Tennis: Former Wimbledon champion Halep into Birmingham semi-finals

Former Wimbledon champion Simona Halep booked her place in the semi-finals of the WTA Birmingham grass-court event with a straight sets win over Britain's Katie Boulter on Friday.

Boulter had been in career-best form at the tournament, defeating Alison Riske in the first round of the Wimbledon warm-up before knocking out former top-10 player Caroline Garcia.

But second seed Halep ultimately proved too strong in a 6-4, 6-1 victory.

The 30-year-old Romanian, however, did not have things all her own way in a tightly-contested first set.

Boulter, who only returned from nearly three months out with a leg injury at Nottingham last week, kept pace with Halep for the opening eight games.

The 25-year-old, to her credit, saved three break points at 4-4 only to double fault on the fourth.

That proved to be the cue for Halep to pull away in what is her first grass-court event since a superb straight sets win over Serena Williams in the 2019 Wimbledon final.

"She's clearly one of the best tennis players out there," said Boulter of Halep.

"So, for me to be able to stand out there and feel like I can compete and win the match -- I really did feel if I brought a bit more game today, then it would have been closer and it would have been a tough match for both of us."

Halep will now play Brazil's Hadda Maia -- winner of last week's Nottingham Open -- in the semi-finals.

The world number 32 extended her winning streak on grass to eight matches with a 6-3 6-2 victory over Italian third seed Camila Giorgi.

Sorana Cirstea made it a day of double celebration for Romania by also reaching the semi-finals after coming from a set down to defeat Donna Vekic 5-7, 6-3, 6-4.

Cirstea will face Zhang Shuai in the last four following the Chinese eighth seed's 7-5, 6-4 win over Ukraine's Dayana Yastremska.

Agence France-Presse

15-year-old American Coco Gauff gets US Open wild-card entry

Coco Gauff will get a chance to try for an encore: The 15-year-old from Florida received a wild-card entry Tuesday for the U.S. Open’s main draw.

It will be Gauff’s second Grand Slam tournament. She made a magical run to the fourth round at Wimbledon last month after getting a wild card into the qualifying rounds there.


Ranked just 313th at the time, Gauff became the youngest player to qualify for Wimbledon, upset five-time champion Venus Williams in the first round and wound up losing at the All England Club to eventual title winner Simona Halep.

Gauff is currently No. 140 in the WTA rankings.

Age restrictions set up by the women’s professional tour limit the number of tournaments someone who is 15 can enter and the number of wild-card invitations she can be offered — and Gauff already has accepted three wild cards elsewhere. But according to the WTA, the U.S. Open — which, as a Grand Slam tournament, is not overseen by the WTA or ATP tours — essentially can choose to ignore the eligibility rule and offer Gauff a wild card.

Among the other players receiving wild cards from the U.S. Tennis Association on Tuesday for the women’s field at Flushing Meadows were 2011 U.S. Open champion Sam Stosur — an Australian who was granted that country’s reciprocal berth in the field — and 17-year-old Caty McNally, an American who won the doubles title with Gauff and reached the singles semifinals at the Citi Open in Washington this month.


The draw for the U.S. Open is Aug. 22, and play in the year’s last major tennis tournament begins Aug. 26.

Other women’s wild cards went to Francesca Di Lorenzo, Whitney Osuigwe, Kristie Ahn and Katie Volynets of the U.S., along with 16-year-old Diane Parry of France, who got her country’s reciprocal invitation.

Di Lorenzo, a 22-year-old from Ohio, is a past NCAA doubles champion now ranked 128th. Osuigwe, a 17-year-old from Florida, won a French Open junior title and is ranked 105th. Ahn, a 27-year-old from New Jersey, finished first in the USTA’s wild-card challenge, while Volynets, a 17-year-old from California, won the 18s national championship.

Nine wild cards for qualifying were also awarded, including to five-time Grand Slam doubles champion Bethanie Mattek-Sands, 14-year-old Reese Brantmeier of Wisconsin, Vicky Duval, Shelby Rogers and Pan Am Games medalist Caroline Dolehide.

source: sports.inquirer.net

Kuznetsova edges Pliskova in thriller to reach WTA semis

SINGAPORE (AFP) — Russia’s Svetlana Kuznetsova produced another extraordinary comeback to win her second straight match at the WTA Finals on Wednesday, sealing a place in the semi-finals.

Just two days after she saved a match point to defeat the defending champion Agnieszka Radwanska, Kuznetsova again rallied back from the brink to beat US Open finalist Karolina Pliskova 3-6 6-2 7-6 (8-6) in a heart-stopper at Singapore’s Indoor Stadium.

Kuznetsova still has another round-robin match to play on Friday against Garbine Muguruza but is already assured of finishing top of the White Group standings after Muguruza was beaten 7-6 (7-1) 6-3 by Radwanska in Wednesday’s late match.

Muguruza is out of the running for the semis after losing her first two matches, leaving Pliskova and Radwanska to battle it out on Friday to see who else goes through with Kuznetsova from the group.

With sweat pouring from her face and her muscles aching after she had run herself ragged for more than two hours, the 31-year-old Kuznetsova triumphed through sheer willpower and nerves of steel.

