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Sunday, May 28, 2023

Wk.21- Elina Eve





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*WEEK 21 CHAMPIONS*
STRASBOURG, FRANCE (WTA 250/Red Clay Outdoor)
S: Elina Svitolina/UKR def. Anna Blinkova/RUS 6-2/6-3
D: Xu Yifan/Yang Zhauxuan (CHN/CHN) def. Desirae Krawczyk/Giuilana Olmos (USA/MEX) 6-3/6-2
RABAT, MOROCCO (WTA 250/Red Clay Outdoor)
S: Lucia Bronzetti/ITA def. Julia Grabher/AUT 6-4/5-7/7-5
D: Sabrina Santamaria/Yana Sizikova (USA/RUS) def. Ingrid Gamarra Martins/Lidziya Marozava (BRA/BLR) 3-6/6-1 [10-8]




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PLAYER OF THE WEEK: Elina Svitolina/UKR
...back after becoming a first-time mom, it hasn't taken Svitolina long to hit her stride.

The start of the week in Strasbourg (literally, last Sunday) saw Svitolina notch her first tour-level MD win since her return last month. She'd gone 0-3 in WTA MD matches, 1-2 in ITF challengers and 3-1 in a WTA 125 in Saint-Malo that saw her reach the semis.

With a wild card as the world #508, Svitolina posted wins over Louisa Chirico and Varvara Gracheva before staging a comeback from a set and 4-1 back vs. Clara Burel in the semis to reach her first WTA final since winning in Chicago in October '21. In the final against Anna Blinkova, on the eve of Roland Garros' Sunday start, Svitolina handled the Hordette with ease in a 6-2/6-3 win to claim the 17th tour-level title of her career.

After being ranked #1344 just six weeks ago, Svitolina will burst back into the Top 200, climbing 317 spots.



Afterward, Svitolina donated her prize money to the children of Ukraine.


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RISERS: Lucia Bronzetti/ITA and Anna Blinkova/RUS
...after cracking the Top 50 back in January, Bronzetti came into Rabat having fallen outside the Top 100 (#102) in the most recent rankings, her worst standing since last March. But she arrived off a good SF run in the Florence 125, and used that momentum to join the list of post-Quartet Italians who've claimed tour-level singles titles.

A year after reaching the semis in Rabat, Bronzetti was even better as she bounced between dominating performances (allowing 4 total games vs. Alycia Parks and Sloane Stephens in the QF/SF), a tight straight setter (1st Rd. vs. Rebecca Peterson), and a pair of back-and-forth contests in the 2nd Round and final. In the former vs. Tatjana Maria, the Italian failed to serve out the 1st. Maria then dominated the TB. Bronzetti erased the German's break lead in the 2nd, then nearly squandered a 3-0 edge in the 3rd before prevailing.

In the final vs. Julia Grabher, Bronzetti twice failed to serve out the match in the 2nd and 3rd sets, and didn't convert either of two MP for a straight sets victory. In the 3rd, she fell behind 3-1 before finally closing out the match on her third overall attempt to hold and secure her maiden tour title. She joins the likes of Giorgi, Paolini and Trevisan as post-Quartet Italian champs.

[I suppose one might unofficially even include Liudmila Samsonova in that group, as her family moved from Russia to Italy when she was 1, Italian is her main language and she represented the nation until 2019.]

Bronzetti jumps back into the Top 100 at #65 heading into Paris.



Blinkova's comeback after having dropped outside the Top 100 in 2021 began last season, as she reached her maiden tour final and won it to become the Transylvania Open champ in Cluj last October. Seven months later, the Hordette reached her second final in Strasbourg, defeating Amandine Hesse, Anna-Lena Friedsam, Emma Navarro and Lauren Davis to set up a match-up with Elina Svitolina.

