Monday, March 04, 2024

Wk.9- California Katie Stuns San Diego

It's Week 9, and that's when Marta Kostyuk is fierce. But not as fierce as Katie Boulter in San Diego.






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*WEEK 9 CHAMPIONS*
SAN DIEGO (CAL), USA (WTA 500/Hard Court Outdoor)
S: Katie Boulter/GBR def. Marta Kostyuk/GBR 5-7/6-2/6-2
D: Nicole Melichar-Martinez/Ellen Perez (USA/AUS) def. Desirae Krawczyk/Jessie Pegula (USA/USA) 6-1/6-2
AUSTIN (TX), USA (WTA 250/Hard Court Outdoor)
S: Yuan Yue/CHN def. Wang Xiyu/CHN 6-4/7-6(4)
D: Olivia Gadecki/Olivia Nicholls (AUS/GBR) def. Katarzyna Kawa/Bibiane Schoofs (POL/NED) 6-2/6-4




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PLAYER OF THE WEEK: Katie Boulter/GBR
...while Boulter has now more than lived up to the early promise of her career, rising over the past year from outside the Top 125 last June to (as of Monday) inside the Top 30 for the first time, it might come as something of a surprise that the Brit's big week in San Diego is actually her first result of note since winning that historically stunning-and-satisfying tour final over fellow Brit Jodie Burrage on home grass in Nottingham last summer.

Heading into this pat week, since that maiden title run, Boulter had failed to reach the QF in 13 straight events, falling in qualifying or the 1st/2nd Round in every event other than her 3rd Round results at Wimbledon and the U.S. Open. This season, she'd lost in the 1st Round in Adelaide, and the 2nd Round in Melbourne and Linz, and hadn't recorded multiple MD wins since Flushing Meadows.

So, really, Boulter's sterling week in San Diego, over the course of which she notched a Top 40 win in all five of her matches (after never having previously had more than one Top 50 victory in a single event) might count as the most unexpected flash of brilliance we've seen thus far in 2024.

"California Katie" expertly reeled off wins over Lesia Tsurenko, Beatriz Haddad Maia, Donna Vekic, Emma Navarro and, in her biggest career final, Marta Kostyuk, rallying from a set down to grab a 500 crown and climb from #49 (already just one off her career high) all the way into the Top 30 at #27. The last time a British woman won a tour-level title on U.S. soil was, well -- you know -- when a certain qualifier won the U.S. Open two and a half years ago.

And, of course, it's San Diego. So to the winner goes the surfboard...


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RISERS: Marta Kostyuk/UKR and Anhelina Kalinina/UKR
...leap year occurs every four years, but "Marta's week" is apparently an annual occasion. At this point in the season (Week 9) last year, Kostyuk claimed her first career tour singles title in the 250 event in Austin. 52 weeks later, Kostyuk put herself in position to improve her station in the 500 event in San Diego.

It almost worked, too.

A win over Ann Li and a rare victory (for Kostyuk) over a Russian opponent in Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova (from a set down) topped the Ukrainian's '24 season's best QF runs in Adelaide and Melbourne, ending a string of four straight QF losses. In her first SF since she won in Austin, Kostyuk rallied from 5-1 down in the 1st set to take out #1 seed Jessie Pegula in straight sets, registering her fourth career Top 10 win and -- at #5 -- her biggest to date. After winning the 1st set in the final vs. Katie Boulter, though, Kostyuk couldn't keep up with the Brit, winning just four total games in the final two sets.

Even while not matching and bettering her title run of a year ago, Kostyuk will rise slightly in rankings -- from #34 to #32 -- on Monday.



Though she was the top seed in Austin, Kalinina didn't win the title or even reach the final. But the Ukrainian's SF result -- after wins over Sara Bejlek, Camila Osorio and Diane Parry -- represents the first time in '24 that she's advanced out of the 2nd Round (she came to Texas at just 2-6 on the season) and her first SF at tour level since her run to the Rome final last spring after winning three consecutive three-setters (then retiring in the final vs. Rybakina).


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SURPRISES: Yuan Yue/CHN and Emma Navarro/USA
...Yuan's multi-season climb up the WTA ladder continued this week in Austin.

In 2021, she cracked the Top 200, then in 2022 it was the Top 100. She reached the U.S. Open 3rd Round that year, still a career-best run in a major. Last year, Yuan reached her maiden tour singles final (Seoul) and won her biggest title (taking a crown in one of three $100K finals in '23).

