Sunday, May 02, 2021

Wk.14- It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad Madrid

Meanwhile, in Madrid...






futuristic-fonts


*WEEK 14*


kosova-font
SURPRISES: Tamara Zidansek/SLO and Olivia Gadecki/AUS
...having already reached the Bogota final in her opening clay court effort his season, Zidansek made her way through qualifying in Madrid with wins over countrywoman Kaja Juvan and Hsieh Su-wei. She then faced off with lucky loser Hsieh again -- with the same result -- in the MD, and took Ash Barty to three sets in the 2nd Round. While she didn't add a #1 win to her other big victories (over Brady and Fernandez) of '21, Zidansek is now 7-2 on clay this spring.

She'll swap spots with Polona Hercog in the post-Madrid rankings, becoming the new top-ranked Slovenian woman on tour.



In the Antalya $15K challenger, 19-year old Gadecki claimed her maiden pro singles title. The world #568 (who grabbed headlines in the season's early weeks with wins over Destanee Aiava and Sofia Kenin at the Philip Island event) made it through qualifying, knocked off #2 seed Shiho Akita en route to her second career final (w/ another $15K in Sharm El Sheikh at the start of April), and then handled Russian Julia Avdeeva in a 6-3/6-2 contest to reach the winner's circle, completing what was a 7-0 week.

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


COMEBACK: Bernarda Pera/USA
...Pera came into Madrid on a six-match losing streak, with no wins since the 1st Round of the Australian Open. After taking a three-setter over Aliona Bolsova in the first round of qualifying, she squandered a 6-4/5-2 (serving at 5-3) lead over Polona Hercog, then rallied from 3-1 down in the 3rd to reach the MD. There, she knocked off Petra Martic, handing the Croat her fifth straight defeat this season.

In the 2nd Round, the Bannerette battled Belinda Bencic for over two and a half hours in the late evening, taking things to a deciding 3rd set TB which ended with Pera falling 7-5, with the final nail in her Madrid coffin being a DF on MP. Ouch.
===============================================


FRESH FACE: Jil Teichmann/SUI
...the 23-year old Swiss, a two-time tour title winner in her career, has already had some fine moments in 2021, including a pair of SF runs in Adelaide (def. Mladenvoic, Q.Wang and Sevastova, the latter after saving MP) and Dubai (def. Kvitova, Jabeur and Gauff). But she may have topped them all with her epic comeback against Elina Svitolina in the 1st Round in Madrid, where she dug herself out of a 5-1 3rd set deficit, seeing the Ukrainian twice serve for the match and hold a total of six MP. Teichmann battled through to record her second Top 10 win of the season (third career) before falling a round later in three sets to Paula Badosa (she'd retired vs. the Spainard up 6-5 in the 1st set in Miami last month).

Teichmann will fall from #40 to (likely) outside the Top 50 once Madrid is concluded next week, but one feels that she got a great deal out of this particular trip as she heads into the rest of the clay season.
===============================================
DOWN: Elina Svitolina/UKR
...the beat (literally) goes on.

A week after she squandered a lead against Ash Barty in Stuttgart, Svitolina lost an even bigger one to Jil Teichmann in Madrid. Against the Swiss in their 1st Round match-up, Svitolina was broken while serving up 5-1 and 5-3 in the 3rd set, failing to convert on any of four MP on Teichman's serve at 5-2 and then two more at 6-5. Oh, and she held a mini-break lead at 2-1 in the TB, and was as close as 4-4 late in the breaker.

Sad to say, this isn't a surprise. Not even a small one. Svitolina, who at least used to be a reliable "regular season" player even while she always slipped in the majors, is capable of letting go of a match like this at virtually any moment.

