2014 WTA First Tournaments

WTA 2014 Tennis Year Begins soon

The sport we all love, tennis, is great in many ways. One of those ways is that the off season is incredibly short. Most players finish their tour in late October or early November. The first tournaments for the new year actually start in the same year the previous tour ended! Here are the tournaments, dates and entry list for the start of 2014.

Brisbane International

Dec 29 - Jan 04, 2014
Brisbane, Australia

List:

Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova RUS

Serena Williams USA

Magdalena Rybarikova SVK

Stefanie Voegele SUI

Victoria Azarenka BLR

Varvara Lepchenko USA

Sabine Lisicki GER

Daniela Hantuchova SVK

Maria Sharapova RUS

Francesca Schiavone ITA

Jelena Jankovic SRB

Andrea Petkovic GER

Caroline Wozniacki DEN

Elina Svitolina UKR

Dominika Cibulkova SVK

Bethanie Mattek-Sands USA

Kaia Kanepi EST

Madison Keys USA

Angelique Kerber GER

Kristina Mladenovic FRA

Carla Suarez Navarro ESP

 Kimiko Date-Krumm JPN

See more at:

http://www.brisbaneinternational.com.au/players/womens-singles#sthash.vTQnapKZ.dpuf

Shenzhen Open

Dec 29 - Jan 04, 2014
Shenzhen, China

List:

Babos, Timea (HUN)

Beck, Annika (GER)

Cepelova, Jana (SVK)

Chan, Yung-Jan (TPE)

Errani, Sara (ITA)

Govortsova, Olga (BLR)

Jovanovski, Bojana (SRB)

King, Vania (USA)

Li, Na (CHN)

Mayr-Achleitner, Patricia (AUT)

Niculescu, Monica (ROU)

Peer, Shahar (ISR)

Peng, Shuai (CHN)

Pfizenmaier, Dinah (GER)

Schmiedlova, Anna K (SVK)

Soler-Espinosa, Silvia (ESP)

Tomljanovic, Ajla (CRO)

Torro-Flor, Maria-Teresa (ESP)

Tsurenko, Lesia (UKR)

Wozniak, Aleksandra (CAN)

Zahlavova Strycova, Barbora (CZE)

Zakopalova, Klara (CZE)

Zhang, Shuai (CHN)

Zheng, Jie (CHN)

Zvonareva, Vera (RUS) (WC)

ASB Classic

Dec 30 - Jan 04, 2014
Auckand, New Zealand

List:

Ana Ivanovic

Venus Williams

Marina Erakovic

Roberta Vinci

Kirsten Flipkens

Sorana Cirstea

Jamie Hampton

Elena Vesnina

Alexandra Cadantu

Alison Riske

Ayumi Morita

Christina McHale

Garbine Muguruza

Iveta Benesova

Karin Knapp

Karolina Pliskova

Laura Robson

Lucie Safarova

Mona Barthel

Monica Puig

Paula Ormaechea

Yanina Wickmayer

Yvonne Meusburger

Lourdes Dominguez Lino

4 more TBA

Cool Names in Women's Tennis

Cool Names in Women's Tennis

Here are my opinion on some of the coolest names in women's tennis. The name has to be unusual, interesting and something that just looks ridiculous. Here is what I think are some interesting names on the tour.

Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova

Su-Wei Hsieh

Eleni Daniilidou

Cagla Buyukakcay

Noppawan Lertcheewakarn

Nungnadda Wannasuk

Zarah Razafimahatratra

Valentini Grammatikopoulou

Dea Herdezelas

I only went up to rank 1000 and I may have missed some, but these are some pretty unusual names! If I missed any good ones, then I hope one of you will comment on a cool name. Thanks for reading!

 

Fabulous Fabio

Fabulous Fabio

 

Fabio Fognini, 26, wins his 2nd consecutive title today as he defeated the qualifier Federico Delbonis in 3 sets. The first set was fairly routine up until 4-4 and that is when Delbonis got the break of serve and served the set out. One had to wonder if the high amount of tennis played lately for Fognini was catching up to him. To add on to that, it is very difficult to read Fabio in the first place. He found a little more in the tank and end up taking the match in 3.

