The yearly hard court Washington DC warm-up event to the US/Canada Masters swing has received a new sponsor in the shape of Citigroup.
The tournament will remain in its present home at the William H.G. FitzGerald Tennis Center in Rock Creek Park. Work is currently underway to expand the site and includes a new 2,500-seat show court along with five new practice courts. The work is expected to be complete for the start of this years tournament on July 28.
The tournament has also changed to a ATP/WTA combined event but the Men’s field will be weakened this year as it clashed with London 2012 Olympic Games being held at Wimbledon.
I came across this amazing photo taken at the Family Circle Cup yesterday between Safarova and Wozniack. Its a real shame when you have great players like Wozniack and Safarova playing on an outside court with no one watching!
Can someone explain to me why this top level of tennis is only available to watch for the 5 people there (or 1,000 at the whole tournament) and not available for the millions online?
It seems as though Tournaments and the WTA are still missing out on several revenue streams and are yet to properly adopt new technologies. No wonder that Tennis is still lagging behind other sports in terms of viewership numbers!
It has been confirmed that Brazil will hold their first WTA Tournament in 11 years next year. The 2013 event has been announced, but they are still trying to work out a date, location and other details.
Federation president Jorge Lacerda says Brazil “got the needed approval to give this gift to Brazil’s women’s tennis. One of our goals is to make women’s tennis grow, taking advantage of the 2016 Olympics in Rio.”
Here is the promotional video for the upcoming Porsche Tennis Grand Prix tournament in Germany. The tournament will be held between April 21st – 29th 2012.
WTA Tour stars were all out in force at the Indian Wells players party. Here is what they had to say about Dancing. Do they dance? Who do they want to dance with?
Irina Falconi is one of the rising American female stars on the WTA Tour. Irina is blogging directly from the Indian Wells tournament this week. If you want to hear what she has to say then check out the link below.
Ashleigh Barty recently won the Mildura Pro Tour tournament, her second consecutive $25,000 Pro Tour win. Barty defeated fellow Australian, Viktorija Rajicic 6-1 7-6(8) in the final today.
Watch out for Barty to have a very strong 2012 and Im sure we will see this 15 year old on the WTA Tour in 2013.
Martina Navratilova is known for having stupid opinions on pretty much everything, but it seems like she has now overstepped the mark with comments about Caroline Wozniacki.
Wozniacki has commented with the following statement:
“I would never say Martina was number one when there was no-one playing,” Wozniacki said, “or that she was the best when no-one was playing. That would be disrespectful.”
“They always have to make comments, and that’s what they get paid for – to be comments, because they are not playing any more. And they need to stir everything up,” Wozniacki said.
I put together this list which details all of the female number 1 junior players for the past 7 years or so. It is very interesting to see how many of these players havent been able to progress into the senior WTA ranks (well top 20 in the world). However, from number 8 down.. most have moved onto the WTA Tour and had moderate success, in other words top 100 in the world.
1. Irina Khromacheva RUS (31 Oct 2011)
2. Sophie-An Mestach BEL (31 Jan 2011)
3. Daria Gavrilova RUS (23 Aug 2010)
4. Elina Svitolina UKR (21 Jun 2010)
5. Kristina Mladenovic FRA (08 Jun 2009)
6. Laura Robson GBR (30 Mar 2009)
7. Noppawan Lertcheewakarn THA (08 Dec 2008)
8. Arantxa Rus NED (07 Jul 2008)
9. Simona Halep ROU (19 Jun 2008)
10. Urszula Radwanska POL (10 Sep 2007)
11. Agnieszka Radwanska POL (26 Jun 2006)
12. Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova RUS (30 Jan 2006)
13. Victoria Azarenka BLR (31 Jan 2005)
14. Michaella Krajicek NED (30 Sep 2004)
15. Kateryna Bondarenka UKR (05 Jul 2004)
16. Sessil Karatantcheva KAZ (28 Jun 2004)
17. Kirsten Flipkens BEL (08 Sep 2003)
18. Anna-Lena Groenefeld GER (07 Jul 2003)
19. Vera Dushevina RUS (17 Mar 2003)
20. Barbora Zahlavova Strycova CZE (18 Mar 2002)
21. Svetlana Kuznetsova RUS (10 Dec 2001)
22. Eva Birnerova CZE (15 Oct 2001)
23. Kaia Kanepi EST (11 Jun 2001)
24. Jelena Jankovic SRB (28 May 2001)
25. Maria-Emilia Salerni ARG(29 May 2000)
26. Lina Krasnoroutskaya RUS (31 Dec 1999)
My favourite player on the list has to be Lina Krasnoroutskaya she was quite sexy!
The Australian Open 2012 is the first Grand Slam of the year and it is going to be amazingly exciting. Six players on the womens side have the ability to finish the tournament with the World Number 1 ranking.
Victoria Azarenka, Maria Sharapova, Sam Stosur and Agnieszka Radwanska could also take the top ranking, but the No. 2-ranked Kvitova is the favorite.
Caroline Wozniacki currently holds the top spot, but with her poor run in Grand Slams I doubt highly that she will be number 1 when the tournament ends.
Since Maria Sharapova decided to withdraw from the WTA Tour Championships, this means that Caroline Wozniacki will finish the year as the worlds number 1 female tennis player. Wozniacki had a strong year, but yet again no Grand Slam title to her name! It seems like Wozniacki is very consistent, but lacks the killer instinct in the big matches.
Wozniacki becomes only the 8th women in history to get the number 1 spot in back to back years.
Samantha Stosur has had a great start to the WTA Tour Championships. This is the first time Stosur defeated Sharapova in the last 10 meetings. Stosur won 6-1 7-5.
“Obviously it’s a big feat for me. You never want to lose to someone 10 times in a row,” Stosur beamed said. “I was feeling pretty focused, relaxed and ready to go. I did a few things differently and thankfully it paid off.”
This was also Maria Sharapova’s first tournament in a month since her ankle injury.
“It’s obviously tough to come back after a month and compete at this level but the good thing is I gave myself a chance and did everything I could to even be here, so I’m happy,” she said “I still have a couple of matches to go and time to improve”
Samantha Stosur is the latest player to qualify for the WTA tour year ending championships in Istanbul.
Radwanska’s 7-5 0-6 6-4 win over German Andrea Petkovic ensured Stosur’s place in Turkey.
However, since winning in New York Stosur has been struggling with form and only won oen match in two tournaments. Hopefully she can improve her play before year end.
Serena Williams wont be playing any more events in 2011. The WTA has confirmed that Serena isnt entered into any more events this year.
After falling in the final of U.S. Open to Samantha Stosur, Serena pulled out of mandatory tournaments Tokyo and Beijing for unspecified medical reasons. Serena will receieve zero-pointers for both those tournaments and will also be fined.
It has been three days since the US Open Womens Final and Serena Williams finally came out with a statement on Twitter.
“My emotions did get the best of me this past weekend when I disagreed with the umpire. It has been a long road to get back to the US Open this year, and I am thankful to have had such a great two weeks in New York,” she wrote.
Still no apology to the chair umpire Eva Asderaki? Serena your a joke! Terrible role model.