Much (well, a little) was made afterward on Tennis Channel about Svitolina's history in Madrid, where she's 3-7 w/ four 1r and three 2r exits. The best response to that goes along the lines of, "Yeah, *that's* it. It's the tournament, not her. Does anyone pay attention to anything other than the misleading "#" next to her name?
===============================================
ITF PLAYERS: Anhelina Kalinina/UKR and Claire Liu/USA
...24-year old Ukrainian Kalinina picked up her second title in two weeks, taking the $60K in Zagreb with wins over Mariam Bolkvadze, Diane Parry and Jasmine Pieri, then defeating teen Hordette Kamilla Rakhimova 6-1/6-3 in the final. It's Kalinina's twelfth career circuit title, and the biggest yet.



In Charlottesville, Liu won her fifth career ITF crown, but her first since 2019, taking the $60K with victories over Hanna Chang, Irina Bara, Sachia Vickery and Wang Xinyu in the final, as the 19-year old from China retired in the 3rd set trailing 6-3/4-6/1-4.

After having started 4-0 in career pro singles finals, 20-year old Liu had lost in four straight championship matches before this win.
===============================================




kosova-font
1. Madrid 1st Rd. - Jil Teichmann def. Elina Svitolina
...2-6/6-4/7-6(5). Another event, another Svitolina collapse (though one aided by the gutsy play of Teichmann).



Svitolina served up 5-1 in the 3rd, then had four MP (including from 15/40) on the serve of the Swiss at 5-2. She was broken again when serving at 5-3, as *everyone* (well, not Petra) on tour seems to find their fighting spirit against Svitolina. As the score became 5-5, the TC commentator said of the Ukrainian, "She can't believe it!" If so, then she was the *only* one.

Svitolina had MP #5 and #6 at 6-5 in yet another Teichmann service game, but again couldn't convert either. In the deciding TB, Svitolina had an early mini-break lead at 2-1, then turned around Teichmann's 4-2 lead to get to 4-4. The Swiss got the lead back, then converted on her first MP to win 7-5 as Teichmann became the first player in '21 to win *two* matches (w/ Adelaide QF vs. Sevastova, where she faced two and won on her seventh) after having been down MP.
===============================================
2. Madrid Q1 - Kristina Mladenovic def. Ane Mintegi del Olmo
...6-3/5-7/7-6(1). With her solo act already flagging this season, singles player Mladenovic (a former finalist in '17) nearly crashlanded in Madrid against 17-year old wild card Mintegi del Olmo, the world #716 (jr.#32) who was playing her first career match of any kind in a WTA event.

Mladenovic trailed 5-2 in the 3rd, but pulled herself up from a truly disaterous result (no matter if this match turns out to be a "remember her when..." moment for the young Spaniard, she just *couldn't* lose this one) by forcing a TB and winning it 7-1.



Perhaps the match served as a wake-up call for Kiki, as she handled Anatasia Potapova 4 & 2 in the final qualifying round. Mladenovic fell by the same scoreline vs. Belinda Bencic in the 1st Round.

===============================================
3. Madrid Q1 - Wang Xiyu def. Alize Cornet
...6-1/4-6/7-6(6). Last we saw Cornet, she was forced to retire in that wild match against 15-year old Linda Fruhvirtova in Charleston. In Madrid qualifying against 20-year old Wang, the Pastry was caught from behind after having led 5-2 in the 3rd and holding five MP.
===============================================


4. Madrid 2nd Rd. - Belinda Bencic def. Bernarda Pera
...3-6/6-1/7-6(5). With the clock pushing toward midnight in the closing stages, Bencic and Pera battle to a near-draw as neither drops serve in the 3rd set, then a bank of lights blew out five points into the deciding TB. With the lighting partially restored, they played one... until Pera ended a very competitive match with an unfortunate DF at MP down.

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


5. Madrid 1st Rd. - Kiki Bertens def. Victoria Jimenez Kasintseva
...6-4/6-0. Defending champ Bertens finally picks up her first WTA win of '21, and she does it against the history-minded 15-year old '20 AO junior champ, who became the first Andorran in a tour-level MD.



