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Monday, July 22, 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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.


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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.
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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.
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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.


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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.
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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.


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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.
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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.
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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.


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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.
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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).
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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.
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