Svitolina dominated the final, winning 6-2/6-3, but Blinkova will continue to re-climb the WTA rankings mountain, rising to #56, just two spots off her pre-pandemic career high in February 2020.
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SURPRISES: Julia Grabher/AUT and Tian Fangran/CHN (UCLA)
...in Rabat, 26-year old Grabher became the eighth first-time tour singles finalist of '23, riding a string of wins over Ysaline Bonaventure, Cagla Buyukakcay, defending champ/#1 seed Martina Trevisan (ret.) and Julia Riera (in her maiden WTA MD) to her best tour result. Against Riera, Grabher rallied from 6-1/3-1 back to force a 3rd, where she twice overcame break disadvantages as well as a mini-break (0-2) deficit in the deciding TB to win 8-6.

The Austrian saved a pair of 2nd set MP in the final against Lucia Bronzetti, then led 3-1 in the 3rd. The Italian surged to take a 5-4 edge, and Grabher stopped her in her second attempt to serve out the title match. But Bronzetti broke Grabher for 6-5, then held in her third try to close out the contest as Grabher became the fifth of those eight first-time finalists this year to come up short of her maiden crown (only Alycia Parks, Zhu Lin and Marta Kostyuk have taken home titles on their first try).

Grabher rises to a new career high of #61.



In Orlando, history was made as UCLA freshman Tian Fangran became the first Chinese player to win the NCAA women's singles championship with her 6-2/6-4 win in the final over Oklahoma's Layne Sleeth (CAN). Tian took the trophy without dropping a set all week, becoming the first Bruin to win the NCAA title since Keri Phebus in 1995.
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COMEBACK: Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova/RUS
...in Strasbourg, Pavlyuchenkova reached her first tour-level QF since her January return after an eight-month injury break. Ranked outside the Top 400, the former RG finalist (2021) posted wins over qualifier Angelina Gabueva and #1-seed Magda Linette to reach the final eight. She had a golden opportunity for more, holding a pair of MP vs. Lauren Davis in the QF, only to fall in three sets (at love in the 3rd).

She'll climb back inside the Top 335 heading in Paris, where she'll be in the MD using her protected ranking.
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FRESH FACES: Clara Burel/FRA, Julia Riera/ARG and Peyton Stearns/USA
...prior to arriving in Paris (where she'd secured a MD wild card), Burel got in a good week of action in Strasbourg, playing her way into the semifinals with wins over Sorana Cirstea, Kaia Kanepi and Bernarda Pera. She found herself in prime position to reach her first tour final since 2021 (Lausanne) when she led Elina Svitolina in their semi by a set and 4-1, but the Ukrainian pulled the match back and won it in three (and went on to take the title).

Burel will climb back into the Top 100 (from #122) for the first time since last June, coming in at #96.



20-year old Argentine Riera has been a springtime revelation, cracking the Top 200 while winning a pair of $25K challengers, earning a BJK Cup Heart Award nomination for leading her country into the fall Playoffs, and this past week in Rabat making her tour MD debut.

It was quite an introduction to the "big time," as Riera reeled off wins over Kristina Mladenovic, Mayar Sherif and Yulia Putintseva to reach the semis in her first WTA attempt. She seemingly nearly had the result on her racket, leading Julia Grabher 6-1/3-1, and then twice leading by a break in the 3rd (she then had a BP for a third break edge, but couldn't convert). In the deciding TB, Riera took a 2-0 lead, but saw the Austrian break out of a 6-6 tie to win and advance to the final.

Riera jumps 47 more spots this week, breaking into the Top 150 at #148 and officially becoming the ARG #2 behind Nadia Podoroska.

Less than a year after being crowned the NCAA women's singles champion, Stearns reached her third tour-level QF with a run in Rabat that included wins over Panna Udvardy and Leylah Fernandez. She held three MP vs. Sloane Stephens in the QF before falling in three sets.

Rabat was Stearns' first action in a month, after having gone 8-2 with back-to-back clay finals at tour-level Bogota and in the $100K Charleston challenger. She's 30-8 on all levels and surfaces in '23.


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DOWN: Leylah Fernandez/CAN
...with all the attention that Emma Raducanu's injuries, absences and less-than-sterling results get, the spinning of the wheels of the *other* 2021 U.S. Open finalist has gone a bit under the radar.

