Daily Women Tennis News – Madrid and Rankings

Written by: Staff on 13th May 2012

Daily Women Tennis News - Madrid and Rankings

epa03217272 US tennis player Serena Williams (L), holds her trophy as she celebrates her victory over Victoria Azarenka (R) of Belarus at the end of their Mutua Madrid Open tennis tournament final match at Caja Magica pavilion in Madrid, Spain, 13 May 2012. Williams won 6-1 and 6-3. EPA/JUAN CARLOS HIDALGO |

Madrid

Singles – Final: (9) Serena Williams def. (1) Victoria Azarenka 6-1 6-3

Gosh, that was… exciting? Efficient might be a better word. One hour, four minutes. Serena won five-eighths of the points and was never broken; she faced only one break point. She broke four times. Yawn.

Clay just isn’t a Victoria Azarenka surface. It isn’t a Serena surface, either, but she’s managed to learn it pretty well. She has two titles this year, and both on clay. Both on funny clay, oddly enough — the other was Charleston, on green clay. Serena now has the peculiar distinction of being the only player to have won titles on red, green, and blue clay.

She also has an 11 match winning streak, and is 19-2 this year (with a withdrawal). That’s a winning percentage (not counting the withdrawal) of 90.5%. Azarenka herself — who has now lost her last three events after starting the year with four titles — is only at 91.9%. Serena might take over the top spot in the winning percentage department before the clay season is out.

She certainly takes over the #6 ranking. She can’t quite make it to #4 at Rome, unfortunately; she probably deserves the #4 Roland Garros seed based on current form.

Azarenka remains #1, and her 5640 points already this year mean that she is likely to end the year in the Top Five even if she doesn’t win another match. We’d say that, even with the loss, she has qualified for the year-end championships. Not a bad consolation prize.

Estimated WTA Rankings As of May 13, 2012

Rank &

Prior

Rank …Name …………. Points

1..(1) AZARENKA ………..9075

2..(2) SHARAPOVA ……… 7610

3..(3) ARADWANSKA ………7199

4..(4) KVITOVA ……….. 6275

5..(5) STOSUR ………….5435

6..(9) SWILLIAMS ……… 5300*

7..(6) WOZNIACKI ……… 5055

8..(7) BARTOLI ……….. 5000