US OPEN 2014 SEED PREVIEW

4 days and counting

With only 4 days to the last Grand Slam Tournament of the year, I have sadly missed the past two weeks due to other kinds of life requirements. 

Are you looking forward to the US Open? Who are your picks for the Men's and Women's titles. 

On the Men's side, once again, the tennis fandom will feel the stinging absence of Rafael Nadal, sidelined by a wrist injury. 

On the Women's side, Li Na will also be glaringly absent. 

We have the following seeds on the Men's and Women's side for the next fortnight, as well as their opponents for the first round.

Women's Seeds
1.   Serena Williams vs Taylor Townsend
2.   Simona Halep vs Danielle Rose Collins
3.   Petra Kvitova vs Kristina Mlandenovic
4.   Agnieszka Radwanska vs Sharon Fichman
5.   Maria Sharapova vs Maria Kirilenko
6.   Angelique Kerber vs Qualifier
7.   Eugenie Bouchard vs Olga Govortsova
8.   Ana Ivanovic vs Alison Riske
9.   Jelena Jankovic vs Bojana Jovanovsky
10. Caroline Wozniaki vs Magdalena Rybarikova

And the three standout matches from that line-up for me is where the biggest upsets could happen:
Serena Williams vs Taylor Townsend
Petra Kvitova vs Kristina Mlandenovic
Maria Sharapova vs Maria Kirilenko

And depending on the form of the qualifier, keep an eye out for Angelique Kerber's match too. 

Men's Seeds

1.   Novak Djokovic vs Diego Schwartzman
2.   Roger Federer vs Marinko Matosevic
3.   Stan Wawrinka vs Jiri Vesely
4.   David Ferrer vs Damir Dzumhur
5.   Milos Raonic vs Qualifier
6.   Tomas Berdych vs Lleyton Hewitt
7.   Grigor Dimitrov vs Ryan Harrison
8.   Andy Murray vs Robin Haase
9.   Jo-Wilfried Tsonga vs Juan Monaco
10. Kei Nishikori vs Wayne Odesnik

And the three standout matches from that line-up:
Tomas Berdych vs Lleyton Hewitt
Grigor Dimitrov vs Ryan Harrison
Andy Murray vs Robin Haase

Also keep an eye out for the match between Jo-Wilfried Tsonga vs Juan Monaco

So, just looking at the top 10 seeds of the Men's and Women's Singles draw, it seems that the first two days at the Billy Jean King Tennis Centre at Flushing Meadows, NY is going to be a smashing exhibition.

Final picks... Serena and Novak.

Follow all the action on live TV, but if you can't, then pop in frequently
on the Official US Open site. Also check out the complete Men's and Women's draws there.

http://www.usopen.org/

Simona Halep - World number 2, next step... #1

Simona Halep moves up the rankings to within 1 spot of the top, new #2

This week, without even lifting a racquet, Simona Halep moves yet another step closer to that coveted top spot in the Women's Tennis rankings. 

Largely due to an injury absence from Li Na, who will unfortunately be out for the rest of the season, the charging young Romanian will now assume her new role as the 2nd best player in the world. 

No matter how she got there, there has been no doubt amongst the fundies, that Simona will reach the top. We want to congratulate Simona on amazing solid performances over the last year. She is deserving of all the praises sung to her and all the accolades coming her way.

The goal of reaching #1 is not so illusive anymore. Simona may be still some way behind Serena Williams, but it is now firmly in her sight along with the Ladies Trophy at the US Open in Flushing Meadows, which starts in two weeks. 

So with this elevation in the rankings, the pressure will start mounting on this delightful, intelligent player. Pressure, something she has shown us she can handle, to perform and reach the highest echelons of every tournament she enters. 

Simona is one of my final 4 picks at the US Open this year. However, not always a good thing to express those views publicly all that often, I feel that the few weeks she has taken off, may have done her the world of good. 

What a terrific two weeks of tennis to look forward to before the US Open, the excitement is building. 

New champion at Flushing...???

Come on Simona, take that last step... get to where you deserve to be!

Roger's Cup Montreal... last 8 women standing

Rain interrupted yesterday's play, may the quarterfinal action not be interrupted by inclement weather.

With the hectic-ness of life kicking in all round again, I have been away from my keyboard for far too long. I apologise for the slow content updates my friends. 

I would like to stop by on the tour at the Montreal edition of the Roger's Cup for the WTA. This is one of my favourite ATP-WTA tennis stops on the North American Hard court swing pre US Open. For the pure and simple reason that this is a floating tournament. And even though it is a WTA and ATP combined tournament, the men and ladies are not even in the same town. And it is only in the same place every two years, alternate years, the men and women's tournament swop venues. 

This year's Women's edition takes place in Montreal, while the Men are fighting it out in Toronto. 

So defending Ladies Champion, the illustrious Serena Williams, is defending her Toronto Title in Montreal this year, and so far she is looking ready to put all of this year's disappointments behind her, while she is preparing to rack up another US Open Series title. 

