside Vivian Heisen. Bouzkova with make her Top 100 breakthrough on Monday.



In the $80K in Biarritz, France, 24-year old Tomova turned around a 3-6 mark in her last nine matches to win her 15th and biggest career challenger crown. The world #249, the top-ranked Bulgarian with Tsvetana Pironkova off tour (maybe for good) after having a baby, recorded upset wins over #1-seeded Veronica Cepede Royg in the semis and #3 Danka Kovinic (a RU in the WTA 124 Bastad event a week ago) in the final.
===============================================
JUNIOR STAR: Leylah Annie Fernandez/CAN
...already the junior #2, with an Australian Open girls final and Roland Garros crown on her '19 resume, Fernandez added her first pro crowns to her list of accomplishments at the $25K in Gatineau, Quebec.



16-year old LAF swept the singles and doubles competitions, joining fellow Canadian Rebecca Marino to win the doubles, then defeating another teenager, California-born 18-year old Canadian Carson Branstine, in the singles final. Branstine is best known for winning back-to-back girls doubles slams with good friend Bianca Andreescu in Melbourne and Paris in 2017.


===============================================
DOUBLES: Viktoria Kuzmova/Kristyna Pliskova, SVK/CZE
...in Bucharest Kuzmova & Pliskova had it all sorts of ways en route to the title. They won a pair of match tie-breaks in the 1st and QF rounds, had a walkover in the semis, and then spoiled the party for the Romanian crowd by downing Jaqueline Cristian & Gabriela Ruse in straight sets in the final.

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Doubles specialists?????? @vikikuzmova

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The win lifts Kuzmova to 2-1 in '19 doubles finals (she split finals in Saint Petersburg and Prague w/ Anna Kalinskaya), while this is Pliskova's first tour-level final/title while partnering someone other than Karolina, with whom she went 3-1 in 2013-14.
===============================================
WHEELCHAIR: Yui Kamiji/JPN
...Kamiji left Wimbledon without a title for the first time since 2013, but she took home the singles championship at the hard court Swiss Open this weekend, closing out her week with a 6-0/6-2 win in the final over Sabine Ellerbrock.

The doubles were won by Dana Mathewson & KG Montjane (the only player to take a set off Kamiji in four matches), who defeated top-seeded Marjolein Buis/Lucy Shuker in the semis and Ellerbrock/Katharina Kruger in the final.


===============================================


Now he'll never get rid of her...






1. Lausanne Final - Fiona Ferro def. Mihaela Buzarnescu
...1-6/7-6(2)/7-5. Ferro trailed 6-1/5-2 here, then never looked back. Poor Buzarnescu, she was the only player to take a set off Simona Halep at Wimbledon, too.
===============================================
2. Lausanne 1st Rd. - Tamara Korpatsch def. Genie Bouchard
...2-6/6-4/7-5. Bouchard's most recent losing streak has now hit seven straight, though at least she again got close in another three-setter, as was the case with her 1st Round loss at Wimbledon to Tamara Zidansek. After an encouraging start to the season, with an Auckland singles QF and doubles title in Week 1, Bouchard has now dropped out of the Top 100 to #114, her lowest position since last September.
===============================================
3. Lausanne Final - Fiona Ferro def. Alize Cornet
...6-1/2-6/6-1. The first all-nation singles final at tour-level event this season, and the first all-Pastry final since Aravane Rezai defeated Marion Bartoli in Bali in November '09.


===============================================
4. Bucharest Final - Elena Rybakina def. Patricia Maria Tig
...6-2/6-0. Rybakina is the third player representing Kazakhstan to win a tour singles title, joining Zarina Diyas ('17 Tokyo) and Yulia Putintseva (Nuremberg earlier this season). Yaroslava Shvedova has won a tour-level crown, but did it in '07 in Bangalore when she was still playing for Russia.
===============================================
5. $25K Baja HUN Final - Reka-Luca Jani def. Mayar Sherif
...6-3/2-6/6-2. The 27-year old Hungarian gets career win #22, though Sherif (with Melanie Klaffner) kept her from a title sweep (w/ Lara Salden).
===============================================
HM- $60K Berkeley, California Final - Madison Brengle def. Mayo Hibi
...7-5/6-4. After a 1st Round upset of Marketa Vondrousova at Wimbledon, Brengle opens the summer HC season by sweeping the titles at the $60K challenger in Berkeley, California. She won the doubles with Sachia Vickery.

Not exactly sure what's going on in this photo, but Brengle looks like she's delighting in Vickery's pain or something:

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Title town with this gem @sachiavick

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===============================================











1. Atlanta Open Sunday Showdown - VENUS WILLIAMS def. Madison Keys
...6-3/7-6. Just an exhibition, but does it say more about Venus' summer hard court prospects or Madison's?


===============================================








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Multumesc Constanta ??

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Multumesc Romania ! ??

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@allure ??

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A weekend for the record books ?? Happy Birthday ????