Fernandez has had success since that great run in New York, reaching a slam QF ('22 QF), defending a singles title (Monterrey '22) and triumphantly leading Team Canada in BJK Cup play. But the Canadian's misses have far outweighed her hits. She's reached more tour-level doubles finals (2 this year) than she has in singles (1) since the '21 Open, hasn't recorded a Top 10 win since posting three Top 5 victories at the Open two years ago, slipped from #24 to #40 last year, and came in this past week at #51.

In Rabat, Fernandez fell in the 2nd Round to Peyton Stearns, her ninth 2nd Round-or-earlier exit in tour events this year. She's 1-4 in her last five WTA matches, with her last QF coming all the way back in Week 1.

While Fernandez *has* reached a $100K semifinal (last week in Madrid) and was a BJK Heart Award nominee for leading Canada into November's finals, she's just 8-10 in WTA MD matches this season.
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DOUBLES: Xu Yifan/Yang Zhaoxuan (CHN/CHN) and Sabrina Santamaria/Yana Sizikova (USA/RUS)
...in Strasbourg, #4 seeds Xu & Yang claimed their third title as a pair (Xu's 13th, Yang's 7th), winning a pair of MTB over Chang/Kulokova (QF) and the Chan sisters (SF) before taking out #2-seeds Desirae Krawczyk & Giuliana Olmos in a 6-3/6-2 final.



Rabat saw Santamaria & Sizikova defeat the #2 (Babos/Danilina) and #3 (Niculescu/Ninomiya via a 12-10 MTB) seeds to set up an all-unseeded final against Ingrid Gamarra Martins (the Brazilian's first tour final) and Lidziya Marozava. It took another MTB to decide the winner, and the USA/RUS pair picked up their first title together with a 10-8 win.

The title is the third for Sizikova, and second for Santamaria (a decade ago she was celebrating an NCAA WD crown w/ USC teammate Kaitlyn Christian).


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1. Rabat QF - Sloane Stephens def. Peyton Stearns
...6-7(4)/6-3/7-6(6). Stephens shows that her fight is still close enough to the surface to (occasionally) be tapped when needed, as she rallied from a break down in the 3rd and saved 3 MP.

Of course, it came after Stephens twice failed to serve out the 1st set vs. Stearns, then after erasing a 4-2 3rd set deficit she'd twice failed to serve out the match. Stearns led 6-3 in the deciding TB, but Stephens swept the final five points.


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2. Rabat Final - Lucia Bronzetti def. Julia Grabher
...6-4/5-7/7-5. Bronzetti couldn't serve out her maiden title at 6-4/5-4, with 2 MP on her racket, so she had to rally from 3-1 back in the 3rd. Again, she failed to serve out the win (at 5-4), but broke Grabher for 6-5 and the third time proved to be the charm for the newly-crowned Italian.


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3. Strasbourg SF - Elina Svitolina def. Clara Burel
...4-6/7-5/6-3. One thing that hasn't changed is that, even with an in-form Svitolina, one should expect at some point some drama will creep in. It finally came in the SF in Strasbourg, as her route to the title included a comeback vs. Burel from 6-4/4-1 back.


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4. Strasbourg QF - Lauren Davis def. Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova
...1-6/7-6(2)/6-0. Pavlyuchenkova burst out of the gate, racing to a 5-0 lead and taking the 1st set. After Davis led 2-0 in the 2nd, the Russian rallied and served for the match at 5-4, holding two MP.
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5. Rabat 1st Rd. - Sloane Stephens def. Vera Zvonareva
...7-5/6-4. For the first time in 13 years, it's Stephens vs. Zvonareva!

Though both have combined for nearly 900 matches against other opponents, their only other meeting came in the Indian Wells 2nd Round in 2010. Zvonareva won 6-4/7-5, so I guess that's just the sort of sets these two play against one another.


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6. Rabat 1st Rd. - Jana Fett def. Sada Nahimana
...6-0/6-4. Nahimana becomes the first player from Burundi to play in a WTA MD match.

The 22-year old has won a pair of ITF titles (in 7 finals).