Stuttgart and Hamburg are Fabio's first two titles of his career and he is now going to be ranked in the top 20  ( at #19) for the first time in his career. Obviously his best surface is clay as he has made the quarterfinals of the French Open while not advancing further than the 3rd round at all the other grand slams. He sports are career losing record on the pro tour, but you would not know that fact if you have watched him the past 2 weeks.

He is not finished though as he is entered in the tournament at Umag, Croatia starting tomorrow. Another clay tournament, it would be a safe bet to think that Fabio will go far yet again. He is the 2nd highest ranked player there behind top 10 player Richard Gasquet. He may run out of gas sometime in this tournament, but I for one hope that he continues with the stellar play and makes a push to win 3 consecutive titles.

Winning 3 consecutive titles has only been accomplished 5 other times and the names associated with those are: Roger Federer(2), Pete Sampras, Rafael Nadal, and Novak Djokovic. Great company if you ask me if Fabio indeed wins again.

Source for consecutive titles: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATP_World_Tour_records#Consecutive_streaks

Serena Set to win First Title

Serena Set to Win First Title

Serena Pictured in Bastad, Sweden.

First International WTA event title that is! Yes you heard that right, Serena Williams, holder of 52 WTA singles titles and 16 grand slam titles has NEVER won an international event. Now keep in mind that international events have only been a reality since 2009, but Serena has entered 5 previous to Bastad this week and failed to hoist the trophy in all of them. This week in Bastad, Sweden, it looks as if Serena has a clear path to the title, especially now that Halep has withdrawn.

In her first 3 matches of the tournament, Serena has won a total of  36 games while only dropping 10 games. That is a staggering ratio there. The 3 girls remaining with Serena are Zakopalova, her Semifinal opponent and the winner of Larsson and Pennetta. Let's take a look at Serena's head-to-head to each.

Zakopalova: 3-1 Serena. 2-1 Serena on clay

Larsson: 1-0 Serena

Pennetta: 4-0 (4-1 but the '1' is from a walkover, which I hardly count as a win for Pennetta)

Is there any reason to think Serena is not going to steamroll these girls to the title? No way she loses her next two matches in her current form, barring an injury. Ladies and Gentlemen, Serena Williams is going to win her first international WTA tour event in her 6th attempt. Congratulations to arguably the greatest woman's tennis player in the history of the game.

A better question to pose than, "Will she win Bastad?" is "WHY is she in Bastad and not in the Stanford premier tournament?"

Source:

Picture of Serena: timesofindia.indiatimes.com

Hewitt crumbles late as Mahut snags Newport title

Lleyton Hewitt Crumbles Late in the Final

FINAL SCORE: Mahut def. [4] Hewitt: 5-7 7-5 6-3

                               Source: www.sportinglife.com

Hewitt was up 7-5, 5-4 and serving for the match, however he could not do it. He served a couple double faults to toss away his service game and then totally crumbled on his next service game. He went on to lose the 2nd set 5-7. Lleyton got up a break early on in the final set, but then carelessly gave it away in the 6th game as Mahut slipped down and Hewitt drilled the ball into the net when he had a wide open court to work with.

I have to give congratulations to Nicolas Mahut for winning his 2nd title this year. He weathered the storm and held in there to defeat the former top player. He had 3 aces in the final service game to take the final set 6-3 and kept his cool late in the match.

The match had many ups and downs for both players and was, overall, an odd match. Between the two there were 21 double faults, 22 break points with 9 of those converted. Neither men served above 60% for first serves. Sometimes that how it goes in tennis; it is not about how good you were on a particular day, rather how not terrible you were!

Hewitt has yet to win a title since Halle in 2010 and his chances of winning his 29th title are dwindling each and every day. 

Mahut has grabbed his 2nd title of the year and will not be comfortable ranked in the top 80 of the world.