The now 25-year old reached a SF in Hobart earlier this season, but came into Week 9 having gone 1-4 since. Yuan completed a five-win week in Austin, claiming her first tour-level title with wins over Arina Rodionova, Taylor Townsend, Wang Yafan, Anna Karolina Schmiedlova and, in the fourth all-CHN final in tour history, Wang Xiyu in a 6-4/7-6 contest in which she had to scramble late after losing a double-break lead, twice failing to serve things out and squandering 3 MP at 5-3. Yuan finally held to force a TB, then saw a 6-1 TB lead tighten to 6-4 before she finally put away her 7th MP.

Yuan's next career marker will be planted on Monday, as she'll crack the Top 50 for the first time, rising from #68 to #49.



Navarro didn't reach her second final of the young '24 campaign in San Diego, but the Bannerette maintained the multi-month (and multi-season) run that has propelled her nearly (but definitely quietly) into the Top 20.

Navarro ended '23 on a 19-4 run that included SF at tour-level San Diego last September, $100K and $80K titles and a 125 semi. In January she posted a SF in Auckland and won her maiden tour crown in Hobart on her way to a 10-1 start. A loss in the AO 3rd Round ended her streak, but this week she posted a second straight semi in the moved-up-on-the-schedule San Diego 500 event, getting wins over Katerina Siniakova and Dasha Saville before falling a round short of the final with a loss to Katie Boulter.

Still, Navarro's 15-5 season-opening spurt means that she's gone 34-9 since falling in the 1st Round of the U.S. Open. She was ranked #57 at Flushing Meadows, but now finds herself at #23, just under 300 points from overtaking #20 Madison Keys to place behind only Coco Gauff and Jessie Pegula in the Bannerette rankings.

Keys has yet to play this season, though she's scheduled for her '24 debut in Indian Wells. Maybe Navarro will catch it...


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VETERAN: Anna Karolina Schmiedlova/SVK
...in Austin, Schmiedlova reached her first WTA singles SF since 2019 (Hobart RU).

In her opening match, the Slovak staged a comeback vs. crowd favorite (and former Texas Longhorn) Peyton Stearns despite the former NCAA champ serving for the match. AKS followed up with a tight three-set win in the rain over Sachia Vickery, a week after falling in the 1st Round to the same opponent in a WTA 125 in Mexico. She was fortunate to get past Anastasija Sevastova, who retired while leading 6-4/2-1, but her (technical) triumph finally ended a seven-match losing streak in tour-level QF matches.

Schmiedlova lost to Yuan Yue in straights, but will climb to #69 on Monday after nearly slipping out of the Top 80 earlier this season. AKS ended 2023 at #71, her best year-end finish since 2015 (and the second-best of her career).
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COMEBACKS: Anastasija Sevastova/LAT and Dasha Saville/AUS
...one of the problems when a player returns after an extended time away, especially one like Sevastova for which injuries have always been an issue (in 2013, for a year and a half, she retired precisely due to that reason), is being able to consistently stay on the court once the shock to their system of playing the sport begins to rear its ugly head once more.

After having taken another break from the tour in early '22, Sevastova returned from materity leave in late '23, reaching two WTA 125 QF in her only two events. As she opened her season last month, in her usual wryly humorous way, Sevastova said that her goal for this season was "just to survive." She was kidding, but only partly.

In her opening event of the year, Sevastova reached the QF in Cluj in February. This week in Austin she reached another in her second '24 tournament, defeating the likes of Julia Riera and Sloane Stephens. She was leading Anna Karolina Schmiedlova 6-4/2-1, on the cusp of her first WTA semi since 2019 (Jurmala title), when she was forced to retire with a leg injury.

So, in four events so far, Sevastova has reached four QF. But survival remains the goal.



Though Saville has missed much time due to knee injuries in recent seasons, when she *has* managed to get back onto the court she hasn't labored when it's come to finding her form. When she returned last June after nine months out, she reached the SF in Hamburg in just her fourth event back. She reached another QF before ultimately finishing the season at 12-13 (with an ending three-match losing streak pulling her under .500).

The Aussie got off to a quick start in '24, reaching the SF in Hobart in January. After four losses in her last five outings, Saville made her way out of qualifying in San Diego, getting past Linda Fruhvirtova in straight sets in the final round. In the MD, she posted additional wins over Zhu Lin and Tatjana Maria, saving a MP against the German to reach the QF.