Joining Serena in the first set of quarter-finalists in Montreal is her next opponent, former World #1, Caroline Wozniaki. Wozniaki dusted off young pretender Shelby Rogers who had a magnificent 1st round win over Wimbledon finalist Eugenie Bouchard. 

In the second quarterfinal the surprise package is Carla Suárez-Navarro, who efficiently dealt with the 3 set queen, Maria Sharapova. 

(I say that for this reason Maria's 3 set win-loss record over the past 3 and a half years, looks as follows 41-8, check out this year-by-year breakdown...

2011 - 12-1              2012 - 14-1              2013  -  5-1                 2014  -  13-5

Thus far 2014 has been her worst year in 3-setters, and yesterday was one of those bad days at the office... but this is a topic for another day)

Sharapova, in her first tournament back since her 4th round Wimbledon exit had a delicious win over Suárez-Navarro's doubles partner, the stunningly talented Garbine Muguruza in her first match back. 

Suárez-Navarro confounded Sharapova with all sorts of angles and spins, and with that amazing one-handed backhand reminicent of a Justine Henin of old, crafted delightful points to win through a rain interrupted match.

She will face Venus Williams in her quarter final, who had her own magical win over Angelique Kerber yesterday. 

The question now remains that should both Williams sisters notch up a win, if either one of them will be withdrawing. A highly contentious subject that haunts the sisters, although... each still has one match to win before that can be talked about.

The 3rd quarterfinal pits Vika Azarenka against the crafty backwall, Aga Radwanska... Vika leads their head to head 12-4, but the last time they played Radwanska defeated her, in Australia, if memory serves

However, Vika seems to be back on track too after a few months out due to injury. This match should be a humdinger.

And the 4th quarterfinal will pit Coco Vandeweghe against Ekatarina Makarova both surprise packages, Vandeweghe defeated and in-form Ana Ivanovic and Jelena Jankovic in consecutive matches to make it through to the quarters and Makarova had an equally impressive win over Petra Kvitova in the previous round. 

So Friday night is Ladies' quarterfinal action, things are already interesting, let's see who comes out victorious. Or will Serena repeat at the Roger's...

Serena Williams and Svetlana Kuznetsova Winners on Hardcourts

Serena wins Bank of the West Classic

This week Serena Williams made a return statement. With an impressive run through the draw she clinched her third Bank of the West Classic title in California. 

Angelique Kerber started off to a flyer and raced to a 5-1 lead, then Williams' survival mode kicked in and she rattled of that first set and sprinted though the second to a 7-6(1), 6-3 victory.

It hasn't been the greatest of years for Serena in the majors, but on the Women's tour, she now leads the ladies again with 4 titles on tour this year.

Serena looks set for a three-peat at Flushing in less than a month's time.

Read the in-depth article here:

http://www.wtatennis.com/news/article/4051465/title/serena-storms-back-wins-stanford

Svetlana Kuznetsova wins the City Open in Washington DC

And on the other front, Svetlana Kuznetsova has won her first title in 4 years, when she defeated an inspired Kurumi Nara over three sets 6-3, 4-6, 6-4.

Sveta as she is affectionately known, now boasts with 14 titles on the WTA. And she has climbed to 23 in the race to Singapore leaderboard. 

Read the full report here:

http://www.wtatennis.com/news/article/4051681/title/kuznetsova-ends-four-year-drought

The year-end race is about to get heated. Stay tuned for the Roger's Cup in Montreal this week where Maria Sharapova returns to the court for the first time since Wimbledon. With a possible 2nd round encounter with the Serena Slayer, Garbine Muguruza. 

Garbine does it again...

Garbine Muguruza likes defeating defending champions

Garbine Muguruza is no stranger to upsets, and clearly she has a preference to upend defending champions.

Everyone came to know the name Garbine Muguruza when she thrashed Serena Williams out of Roland Garros, in the second round, whilst Serena was defending her title. She also very, very nearly upended Maria Sharapova at Roland Garros, but sheer willpower brought the Champion through on that occassion.

Yesterday, she went and did it again, in the first round of the Bank of the West Classic in Stanford, California, Garbine again slay the defending champion of the tournament. Australian Open runner up Dominika Cibulkova was outclassed in the first set, and for a while found her wheels in the second set to level the scores, but at 1-all, Mugu pulled away again and finished off the "Pocket Rocket" from Slovakia 6-2, 4-6, 6-2... Definitely a future 

I had been busy with my WTA RISING STAR piece on Muguruza, but now it will have to be placed on the backburner for another couple of days. 

I think we need to track her progress through the draw at Stanford. 

Wanna follow the scores and matches this week... the best place to do that is on the Official WTA website. 

http://www.wtatennis.com/

WTA Rising stars Elina Svitolina and Bojana Jovanovski clashed for the Baku Cup

Elina Svitolina in action yesterday

Baku Cup

Country: Baku, Azerbaijan

Surface: Hard court

Draw: 32 players

Tier: International level event

Ranking points: 280 WTA ranking points 

Two more of the youngsters on my list of WTA challengers has made good again this week. I have yet to discuss either Bojana Jovanovski or Elina Svitolina, but they are both on that “Stars of tomorrow” list, so keep your eyes peeled for those in the coming weeks. 