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*2019 WTA FIRST-TIME CHAMPIONS*
Hobart - Sonya Kenin, USA (20/#56)
Acapulco - Wang Yafan, CHN (24/#65)
Indian Wells - Bianca Andreescu, CAN (18/#60)
Bogota - Amanda Anisimova, USA (17/#76)
Istanbul - Petra Martic, CRO (28/#40)
Prague - Jil Teichmann, SUI (21/#146)
Rabat - Maria Sakkari, GRE (23/#51)
Nuremberg - Yulia Putintseva, KAZ (24/#39)
BUCHAREST - ELENA RYBAKINA, KAZ (20/#106)
LAUSANNE - FIONA FERRO, FRA (22/#98)

*2019 WTA CHAMPIONS BY RANKING*
#2 - Ash Barty, AUS (Birmingham)
#3 - Petra Kvitova, CZE (Stuttgart)
#3 - Karolina Pliskova, CZE (Eastbourne)
#4 - Naomi Osaka, JPN (Australian Open)
#7 - Kiki Bertens, NED (Madrid)
#7 - Karolina Pliskova, CZE (Rome)
#7 - Simona Halep, ROU (Wimbledon)
#8 - Karolina Pliskova, CZE (Brisbane)
#8 - Kiki Bertens, NED (Saint Petersburg)
#8 - Ash Barty, AUS (Roland Garros)
#9 - Petra Kvitova, CZE (Sydney)
#12 - Ash Barty, AUS (Miami)
#13 - Aryna Sabalenka, BLR (Shenzhen)
#14 - Julia Goerges, GER (Auckland)
#18 - Madison Keys, USA (Charleston)
#19 - Garbine Muguruza, ESP (Monterrey)
#21 - Elise Mertens, BEL (Doha)
#28 - Caroline Garcia, FRA (Nottingham)
#30 - Sonya Kenin, USA (Mallorca)
#39 - Yulia Putintseva, KAZ (Nuremberg)
#40 - Petra Martic, CRO (Istanbul)
#42 - Dayana Yastremska, UKR (Strasbourg)
#45 - Belinda Bencic, SUI (Dubai)
#47 - Dayana Yastremska, UKR (Hua Hin)
#50 - Alison Van Uytvanck, BEL (Budapest)
#51 - Maria Sakkari, GRE (Rabat)
#56 - Sonya Kenin, USA (Hobart)
#60 - Bianca Andreescu, CAN (Indian Wells)
#61 - Alison Riske, USA (Rosmalen)
#65 - Wang Yafan, CHN (Acapulco)
#76 - Amanda Anisimova, USA (Bogota)
#89 - Polona Hercog, SLO (Lugano)
#98 - FIONA FERRO, FRA (LAUSANNE)
#106 - ELENA RYBAKINA, KAZ (BUCHAREST)
#146 - Jil Teichmann, SUI (Prague)

*2019 WTA CHAMPIONS BY AGE*
30 - Goerges
29 - Kvitova
28 - Hercog,Kvitova,Martic,Riske
27 - Bertens (2),Ka.Pliskova (2),Halep
26 - Ka.Pliskova
25 - Garcia,Muguruza
24 - Keys,Putintseva,Van Uytvanck,Wang Yafan
23 - Barty (2),Mertens,Sakkari
22 - Barty,FERRO
21 - Bencic,Osaka,Teichmann
20 - Kenin (2),RYBAKINA,Sabalenka
19 - Yastremska
18 - Andreescu,Yastremska
17 - Anisimova

*2019 LOW-RANKED WTA SEMIFINALISTS*
NR - PATRICIA MARIA TIG/ROU = BUCHAREST (RU)
#223 - Chloe Paquet/FRA = Strasbourg
#211 - MARTINA DI GIUSEPPE/ITA = BUCHAREST
#165 - Beatriz Haddad Maia/BRA = Bogota
#152 - Bianca Andreescu/CAN = Auckland (RU)
#146 - Jil Teichmann/SUI = Prague (W)
#142 - TAMARA KORPATSCH/GER = LAUSANNE

*RECENT WTA BREAKOUTS*
2015: Nao Hibino wins Tashkent (2nd WTA MD, age 20)
2016: Rebeka Masarova to Gstaad SF (WTA MD debut, age 16)
2017: Jana Fett to Hobart SF (WTA MD debut, age 20)
2017: Marketa Vondrousova wins Biel (2nd WTA MD, age 17)
2017: Mihaela Buzarnescu to Linz SF (2nd WTA MD, age 29)
2018: Anastasia Potapova to Moscow River Cup F (3rd WTA MD, age 17)
2018: Tamara Zidansek to Moscow River Cup SF (3rd WTA MD, age 18)
2019: Bianca Andreescu to Auckland F (4th WTA MD, age 18)
2019: Iga Swiatek to Lugano F (3rd WTA MD, age 17)
2019: Astra Sharma to Bogota F (3rd WTA MD, age 23)
2019: Martina Di Giuseppe to Bucharest SF (1st WTA MD, age 28)

*2019 FIRST-TIME WTA DOUBLES CHAMPIONS*
Ekaterina Alexandrova, RUS
Genie Bouchard, CAN
Anna-Lena Friedsam, GER
Zoe Hives, AUS
Anna Kalinskaya, RUS
Sonya Kenin, USA
Viktoria Kuzmova, SVK
Giuliana Olmos
Ellen Perez, AUS
Aryna Sabalenka, BLR
Astra Sharma, AUS
YANA SIZIKOVA, RUS [LAUSANNE]
=Mixed=
Barbora Krejcikova, CZE





Go Diane!

