Saville's run ended there in a two-set loss to Emma Navarro despite the Aussie having grabbed a 4-1 lead in the 1st. The defeat drops her to 9-6 on the year, but she'll climb 32 spots from #148 to #116 as she edges closer to not only a Top 100 return (she was last there nearly a year ago) but a return to AUS #1. At the moment, as was the case at the end of last season, no Aussies are in the Top 100. Arina Rodionova has since slipped to #102 after going 1-4 after finally cracking the Top 100 at age 34 last month. Saville stands as the AUS #2.


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FRESH FACES: Wang Xiyu/CHN and Marina Stakusic/CAN
...Wang hasn't risen to the heights of CHN #1 Zheng Qinwen, and she wasn't even the last Chinese woman standing in Austin this week (that'd be Yuan Yue), but she added to her growing list of achievements by reaching her third tour-level singles final, the first in six seasons to feature two Chinese finalists.

Wang was starting to make her way before the pandemic, reaching a QF and SF in 2020 (both the first of her WTA career) before the tour shutdown. As with the majority of the Chinese players, she had to reset and it took a while to rediscover such WTA success. Finally, in 2022, she reached a pair of semis (Washington/Cluj). Last year, she won her maiden tour title in Guangzhou, and played in another SF this January in Auckland, cracking the Top 50.

In Austin, Wang posted wins over Nadia Podoroska, Darja Semenistaja, Danielle Collins (ret. after the 1st set) and top seed Anhelina Kalinina to reach her third tour final. Against Yuan, she nearly forced a 3rd set, getting breaks as Yuan twice served for the match in the 2nd, had three MP on Wang's serve, and led 6-1 in the TB before the match finally ended on MP #7 in a 7-4 breaker.



Stakusic, last fall's surprise BJK Cup Finals star during Canada's championshp run in Seville, finally makes her season debut in San Diego. The 19-year old (#283) took her qualifying wild card and played her way into the MD (w/ wins over Maria Timofeeva -- 6-2/3-0 ret. -- and Elsa Jacquemot), the second of her tour career ('22 Granby 2r run), where she added another victory over veteran Marina Melnikova.

Stakusic forced a 3rd set vs Donna Vekic, taking an early break lead, before falling to the Croat 6-4/3-6/6-3 in the 2nd Round.

The Canadian will climb to a new career high of #221.
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DOWN: Peyton Stearns/USA
...2022 NCAA women's singles champ Stearns burst onto the tour scene last year, reaching her maiden WTA final in April, cracking the Top 50 by the end of summer and playing her way into her first major Round of 16 at the U.S. Open.

But while she's led the surge of success from recent college players, the ex-Texas Longhorn is now the first experiencing a significant slump.

Stearns led Anna Karolina Schmiedlova at 5-3 in the 3rd in the 1st Round in Austin, her home college town and where she made her initial WTA breakout last year with a QF run. She served for the match, but lost 7-5 to fall to 1-6 on the season. Her lone win came last week in Dubai (over Mirra Andreeva).

Since she reached the 4th Round last summer at Flushing Meadows, Stearns has gone just 4-12. She's 1-10 in her last eleven three-setters, starting with her Open loss to Marketa Vondrousova in September. Stearns had been 11-6 in three-set matches in '23 *prior* to that loss.
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ITF PLAYER: Laura Pigossi/BRA
...the 29-year old Brazilian completed a fine two weeks in Pretoria (RSA), finishing off an 8-1 run (after she'd started '24 at 1-5) with a $50K challenger title via a 6-2/4-6/7-5 win in the final over Belgian Hanne Vandewinkel.

It's Pigossi's ninth career ITF win (to go along with a 125 in December), and she'll climb to #115. She reached her career-high of #100 in 2022.


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JUNIOR STAR: Mayu Crossley/JPN
...though she's not had the late-stage junior slam success of some of her contemporaries, Crossley is no stranger to winning big titles. The 17-year old from Japan (former girls' #5) swept the Eddie Herr and Orange Bowl titles in Florida in 2022, and claimed the J500 Banana Bowl in Brazil last year.

Back in Brazil (Porte Alegre) this week at the Brasil Juniors Cup, Crossley followed up her season-starting J300 SF in Lima last month with a title run in this J300 tournament. The #1 seed, she won a three-set battle with 16-year old Spanish qualifier Neus Torner Sensano (jr. #219, who'd won seven matches over the week) to take the crown.