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7. Strasbourg 1st Rd. - Varvara Gracheva def. Bai Zhuoxuan
...6-3/3-6/7-6(3). Though a rather anonymous lucky loser in Strasbourg, Bai -- who twice served for the match vs. Gracheva, holding a pair of MP -- has gone 10-3 in challenger finals over the last 19 months (including winning a pair of $25K crowns in '23). She's on the cusp of cracking the Top 200.


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8. Strasbourg 1st Rd. - Viktoriya Tomova def. Alize Cornet
...3-6/6-4/7-5. Ahead of her tour record-extending 65th consecutive slam MD appearance (and maybe, 18 years after her debut there, her last in Paris?), Cornet stopped Tomova's attempt to serve out the match at 5-3 in the 3rd, only to be broken to end the match three games later.


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9. Strasbourg Q2 - Angelina Gabueva def. Erin Routliffe
...6-1/6-3. After reaching the MD, Gabueva lost her 1st Round match to Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, while Routliffe (as a LL) reached the 2nd Round, where she withdrew with an injury. Tennis.


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10. Rabat 2nd Rd. - Lucia Bronzetti def. Tatjana Maria
...6-7(1)/6-4/7-5. Bronzetti served for the 1st set at 6-5, holding a SP, but after dropping serve immediately fell into a 6-0 hole in the TB. In the 2nd, the Italian erased Maria's 4-2 lead to knot the match. In the 3rd, Bronzetti opened at 3-0, then lost four straight games, but broke Maria at love to end the match.

And the rest was history herstory.
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11. Rabat SF - Julia Grabher def. Julia Riera
...6-1/3-6/7-6(6). Riera staged a comeback from 6-1/3-1 to force a 3rd set. Once there, the Argentine took a pair of break leads in the set's first three games. At 4-4, she held a BP on Grabher's serve to go up a third time, but the Austrian pushed things to the TB. Riera led by a mini-break at 2-0, but it was Grabher who surged last, breaking free from an edge-of-victory/defeat 6-6 deadlock to claim the final two points to reach her maiden tour final.
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12. Rabat QF - Julia Grabher def. Martina Trevisan
...6-3 ret. A year ago, Trevisan rode the momentum of her Rabat title run all the way to the Roland Garros semis. This time around, as the defending champ and #1 seed who fell out of the Top 20 in the rankings on Monday, the Italian had posted wins over Nuria Parrizas Diaz and Jana Fett.

Trevisan will face Strasbourg champ Elina Svitolina in the RG 1st Round.
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13. NCAA Women's Doubles Final - Fiona Crawley/Carson Tanguilig (UNC) def. Reese Brantmeier/Elizabeth Scotty (UNC)
...6-1/2-6 [11-9]. A week after the Tar Heels won their first NCAA Team Championship, it was an all-UNC doubles final for the '23 title, with Crawley/Tanguilig coming out on top in a MTB.


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14. NCAA Women's Singles Final - Tian Fangram (UCLA) def. Layne Sleeth (Oklahoma)
...6-2/6-4. UCLA's Tian won out in what had been a very internationally flavored NCAA women's singles semifinals, where the lone U.S. player was USC's Madison Sieg (who lost to Tian). Canadian Sleeth (Oklahoma) defeated Brit Amelia Rajecki (N.C. State) in the other semi.


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15. Strasbourg Final - Elina Svitolina def. Anna Blinkova
...6-2/6-3. (Clears throat)...

From the '23 Prediction Blowout: "A player ranked outside the Top 300 wins a tour singles title, the lowest-ranked champion since 2001 and the second lowest-ranked (not counting unranked players) winner in tour history."

#508-ranked Svitolina is the second lowest-ranked champion in tour history, behind only #579 Angelique Widjana in Bali (also as a WC) in 2001. The lowest-ranked winner in between was #299 Margarita Gasparyan (now Betova) in Tashkent in 2018.
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1. Rabat 1st Rd. - Cagla Buyukakcay def. Linda Fruhvirtova
...7-5/6-4. Buyukakcay's first tour-level win in six years.

The Turk, 33, won a WTA singles title back 2016 and ranked as high as #60.