Bertens fell in straight sets a round later to Veronika Kudermetova.
===============================================
6. Madrid Q2 - Bernarda Pera def. Polona Hercog
...6-4/5-7/6-4. Pera led 6-4/5-2, and served at 5-3. Hercog forced a 3rd set, where she led 3-1 before the Bannerette rallied to win five of the final six games.
===============================================


7. Madrid 2nd Round - Iga Swiatek def. Laura Siegemund
...6-3/6-3. Swiatek ultimately extended her clay court sets won streak to eighteen, but only after falling behind 3-0 to Siegemund in the 2nd and then not going batty while the German vet saved *ten* MP in a single game before #11 finally proved to be the charm.

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


8. Madrid 2nd Rd. - Ons Jabeur def. Sloane Stephens
...4-6/6-1/6-3. Jabeur surges back to take the match in three, sending Stephens out early, but not before she once again gave evidence that she's turned something of a corner in recent weeks, as she's gone 5-3 (including a QF in Charleston) after having previously been just 1-8 starting with her U.S. Open loss to Serena Williams last September.

===============================================
9. Madrid 1st Rd. - Dasha Kasatkina def. Irina-Camelia-Begu
...4-6/6-4/7-6(1). Kasatkina led 5-2 in the 3rd, but was forced to a TB by the Romanian. No bother...

===============================================
10. Madrid 1st Rd. - Simona Halep def. Sara Sorribes Tormo
...6-0/7-5. So, Simona was cruising. And then she wasn't. For a little while, as she experienced a hiccup that briefly saw her lose her edge.

Halep served 6-0/5-2, was broken and then had two MP at 5-3 (she broke a string on #2) before serving for the match again at 5-4. Finally, the Romanian broke the Spaniard for a 6-5 lead and then served out the win at love.

Sorribes is 0-2 so far this clay season.
===============================================
11. Madrid 1st Rd. - Petra Kvitova def. Marie Bouzkova
...6-2/2-3 ret. Bouzkova retires, as Kvitova improves to 52-11 vs. her countrywomen as a pro, and 31-3 since 2012.

Great numbers vs. a very deep national talent pool, but still just 63 matches over more than a decade. By means of comparison, Martina Navratilova and Chris Evert alone played against one another *eighty* times in their careers (and in 60 finals).
===============================================
12. Madrid 1st Rd. - Ash Barty def. Shelby Rogers
...6-2/6-1. Barty improves to 4-0 vs. Rogers in 2021, and with her 2nd Round win over Tamara Zidansek the Aussie extended the 13-match clay court winning streak that began at Roland Garros in 2019.
===============================================
13. Madrid 1st Rd. - Jessica Pegula def. Sorana Cirstea
...7-6(5)/6-3. Fourteen of Pegula's eighteen wins in 2021 have come against players who've won tour singles titles in their careers. Three have won slams, while three more (okay, all three are named Karolina Pliskova) have reached slam finals.

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


14. Madrid 1st Rd. - Angelique Kerber def. Marketa Vondrousova
...7-6(5)/6-1. Hmmm, an inadvertent "Tommy" reference? Angie's got such a supple wrrrrist.
===============================================
15. $15K Cairo EGY Final - Elina Avanesyan def. Zhibek Kulambayeva
...3-6/6-4/6-4. The 18-year old Hordette reaches her fourth singles final of 2021, taking home her second title (3rd career) to improve to 13-1 in her last three events. Aside from her final win over the 21-year old Kazakh, Avanesyan also reached the WD final alongside Oana Gavrila.

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



kosova-font
1. Madrid Q1 - Hsieh Su-wei def. Jaqueline Cristian 1-6/7-6(6)/6-0
Madrid Q2 - Tamara Zidansek def. Hsieh Su-wei 6-1/6-0
Madrid 1st Rd. - Tamara Zidansek def. Hsieh Su-wei 6-2/6-4
...6-1/6-1. Hsieh's return to action for the first time since the Australian Open featured one comeback victory, then a double-shot dose of Zidansek in the final qualifying round and then again in the MD as a lucky loser.
===============================================
2. Madird 1st Rd. - Veronika Kudermetova def. Elena Vesnina
...6-1/6-4. Against the current top-ranked Hordette, Vesnina plays her first singles match since 2018.