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DOUBLES: Nicole Melichar-Martinez/Ellen Perez, USA/AUS
...finally, the long WTA nightmare of Melichar-Martinez & Perez is over.

The pair have been one of the better duos over the past three seasons. Since summer 2022, coming into San Diego, the two had reached a total of eleven tour finals. Problem is, since they picked up a title in their third final together in Cleveland that summer they'd since gone on to not win *any* other. They tied for the tour lead (w/ Siegemund/Zvonareva, who lifted four trophies) with five finals last year, but lugged a 0-5 record in those finals over the finish line. Sure enough, they reached finals in Linz and Dubai in February of '24 and lost both of those, too, to stretch their losing streak to eight (1-10 overall). Combined with her outings with other partners, Melichar came into the week having lost *ten* straight WD finals (2-14 over the past three-plus years).

In San Diego, the duo "slayed the dragons" (aka the former separately #1-ranked combination of Hunter/Siniakova, who'd defeated them in last week's final) in an 11-9 MTB in the semifinals. In the final (a tour-leading third in '24) against Desirae Krawczyk & Jessie Pegula, they had no such struggle and instead won a 1 & 2 affair. It gives Melichar-Martinez 12 career crowns, and Perez six.

So, the Tennis Gods showed the pair a little mercy this week, immediately after Perez's "sorta" plea during the Dubai trophy ceremony when she said that "maybe" they'll win one of these finals some day. Okay... wish granted.

Hmmm. Of course, now we have to wonder what will the Tennis Gods ask of them in return for such a favor?


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WHEELCHAIR: Lizzy de Greef/NED
...de Greef has been the Dutch "champion-in-waiting" for a few seasons now. Well, the time may be about the come when the 19-year old former junior star will graduate and enter the *full* conversation on the women's tour. In fact, it may have happened this week, the same week as International Wheelchair Day (and the start of Women's History Month).



In Rome, Georgia (USA) it was de Greef taking the singles title at the Georgia Open, claiming her second career Series 1 crown. But the title itself may not be as significant as the players she beat to get it. Her run included wins over WC #6 Aniek Van Koot in the QF and #8 Dana Mathewson in a 6-3/6-4 final. Mathewson had won the only previous meeting between the two (in 2022), while this was de Greef's second straight victory over Van Koot after having dropped her first three contests vs. her countrywoman and sometimes doubles partner.

There are definitive *tiers* when it comes to the women's wheelchair "power pyramid." Clearly, Diede de Groot sits alone at the top, as does Yui Kamiji in the second "group." The third tier of the sport is made of a very veteran batch that includes the likes of Van Koot, Jiske Griffioen, Kgothatso Montjane, Zhu Zhenzhen (though mostly in doubles) and Mathewson, and from which the QF/SF opponents of the top two are usually found. With this week's title run, de Greef may have climbed into that group while also being the only player amongst them whose career results are in the early stages of a big upswing. Some interesting generational clashes (well, level-of-play checks, at least) could be on the horizon.

De Greef entered this week at #10 in the rankings, but has still only played de Groot and Kamiji *once* in an official tour singles match. She lost love & 1 to Kamiji in the 1st Round of this year's AO in what just her second career slam singles outing. That scoreline hints at the gulf that may still exist between her and "second tier" Kamiji, but it's worth noting that de Greef's *first* slam singles match was against Van Koot at last year's U.S. Open. She lost that one love & 3, but since then has played Van Koot three times: a three-set loss followed by two wins. De Greef also defeated Griffioen for the first time last October.

[Here's are article about her from last month.]

De Greef is clearly making strides, and before long -- hopefully sometime this spring (she'll need to be in the Top 8 to qualify for this summer's Paralympics field in Paris) -- we might finally be able to see just how far along she is when it comes to possibly giving any sort of challenge to the sport's top two women over the next year or two.


IG@lizzydegreef
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1. San Diego Final - Katie Boulter def. Marta Kostyuk
...5-7/6-2/6-2. Boulter let slip her early break lead in the 1st, as Kostyuk went up 5-2 and served for the set at 5-3. Boulter got the break, but later couldn't hold to force a TB.

Boulter took control the rest of the way, riding early breaks to a 2 & 2 finish to deny Kostyuk a "trade up" from a Week 9 250 ('23 Austin) to a 500 level trophy over the span of a year.