For purposes of disgust, I didn't even want to include anything about you-know-who or you-know-what this week. So I decided to go with this instead.



(Shrug.) Same difference.


All for now.

posted by Todd.Spiker @ 11:57 PM 

3 Comments:

Blogger colt13 said...

OT- Stephen Strasburg has the same amount of home runs, and one less RBI than Giancarlo Stanton.

Recent breakouts is a really good stat.

Riske dances well.

Love the Serena trick shots.

Lots of stuff to get to in a non premier week.

Opportunity knocked, Ferro and Rybakina answered. With that said, almost the same theory this week as last. Just like picking first timers the week after a slam, you also do at new events. Baltic Open is new, and Palermo returns after six years.

Only 3 Top 40 players combined, and 2 of them in Sevastova and Garcia return. Bertens swaps in for injured Goerges.

Eikeri lost 7-6 in 3rd. Baltic Open Q-rounds had no upsets by rank. All 12 seeds won 1st rd, all 6 won 2nd. Eikeri was #9.

High on Kuzmova and Fourlis in Palermo, even though Kuzmova's defense makes her look like the WTA version of James Harden. Wonderful array of offensive shots, but out of position on defense more than anybody in the Top 60.

Baltic Open has a good field. Expecting good runs from Potapova and Ostapenko.

Siegemund is sliding again.

Todd covered this, but Tig is a good story with a twist. The fact that Tig didn't play for 18 months left her without a ranking. But for her not to have one at Bucharest was a mess. You see, Tig has played 10 tournaments this year, but with the exception of Wimbledon qualifying, they were all 15K.

This should have gotten her ranked at 572. But since 15K points were only counting for ITF points, she had nothing. They are retroactively changing this next month, so all will get what they rightfully deserve.

With those points, Tig would be at 239 instead of 264.

Rybakina might make things interesting for the US Open. 5 spots out now, she is already ranked at 65. Nothing to defend but Q losses the next 3 months, but also 9 uncounted tournaments. One decent run could get her close to 50, and a possible WC.

Stat of the Day- 3- The number of WTA MD wins for Alexandra Dulgheru in the last 2 years.

Had Tig won, she may have been the most unlikely Romanian to win a title since Dulgheru. So lets talk a look back at her career.

Busting on the scene back in 2009 when she won Warsaw, ranked 201, where she defeated Alona Bondarenko, she then followed it up in 2010. A title defense that started with a first rd win vs Kateryna Bondarenko, and ended with a win vs Zheng Jie, it looked to be only the beginning.

Then came the defining match of her career. 2011. Miami. Sharapova. Ranked 28th, she served for the match at 5-4 in the 3rd, but lost 7-6. That got her to a career high of 26, but she was never the same after that. The next 12 months, she went 18-23 until she shut it down after Indian Wells, not returning until a 25k in November.

The next couple of years were average, which brings us to 2016. Started of the season 2-2, then had a 9 match losing streak before she shut down for 8 months, dropping from 69 to 127.

Her one highlight since then was Bucharest in 2017, in which she reached the QF winning 5 matches, 3 Q, 2 MD.

Quiz Time!
In which year has Kazakhstan players won the most singles titles?

A.2011
B.2014
C.2017
D.2019





Answer!
(A)2011 is not the right answer, but in terms of success, is the best overall year. No singles titles, but Galina Voskoboeva reached the final in Seoul, plus the Toronto QF. But what made that year special were 6 doubles titles, 3 each for Voskoboeva and Yaroslava Shvedova. They also both lost 3 finals, with Voskoboeva losing to Shvedova at Kremlin Cup.

(C)2017 is not correct, though in terms of women reaching finals, it was the most varied. Zarina Diyas won a title, Yulia Putintseva reached one, while Voskoboeva and Shvedova reached doubles finals.

The correct answer is (D)2019. With Putintseva(Nuremberg) and Rybakina(Bucharest) both winning this year, it is the first time two Kazakh players have won in the same season.

With a third of the season left to go, that number may increase.

Mon Jul 22, 09:56:00 AM EDT  
Blogger Diane said...

Thank you so much :-)

Mon Jul 22, 10:16:00 AM EDT  
Blogger Todd.Spiker said...

C-
Yeah, I think the breakdown/reassessment of the whole new ITF set up was about the most predictable thing ever, you know?

By this point, Stanton has more DL/IL time in his career, too. Which wouldn't have been a good bet a few years ago. :\

*Finally* Kazakhstan is having its "career year!" 'Bout time. :)


D-
:)

Mon Jul 22, 11:03:00 PM EDT  

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