===============================================
3. Madrid 1st Rd. - Naomi Osaka def. Misaki Doi 7-5/6-1
So far, so good.



For a bit...

Madrid 2nd Rd. - Karolina Muchova def. Naomi Osaka 6-4/3-6/6-1
...as Muchova, freshly off her Top 20 debut on Monday (and in just her second event back after an injury break following her AO semifinal run), has picked up right where she left off Down Under. The Czech has improved to 11-2 on the season (w/ two early walkovers), three Top 10 wins and a 4-0 mark vs. the Top 20.

===============================================
HM- Madrid 2nd Rd. - Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova def. Karolina Pliskova
...6-0/7-5. Meanwhile, after a slight uptick in Stuttgart, Pliskova returns to the mixer.



It's Pavlyuchenkova's first Top 10 win in over a year, and her first on clay since 2018.
===============================================











Probably the right move. Let's be honest, there hasn't been a lot of progress there. Kontaveit, as far as actual results (they're always "okay," but seem like they should be much more), has to be one of the Top 3-4 most perplexingly disappointing players on tour. She can play on all surfaces, but has just one slam QF, no titles since 2017 and is 1-5, w/ a DNP, in finals in her career.

Keys would probably be on that list, as well as a grab bag of other possibilities, including the likes of Katerina Siniakova, Wang Qiang, and maybe both Caroline Garcia *and* Kiki Mladenovic.






=MADRID, SPAIN=







futuristic-fonts


kosova-font




























mf-xinghei-font


kosova-font

*MADRID/ROME FINALS IN SAME SEASON*
=[Madrid started '09; w/ RG result]=
2009 Dinara Safina (Madrid W, Rome W + RG RU)
2013 Serena Williams (Madrid W, Rome W + RG W)
2017 Simona Halep (Madrid W, Rome RU + RG RU)

*ITA COLLEGE TENNIS RANKINGS - April 28*
#1 - Estela Perez-Somarriba, Miami-Fla. (ESP)
#2 - Sara Daavettila, North Carolina (USA)
#3 - Emma Navarro, Virginia (USA)
#4 - Katarina Jokic, Georgia (SRB)
#5 - Kenya Jones, Georgia Tech (USA)
#6 - Anna Rogers, North Carolina State (USA)
#7 - Abigail Forbes, UCLA (USA)
#8 - Natasha Subhash, Virginia (USA)
#9 - McCartney Kessler, Florida (USA)
#10 - Isabella Pfennig, Miami-Fla. (GER)
[doubles]
#1 - Akvile Paražinskaite/Fiona Arrese, Kentucky (LTU/ESP)
#2 - Victoria Flores/Kenya Jones, Georgia Tech (USA/USA)
#3 - Sara Daavettila/Cameron Morra, North Carolina (USA/USA)
#4 - Makenna Jones/Elizabeth Scotty, North Carolina (USA/USA)
#5 - Jaeda Daniel/Adriana Reami, N.C. State (USA/USA)
#6 - Marlee Zein/McCartney Kessler, Florida (USA/USA)
#7 - Ariana Arsenault/Katarina Jokic, Georgia (CAN/SRB)
#8 - Andrea Garcia/Nandini Das, Florida State (ESP/IND)
#9 - Chloe Beck/Karolina Berankova, Duke (USA/CZE)
#10 - Alana Smith/Anna Rogers, N.C. State (USA/USA)





futuristic-fonts


kosova-font


kosova-font



kosova-font



kosova-font



kosova-font



A bygone era now, largely due to the fall of actual (i.e. not online) newspapers, for a time we were in a "Modern Golden Age" of daily comic strips not that long ago. It's still quite remarkable (I'm so glad I was around to enjoy it... though, as is often the case with things like that, I think we sort of took the moment for granted) that for several years there were new editions of "Calvin & Hobbes," "The Far Side" and "Bloom County" EVERY SINGLE DAY OF THE WEEK. There's nothing even remotely like that in existence today, even as there are still quite a few very good strips going (including a resurrected version of "Bloom County" itself).