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2. Austin Final - Yuan Yue def. Wang Xiyu
...6-4/7-6(4). Playing for her maiden tour title (in the first all-CHN WTA final since 2018 -- it might not uphold Austin's "Keep Austin Weird" motto, but this was at least *different*), Yuan saw things get a little dicey after she took at 6-4/5-2 lead on her compatriot Wang.

Yuan twice failed to serve out the match, and couldn't convert three MP on Wang's serve at 5-3 (from love/40 up). She saw her double-break lead turn into a 6-5 deficit, but finally held to force a TB. Up 6-1, three more MP went by the wayside until #7 proved to be the charm as she secured the 7-4 breaker victory.


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3. Austin 1st Rd. - Katie Volynets def. Renata Zarazua 6-4/7-6(6)
Austin 2nd Rd. - Danielle Collins def. Katie Volynets 4-6/7-6(3)/6-0
...the Tennis Gods' Reaper Squad got Volynets' scent early on in Austin, and eventually came for her.

After the Bannerette had managed to escape the 1st Round with a straight sets win over Renata Zarazua despite losing a 5-0 lead in the 2nd set TB (Zarazua soon led 6-5), Volynets served for the match at 6-4/5-4 vs. Collins a round later. She lost the set, then the 3rd at love.

Mission accomplished. The Reapers (finally) got their woman.



After joking during her post-match press conference, "By the end of this, maybe a pharmaceutical company will pick me up…rheumatoid arthritis, endometriosis, chronic pain, overuse injuries... I mean I’m every pharmaceuticals' dream," Collins retired after the 1st set in her next match.
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4. San Diego 1st Rd. - Anna Blinkova def. Caroline Wozniacki
...1-6/6-4/6-1. Wozniacki led 6-1/2-0, but Blinkova upped her game and took control down the stretch.

The Dane is now 1-3 in '24 (her lone win was an AO ret. from Magda Linette, who probably shouldn't have been playing in the first place), and she's just 5-6 since her return last August.

It's still early, but thus far Wozniacki's only truly "good" result was at the U.S. Open, where she notched wins over Kvitova and a (then-"healthy") Brady and took eventual champ Gauff to three sets. She took off the rest of last season, and before this week hadn't played since Melbourne. This raises a legitimate question about whether her season plan is to play *more* and try and make a go of this thing, or hope to spark with a good result via a WC (which she received this week as she has in all of her comeback tournaments, and is set to receive in Indian Wells and Miami, as well) and go from there. The notion of a "Kim Clijsters comeback" scenario (circa 2009) has already come and gone.

If the results don't come soon, when will those WC offers dry up and she'll be forced to go the qualifying route to keep her comeback going? It's easy to think that, with so much awaiting her off the court (family and work-wise, as she was chugging along quite well in her commentary career before she announced her un-retirement), this additional chapter might not last through the end of '24. She doesn't really *need* to do it.
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5. San Diego 2nd Rd. - Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova def. Wang Xinyu
...4-6/7-6(5)/6-2. Pavlyuchenkova rallies from 6-4/4-0 down in her first match since withdrawing before her 2nd Rounder in Dubai.


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6. Austin 2nd Rd. - Anastasija Sevastova def. Sloane Stephens
...6-3/6-2. *Seven* years ago, Stephens defeated Sevastova in a 3rd set TB in the U.S. Open QF en route to her lone slam title.



Sevastova is 3-1 vs. Stephens since that U.S. Open QF, including a win over her in Flushing Meadows in a QF rematch a year later (their most recent meeting before this week).
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7. San Diego 2nd Rd. - Dasha Saville def. Tatjana Maria
...5-7/7-6(2)/6-2. In a 3:14 affair (making Dasha one of just two players, w/ Ekaterina Alexandrova, to play a second three-hour MD match at tour-level in '24), Saville recovers from a set and 4-2 deficit, saving a MP on serve at 4-5 in the 2nd.
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8. San Diego 2nd Rd. - Katie Boulter def. Beatriz Haddad Maia
...3-6/6-3/6-4. Haddad Maia's fourth straight loss, her longest streak since 2019 (when she at #172).

Since that exhausting three-set encounter with Dasha Kasatkina in Abu Dhabi (won by the Russian), the two have combined to go 0-6. The Brazilian is 6-7 on the year.
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9. San Diego SF - Marta Kostyuk def. Jessie Pegula
...7-6(4)/6-1. Has anyone gotten less "feel good vibes" out of a (ultimately misleading) 6-3 start than Pegula has out of hers in '24?