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2. Strasbourg 1st Rd. - Erin Routlifee def. Hsieh Su-wei
...7-6(2)/1-6/6-1. The rare New Zealand tennis alert about a big accomplishment in singles (Routliffe's first WTA MD win). The good news ended there, as the Kiwi withdrew due to injury before her 2nd Round match.

Routliffe is a three-time WTA doubles champion, including earlier this season in Austin.


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Simona was so up in arms about the ITIA's *latest* retaliatory (my word, but a true one) action that she took *two* shots this week at expressing her displeasure...



I'm shocked -- shocked! -- that the ITIA was lying about assuring "timely" justice in last week's announcement of a *second* Simona Halep offense less than a month after she'd complained about the organization's slow-rolling of the timely attending-to of her original offense (now nearly *nine* months old).

I believe I predicted this latest delay a few weeks ago (I didn't anticipate the double-down on allegations, though... my bad).

While I fully understand Halep's growing frustration anger over the situation, and her once again calling out the behavior publicly, it'll have little to no impact and TPTB likely laughed it off, and are probably plotting their next public smear campaign against her as we speak.

Apparently, whenever it actually happens, *both* hearings will be held simultaneously (hmmm, while the ITIA insisted this is a separate issue, both can be handled at the same time... doesn't this essentially confirm the second public allegation as a "pile-on" for showtime purposes?), so I suppose that's a *good* thing. I mean, since they're likely going to deny her attempt to overturn the suspension anyway I guess that means things will be able to move to the next phase a tiny bit quicker, right?

Either way, we're probably at the point now where, unless Halep intends to go "full Trump" (i.e. social media insults, public attacks and lawsuits galore) before the next stage of the process plays out, she'd probably be smart to just keep quiet for a bit until *some* sort of official ruling is handed down. No use poking the already-poked bear any more (they'll just find something else to charge her with).

Once she's at the *end* of this, though, by all means, take off the gloves and have at it (if she so chooses).

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Other winners: Rebecca Peterson/SWE (Europe/Africa I), Julia Riera/ARG (Americas I), Back Daeyeon/KOR (Asia/Oceania I)

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PREVIEW OF WHAT'S COMING IN 2024


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There's always been (and always will be) something special about Tina Turner struttin' down the sidewalk in 1980s-era New York City...



Meanwhile, in Italy (I didn't really want to include Ike, but this is a great performance)...













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*CAREER WTA SINGLES TITLES - ACTIVE (last)*
49 - Venus Williams (2016)
30 - Petra Kvitova (2023 = 1)
24 - Simona Halep (2022)
21 - Victoria Azarenka (2020)
18 - Svetlana Kuznetsova (2018)
17 - ELINA SVITOLINA (2023 = 1)
16 - Karolina Pliskova (2020)
14 - Angelique Kerber (2022)
13 - Aryna Sabalenka (2023 = 3)
13 - Iga Swiatek (2023 = 2)

*2023 FIRST-TIME WTA CHAMPIONS*
Zhu Lin, CHN - Hua Hin (29/#54)
Alycia Parks, USA - Lyon (22/#79)
Marta Kostyuk, UKR - Austin (20/#52)
LUCIA BRONZETTI, ITA - Rabat (24/#102)

*2023 FIRST-TIME WTA SINGLES FINALISTS*
Linda Noskova, CZE (#102/18 = Adelaide 1)
Rebeka Masarova, ESP (#130/23 = Auckland)
Elisabetta Cocciaretto, ITA (#67/21 = Hobart)
Alycia Parks, USA (#79/22 = Lyon)-W
Zhu Lin, CHN (#54/29 = Hua Hin)-W
Varvara Gracheva, RUS (#88/22 = Austin)
Marta Kostyuk, UKR (#52/20 = Austin)-W
Peyton Stearns, USA (#116/21 = Bogota)
JULIA GRABHER, AUT (#74/26 = Rabat)