This Sunday both these rising stars faced each other in the final. 

Elina Svitolina won the title here last year, making her the only teenager to win a WTA title in 2013, when she defeated Shahar Peer, she was 18. This year, she won through the draw beating former French Open champion Francesca Schiavone in the semi-finals.

Svitolina, who turns 20 this coming September is the first teenager to win 2 WTA titles since 2010, when Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova did the same, she actually won 3 while she was a teenager. Elina did it in style though, by defending her first title successfully yesterday and losing only 1 set en-route to the final. She is also the first player to defend the Baku title since its inception in 2011.

Nerves must have gotten the best of Bojana Jovanovski in the first set, Svitolina needed just 22 mins to bag the first set, the second set, however, was a different story. Jovanovski refused to surrender her serve again in the match, after 12 straight holds, a rarity on the women’s tour, both these ladies looked good for the tiebreak. But again, Svitolina raced ahead, taking the first 4 points of the tiebreak. She didn’t look back, closing the match out on her first match point while her counterpart could only muster 2 points in the tiebreak.

“I think we were both nervous at the start of the match, but I handled it really well.

In the second set she was trying to fight, and she’s not the type of person who gives up - I’ve watched her fighting for every ball and for every set before and I was actually expecting this fightback.

But I was playing really well here and I’m happy I could defend my title. I’m really happy with the way I’m playing and I’m enjoying myself - I’m feeling really confident with my game right now.” said Svitolina.

Elina Svitolina, holds the Baku trophy for the second
consecutive year

For all other information on Women’s tennis, visit

http://www.wtatennis.com/

Donna Vekic - success, promise, talent

Donna Vekic with her maiden WTA title at the BMW Malaysian Open in Kuala Lumpur

Donna Vekic was born in Osijek, Croatia on 28 June 1996, into a gifted sporting family. Her family over 3 generations, ranged from Physical Education teachers, Archers, professional Soccer players and even a professional track athlete, but not one tennis player in the family. 

Donna herself started out as a Gymnast but fate intervened very early on, at 6 years old, she hurt her ankle... Whilst recovering from the ankle injury, she became bored of doing nothing and she begged her dad to take her to tennis practice. Hobbling around on a hurt ankle clasping onto an oversized racquet, the Tennis Gods called her name and, well, that as they say, was that. 

It truly seems that she took to tennis like a duck to water. Donna developed at a rapid rate and a mere 10 years down the road, she was chosen to represent Croatia in the Fed Cup in 2012, she was 16. That same year she reached her first WTA tour final at the Tashkent Open in Uzbekistan. She won 7 matches in a row, through qualifying into the final, making her the youngest player in 6 years to make it to a WTA final. She ended losing 6-4, 6-4 to Irina-Camelia Begu.  She also reached 4 finals on the ITF circuit in 2012, winning 2 titles.  

In 2013, she reached the final of the Aegon Classic in Birmingham, a warmup tournament on grass, where she was toppled by the crisp skills of the experienced Daniella Hantuchova. She also added another ITF title to her resume that year. 

She finally broke through on the WTA tour with her maiden title in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in April this year when she defeated Australian Open runner up, Dominika Cibulkova in a marathon match, 5-7 7-5 7-6(4). Coming from a set down, to avenge her second round loss to Domi a month earlier at Indian Wells. 

Have a look at Donna in action here: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBHnVBVHKLg

Donna’s rankings in itself tells of success, promise and talent. She started out locally on the ITF Pro circuit in Croatia in 2010. That year, she would not play any WTA level events. In 2011, winning 1 title on the ITF circuit she managed to end the 2011 at #392. One year on, 2 ITF titles, and her first final appearance on the WTA level later she ended 2012 in the top 150 at #118. In 2013 she broke the top 100, with a career high of #62 in July, but ultimately fell down the rankings to #86 to close out 2013. Thus, making the youngest player in the top 200 when the Year End ranking list was brought out on 4 November 2013.

A strange factoid on the young Croat, with the exception of some legendary advisors who Donna has worked with, the likes of Nick Bolletieri, Chris Evert, Sven Groeneveld and Miljenko Rak, all her coaches' names start with a D... Damir Barišić, Domagoj Lacković, Davor Grgić, Dado Majoli and David Felgate. Even her conditioning trainer’s name is Dario Novak. 

Donna Vekic with Dominika Cibulkova

2014 has yet to reap exceptional rewards for the very gifted young Vekic, but be sure to keep an eye on her, her sights firmly set on breaking into the top 50 in 2014, may be a goal that’s not impossible to reach.

Follow Donna on social media:

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/donnavekic

Twitter:

@DonnaVekic 

or 

visit her website for more information:

http://donnavekic.com/