Though she's still ranked #5 *and* has reached a pair of SF in her first three MD events this season, she's *also* lost a match in the United Cup (to Katie Boulter) in which she led 7-5/3-0, exited a tournament (Adelaide) via walkover, fell in straights in the 2nd Round at the AO (her worst slam since the '21 Wimbledon), fired her coach and has now failed to reached the final in an event in which she was the only Top 10 player (and just one of two in the Top 20) in the draw.

Pegula led Kostyuk 5-1 in the 1st, then dropped 12 of the final 14 games.

She rebounded to win a WD semifinal alongside Desirae Krawczyk on Saturday night after the singles, but the pair dropped a 1 & 2 final to Melichar-Martinez/Perez on Sunday.
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10. Austin Final - Olivia Gadecki/Olivia Nicholls def. Katarzyna Kawa/Bibiane Schoofs
...6-2/6-4. The Olivias take the title in Austin, as Nicholls wins her second tour-level crown and Gadecki gets her first. The Aussie is the first maiden WTA WD title-winner this season.


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11. $50K Trnava SVK Final - Anastasiia Gureva def. Elena Pridankina
...3-6/6-3/6-4. Gureva wins the battle of 18-year old Hordettes.


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12. $35K Spring (TX) USA Final - Ena Shibahara def. Iva Jovic
...6-2/4-6/6-3. After previously taking out the #4 (Carolina Alves, 1r) and #1 (Maria Mateas, SF) seeds, Shibihara defeated the 16-year old Jovic (in her first pro final) to claim her first singles title of any kind since 2019.
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13. $15K Manacor ESP Final - Kaitlin Quevedo def. Natalia Szabanin
...6-2/3-1 ret. Ex-Bannerettte Quevedo gets her first singles title since beginning to represent Spain at the start of this year.


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14. $15K Antalya TUR Final - Daniela Vismane def. Amarissa Kiara Toth
...0-1 ret. Not exactly sure what happened here, but it couldn't have been good, as Toth fails to improve to 4-0 in ITF finals since "the incident."

Latvian Vismane gets her fourth career circuit win, the first since 2021.

Hopefully the Twitter trolls don't get a hold of this, since we don't need a vindictive rehash of Toth and in-match retirements.
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1. Austin 1st Rd. - Anna Karolina Schmiedlova def. Peyton Stearns
...6-2/4-6/7-5. A year ago at the same event, Stearns had her tour breakout with a QF run with a "home court" advantage (the Texas star played college ball in Austin). This year, she lost in her opening match to fall to 1-6 in '24.


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2. Austin 2nd Rd. - Anna Karolina Schmiedlova def. Sachia Vickery
...5-7/7-6(5)/7-5. A week earlier, Vickery had defeated Schmiedlova 6-2/6-0 in the 1st Round of the WTA 125 in Puerto Vallarte. Things played out very differently this time around.

Playing in the rain, AKS slipped and fell multiple times. She lost the 1st set after leading 5-3, then "saved" the 2nd in a TB after having seen another 5-3 lead slip away. Up 2-1 vs. Vickery in the 3rd, the set was soon back on serve until the Slovak broke for a 6-5 lead and then served out the win at love in 2:50.

Meanwhile, despite playing well of late, including reaching a $100K SF and posting a U.S. Open MD win last summer, Vickery (nearly ranked high enough to automatcially earn a qualifying berth) wasn't given an Indian Wells Q-draw WC (five U.S. women ranked below her were, though).
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Generally, it doesn't take long during a match in which Andrea Petkovic is providing commentary for a gem of a quote to emerge.

Caught during just a few minutes of this week's Zarazua/Volynets match on Tennis Channel: "There is no place for hope in tennis. You have to go out there and take it."

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Seems like a good move. Hmmm, but then you remember that Witt could never get Pegula "over the hump," so he moves on to a player who has had a hard time "getting over the hump."

But tennis player/coach success *is* sometimes just about finding the best combination at the right time. Maybe it'll work.