*2023 FIRST-TIME WTA SEMIFINALISTS*
Auckland: Ysaline Bonaventure, BEL (28/#95)
Lyon: Alycia Parks, USA (22/#79)-W
Austin: Katie Volynets, USA (21/#92)
Bogota: Peyton Stearns, USA (21/#116)-RU
Bogota: Francesca Jones, GBR (22/#817)
Rabat: JULIA GRABHER, AUT (26/#74)-RU
Rabat: JULIA RIERA, ARG (20/#195)

*2023 - BEST SOUTH AMERICAN WTA RESULTS*
[SF]
1 - Camila Osorio, COL (0-1)
1 - Beatriz Haddad Maia, BRA (0-1)
1 - JULIA RIERA, ARG (0-1)
[QF]
5 - Beatriz Haddad Maia, BRA (1-4)
1 - Camila Osorio, COL (1-0)
1 - JULIA RIERA, ARG (1-0)
1 - Laura Pigossi, BRA (0-1)

*MULTIPLE #1 WINS IN A SEASON - since 2010*
2010 (2) Samantha Stosur
2011 (2) Dominika Cibulkova, Julia Goerges, Vera Zvonareva
2012 (4) Serena Williams
2012 (2) Maria Sharapova
2013 - none w/ 2
2014 (3) - Alize Cornet
2015 - none w/ 2
2016 (2) - Elina Svitolina
2017 (3) - Elina Svitolina, Caroline Wozniacki
2017 (2) - Garbine Muguruza, CoCo Vandeweghe
2018 - none w/ 2
2019 (3) - Belinda Bencic; (2) Sonya Kenin
2020 - none w/ 2
2021 - none w/ 2
2022 - none w/ 2
2023 (3) - Elena Rybakina

*NCAA WOMEN'S TOURNAMENT CHAMPIONS*
[recent singles winners]
2009 Mallory Cecil, Duke (USA)
2010 Chelsey Gullickson, Georgia (USA)
2011 Jana Juricova, California (SVK)
2012 Nicole Gibbs, Stanford (USA)
2013 Nicole Gibbs, Stanford (USA)
2014 Danielle Collins, Virginia (USA)
2015 Jamie Loeb, North Carolina (USA)
2016 Danielle Collins, Virginia (USA)
2017 Brienne Minor, Michigan (USA)
2018 Arianne Hartono, Mississippi (NED)
2019 Estela Perez-Somarriba, Miami (ESP)
2021 Emma Navarro, Virginia (USA)
2022 Peyton Stearns, Texas (USA)
2023 Tian Fangran, UCLA (CHN)
[recent doubles winners]
2010 Hilary Barte / Lindsay Burdette (Stanford)
2011 Hilary Barte / Mallory Burdette (Stanford)
2012 Mallory Burdette / Nicole Gibbs (Stanford)
2013 Kaitlyn Christian / Sabrina Santamaria (USC)
2014 Maya Jansen / Erin Routcliffe (Alabama)
2015 Maya Jansen / Erin Routcliffe (Alabama)
2016 Brooke Austin / Kourtney Keegan (Florida)
2017 Francesca Di Lorenzo / Miho Kowase (Ohio State)
2018 Jessica Golovin / Eden Richardson (LSU)
2019 Gabby Andrews / Ayan Broomfield (UCLA)
2021 Makenna Jones / Elizabeth Scotty (UNC)
2022 Jaeda Daniel / Nell Miller (NC State)
2023 Fiona Crawley / Carson Tanguilig (North Carolina)
[overall singles champions by school]
14 - Stanford
4 - Florida
3 - Georgia, Virginia
2 - California, Duke, Miami, UCLA
1 - Baylor, Georgia Tech, Michigan, Mississippi, San Diego, Texas, USC, Wake Forest
[most singles titles]
2 - Sandra Birch, Stanford
2 - Danielle Collins, Virginia
2 - Patty Fendick, Stanford
2 - Nicole Gibbs, Stanford
2 - Laura Granville, Stanford
2 - Amber Liu, Stanford
2 - Lisa Raymond, Florida





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8 + 7 = 15 (ends in 5). 4 + 2 = 6 (+1) = 7 (starts w/ a 7) = 75


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All for now.
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