But rather than have them literally in your hands every day, people now have to seek them out, and it's just not the same. There's probably at least a generation (or two?) of adults who've maybe NEVER read a daily strip in their life. They really missed out, as the very best strips (like the three I mentioned) featured some of the most creative, philosphical, society-critiquing works of art out there from the late 1980s into the early 2000s.



If you never have, you should read the early "Peanuts" strips from Charles Schulz, as well. Not the last couple of decades, but the stuff from the 1950s and 1960s. You can tell how much of an influence that Schulz's early work had on the likes of "C&H" and other intelligently done strips that featured multi-week storylines that were funny even while often sporting a dark side as they explored the human condition and offered up pointed social commentary.

kosova-font



kosova-font



kosova-font



kosova-font



kosova-font



kosova-font



kosova-font



kosova-font



kosova-font



kosova-font



kosova-font



kosova-font



kosova-font



Done (#1), and done (#2).






Just don't be stupid.
All for now.

posted by Todd.Spiker @ 5:33 PM 

2 Comments:

Blogger colt13 said...

The Muguruza/Svitolina section was thought to be weak, SF will come from Badosa, Sevastova, Jabeur or Bencic.

Mertens will probably be #1 in doubles after Madrid.

Svitolina registered a 52 mph serve.

Depending on the next couple of weeks, Venus might need a wild card for Wimbledon.

Jimenez Kasintseva probably played in front of a larger crowd in her junior slam final.

Ostapenko's range is a problem. She is out of position much more than at her 2016-17 peak, so the errors are more of a problem since she gets to less balls.

Stat of the Week- 3- Amount of countries in the Top 250 with less than one million people.

Andorra has 77,000. Hopefully, Jimenez Kasintseva will rise up the rankings as expected. But did you know that there is an even smaller country with a ranked player?

I did say 3, and the first 2 are:

625K- Luxembourg- Mandy Minella- 195
628K- Montenegro- Danka Kovinic- 63

They are both bigger. So who is the 3rd?

38K- Liechtenstein- Kathinka Von Deichmann- 250.

Quiz Time!

Who is the only woman from Liechtenstein to win a WTA MD match in singles?

A.Kathinka Von Deichmann
B.Stephanie Vogt
C.Angelika Schadler
D.Marina Novak


Interlude- Interview with Stephanie Vogt.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cXHX3hdQ2o


Answer!

There are really only 2 choices here. (C)Schadler never played on tour, but in important in their history, being on their first Fed Cup team. Even though the event started in 1963, Liechtenstein did not field a team until 1996.

(D)Novak played Fed Cup, but on tour, never played anything higher than a 10K. Her claim to fame, other than going 15-9 in Fed Cup, was losing to the still active Jessy Rompies back in 2008 in Manila.

I said singles, so 2 time doubles winner(Luxembourg 2013/Bad Gastein 2015) and 2 time Olympian (B)Stephanie Vogt is wrong. With a career high of 137, she mainly played slam qualies, but made it through Q in Nurnberg 2016, losing to Hercog 7-5, 7-6.

That leaves (A)Von Deichmann, who got her win via retirement, when on the comeback trail Laura Siegemund did so in Lugano-2018.

This may change, but as of now, Vogt and Von Deichmann are tied in Fed Cup(BJK Cup) history with 23 wins, the most of any player from Liechtenstein.

Sun May 02, 08:17:00 PM EDT  
Blogger Todd.Spiker said...

And top-seeded Hsieh/Mertens lose to Ostapenko/Pavlyuchenkova. For all her inconsistencies in singles, Ostapenko seems to be able to be successful with virtually every partner she teams up with in doubles.

Quiz: I went with Vogt, thinking Von Deichmann (though successful there - 14 titles) hadn't won above the challenger level.

Mon May 03, 12:42:00 PM EDT  

Post a Comment

<< Home