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*ALL-CHN WTA FINALS*
2006 Estoril, POR - Zheng Jie def. Li Na
2013 Shenzhen, CHN - Li Na def. Peng Shuai
2018 Nanchang, CHN - Wang Qiang def. Zheng Saisai
2024 Austin, USA - YUAN YUE def. WANG XIYU

*WTA ALL-NATION FINALS IN 2020s*
[2020]
(USA) Auckland - S.Williams d. Pegula
(BLR) Ostrava - Sabalenka d. Azarenka
[2021]
(RUS) Saint Petersburg - Kasatkina d. Gasparyan #
(CZE) Prague - Krejcikova d. Martincova #
[2022]
(USA) Adelaide 2 - Keys d. Riske
(RUS) Istanbul - Potapova d. V.Kudermetova
[2023]
(GBR) Nottingham - Boulter d. Burrage #
(RUS) Rosmalen - Alexandrova d. V.Kudermetova
(CZE) Nanchang - Siniakova d. Bouzkova
[2024]
(CHN) Austin - Yuan Yue d. Wang Xiyu
-
#- tournament in home nation

*2024 FIRST-TIME WTA CHAMPIONS*
Hobart - Emma Navarro, USA (22/#31)
Hua Hin - Diana Shnaider, RUS (19/#108)
Austin - YUAN YUE, CHN (25/#68)
[doubles]
Austin - OLIVIA GADECKI, AUS (21)
[mixed]
Australian Open - Hsieh Su-wei, TPE (38)

*2024 WTA WS TITLES BY NATION*
2 - KAZ (Rybakina-2)
2 - LAT (Ostapenko-2)
2 - USA (Gauff,Navarro)
1 - BLR (Sabalenka)
1 - CHN (YUAN)
1 - CZE (Pliskova)
1 - GBR (BOULTER)
1 - ITA (Paolini)
1 - POL (Swiatek)
1 - RUS (Shnaider)

*CAREER WTA TITLES - CHN*
9 - Li Na (2004,'08,'10-14)
4 - Zheng Jie (2005-06,'12)
3 - Zhang Shuai (2013,'17,'22)
2 - Wang Qiang (2018)
2 - Peng Shuai (2016-17)
2 - Zheng Qinwen (2023)
1 - Duan Yingying (2016)
1 - Sun Tiantian (2006)
1 - Wang Xiyu (2023)
1 - Wang Yafan (2019)
1 - Yan Zi (2005)
1 - YUAN YUE (2024)
1 - Zheng Saisai (2019)
1 - Zhu Lin (2023)

*CAREER WTA TITLES - GBR (active)*
4 - Heather Watson(2012,'15-16,'19-20)
2 - KATIE BOULTER (2023-24)
1 - Emma Raducanu (2021)

*2024 WTA SF*
[CHN]
2 - WANG XIYU (1-1)
2 - YUAN YUE (1-1)
1 - Zheng Qinwen (1-0)
1 - Zhu Lin (1-0)
1 - Wang Xinyu (0-1)
1 - Wang Yafan (0-1)
[USA]
3 - EMMA NAVARRO (1-2)
3 - JESSIE PEGULA (0-1+L)
2 - Coco Gauff (1-1)
[UKR]
1 - MARTA KOSTYUK (1-0)
1 - ELINA SVITOLINA (1-0)
1 - Anhelina Kalinina (0-1)
1 - Dayana Yastremska (0-1)

*2024 UNSEEDED WTA FINALISTS*
Adelaide - Dasha Kasatkina
Hua Hin - Diana Shnaider (W)
Cluj-Napoca - Karolina Pliskova (W)
Dubai - [Q] Anna Kalinskaya (Q)
Dubai - Jasmine Paolini (W)
San Diego - KATIE BOULTER (W)

*2024 WTA DOUBLES FINALS*
3 (1-2) = NICOLE MELICHAR-MARTINEZ
3 (1-2) = ELLEN PEREZ
2 (1-1) = Lyudmyla Kichenok
2 (1-1) = Bethanie Mattek-Sands
2 (1-1) = Alona Ostapenko
2 (0-2) = Guo Hanyu
2 (0-2) = Jiang Xinyu
2 (0-2) = DESIRAE KRAWCZYK
2 (0-2) = Heather Watson
[2024 finals - duos]
3...MELICHAR-MARTINEZ/PEREZ (1-2)
2...L.Kichenok/Ostapenko (1-1)
2...Guo/Jiang (0-2)





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Cleansing the palate with the forever underappreciated Myrna Loy...


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The Empire Strikes Back, Heathers and The Fly


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All for now.

posted by Todd.Spiker @ 2:00 AM 

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