“I play with my heart. I always do,” Kuznetsova said. “But maybe I’m starting to believe a little bit more than before. I just hang in there more.

“Some things get together and you get confidence. I see opponents fear me more than before because I win matches, I fight, and I’ll be there. It doesn’t matter if I play like crap and I’m sore, I will just be there.”

Pliskova, seven years younger than Kuznetsova but with ice in her veins as well after saving a match point to beat Muguruza on Monday, looked poised to end Kuznetsova’s inspired run when she recovered from 4-1 down in the deciding third set to lead 6-5.

Relentless

But the towering Czech squandered her chance to serve out the match, hitting a string of unforced errors as she tried to end the contest quickly, as the relentless Kuznetsova broke back and forced a tiebreaker.

The match was still in the balance when Pliskova saved three successive match points to draw level at 6-6 in the tiebreaker when the more experienced Kuznetsova regained her composure and won the next two points to seal victory.

“I’m not surprised at all,” Pliskova said. “She’s won two Grand Slams, so it’s not someone who just came up.

“She is very strong woman and she can really play tennis. She has a tough game.”

With Serena Williams and Maria Sharapova both absent from the prestigious end-of-season championship, Kuznetsova has emerged as the unlikely headline act of the $7 million tournament, restricted to the world’s top eight players.

She defied the odds just to qualify for the tournament for the first time since 2009, only sneaking into the elite field after winning the Kremlin Cup in Moscow on Saturday, then hopped straight on a plane and made the long flight to Southeast Asia.

Jet-lagged when she arrived, she seemed to be heading towards defeat in her first match with Radwanska when she asked the umpire for a pair of scissors and began cutting her own hair during a change of ends.

She went on and won the match as footage of the impromptu haircut went viral on social media, winning Kuznetsova a legion of new fans, but upsetting her regular hairstylist.

“I took the headband off and I was like, it looks weird,” Kuznetsova said. “So I made a picture and I sent it to my hair cutter. He was like, ‘I’m going to kill you’.”

source: sports.inquirer.net

Serena Williams reinforces huge rankings lead

Serena Williams reinforced her huge lead at the top of the WTA rankings a week out from the start of the French Open after winning the Italian Open on Sunday.

Williams beat fellow American Madison Keys in the final in Rome to set herself up nicely for Roland Garros.

Second place in the rankings was reclaimed by Poland’s Agnieszka Radwanska from Germany’s Angelique Kerber, who suffered an early exit in the Italian capital.

Elsewhere, Victoria Azarenka moved up a place to fifth at the expense of Romania’s Simona Halep and Timea Bacsinszky and Flavia Pennetta were also climbers in the top 10.

WTA top 20

1. Serena Williams (USA) 9,030 pts

2. Agnieszka Radwanska (POL) 5,850 (+1)

3. Angelique Kerber (GER) 5,740 (-1)

4. Garbine Muguruza (ESP) 5,196

5. Victoria Azarenka (BLR) 4,341 (+1)

6. Simona Halep (ROM) 4,301 (-1)

7. Roberta Vinci (ITA) 3,505

8. Belinda Bencic (SUI) 3,330

9. Timea Bacsinszky (SUI) 3,150 (+1)

10. Flavia Pennetta (ITA) 2,963 (+3)

11. Venus Williams (USA) 2,886 (+3)

12. Petra Kvitova (CZE) 2,878 (-3)

13. Lucie Safarova (CZE) 2,843 (+2)

14. Carla Suarez Navarro (ESP) 2,585 (-3)

15. Svetlana Kuznetsova (RUS) 2,585 (+4)

16. Ana Ivanovic (SRB) 2,560

17. Madison Keys (USA) 2,541 (+7)

18. Sara Errani (ITA) 2,450

19. Karolina Pliskova (CZE) 2,420 (+1)

20. Elina Svitolina (UKR) 2,416 (-3)

source: sports.inquirer.net

Tennis: Wozniacki crashes out of Aussie Open

Melbourne, Australia — Former world number one Caroline Wozniacki crashed out of the Australian Open at the first hurdle Monday after tossing away a one-set lead against Kazakhstan’s Yulia Putintseva.

The Dane, who remains one of the most marketable players in tennis despite never winning a major in 35 attempts, again failed to break her Grand Slam drought.

She romped through the first set against the 76th-ranked Putintseva but as the Kazakh’s confidence grew, Wozniacki struggled to cope with her opponent’s baseline game and went down 1-6, 7-6 (7/3), 6-4 in 3hrs 12 mins.

“I can’t believe I won the match,” said 21-year-old Putintseva, who was shaking with nerves in her courtside interview and revealed she battled through blisters on her feet and toes.

“I was very nervous in the first set because I am not used to playing on such a big court. But then I got a bit more used to it.”

Her reward is a second round-clash with Chinese wildcard Han Xinyun, and a potential fourth-round encounter with world number one Serena Williams.

It was a disappointing start to the year for Wozniacki, who has struggled to regain the form that saw her end 2010 and 2011 as world number one.

She won in Malaysia last year but other highlights were few and far between.

Capping off her misery, she cut her finger badly with a bread knife and withdrew from the WTA Elite Trophy in Zhuhai, southern China, in November.

source: sports.inquirer.net