U.S. OPEN LADIES TENNIS A LOOK AT TUESDAYS LINE-UP

Written by: Staff on 31st August 2015

U.S. OPEN LADIES TENNIS A LOOK AT TUESDAYS LINE-UP

epa04906843 Fans visit a concession stand on the first day of the 2015 US Open Tennis Championship at the USTA National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows, New York, USA, 31 August 2015. The US Open runs through 13 September, which is a return to a 14-day schedule. EPA/JUSTIN LANE |

Day 2 Women’s Singles – Picks and Pitchforks by Ros Satar.

After a bunch of scattered seeds, we feel like a veritable plough, raking over the rest of the Round 1 matches.

Simona Halep kicks it all off on Ashe against Marina Erakovic – now we all know what happened to Ana Ivanovic, so will it be the curse of the morning starts? Halep seems to have found her groove and she is actually the most credible opposition for Serena Williams at the moment, especially after the second quarter got blown wide open.

She needs to get off to a comfortable start – she says she loves the hard courts, and she won a scrappy contest earlier this year in Indian Wells, so let’s just see if she can kick it up a notch.

Halep in 2

She is followed by Caroline Wozniacki – last year’s finalist had a superb US Open Series build up last year, and was justly rewarded with a place in the final, but alas experience of being there before didn’t seem to help and she crumbled before a supreme Serena. She hasn’t had much match play to file under ‘winning ways’ so it will be interesting to see what manner of tape she comes out with.

Wozniacki in 2

Petra Kvitova also gets a bit of a bump up the ‘potential threat’ category with Maria Sharapova’s withdrawal, but this really has been a tough year for her. Like Halep, she has come out of her shell a bit this year, but after struggling with exhaustion and illness, not to mention always struggling with the heat and humidity, just how far can she go? We still think taking two months off the tour to have a complete break was such a brave move, and to find out she is dealing with the after effects of mono makes the whole two weeks perhaps a stretch, but it would be great to see her back up her New Haven win.

Kvitova in 2

For sheer entertainment value, we would head to Grandstand for the first round match between Andrea Petkovic and Caroline Garcia. The German is one of the funniest players on the tour, but boy does she bring the passion (and the resulting frustration) on court, maybe matched by the fiery Frenchwoman. If both of them are on, expect a lot of emotion out there on the court – this has three set scrap written all over it.

Petkovic in 3

Not quite our dark horse, but we want to settle down and watch Garbine Muguruza – she was an utter charm-bucket at Wimbledon, her humbleness such a stark contrast to the brazenness of Genie Bouchard the previous year. The result was the same in terms of a maiden loss, but she seemed to be ready to embrace the big time.

Then she split with her coach just before the last Slam of the year, after struggling to etch any wins on the board. She will turn to Conchita Martinez for advice in this all important slam and we hope that this is the start of another strong pairing with a female coach, and not the same kind of slump that Bouchard has only just started climbing back from.

Muguruza in 2

Top Seed Tidbits

– Halep’s best performance came in her breakout year in 2013, when she made it to the fourth round. Last year she was stunned by qualifier Mirjana Lucic-Baroni in one of the stories of the US Open of 2014.

– Wozniacki is a two time finalist (2009, lost to Kim Clijsters; 2014 lost to Williams) but her lead up has been marred with niggling injuries – she is at her best when she is scampering round like a good’un so this could be our shocker of the day.

– New York and Kvitova have only combined to get as far as Round 4. But with her New Haven win, hopefully the Czech is turning a corner.

Ros Satar is a regular contributor to 10sballs.com and runs Britwatch Sports (@britwatchsports), because we Brits like watching sport. Occasionally we’re good at it.

Topics: 10sballs.com, 2015 US Open, Andrea Petkovic, Caro Wozniacki, Garbine Muguruza, Ladies tennis, Petra Kvitova, Ros Satar, Simona Halep, Tennis News, US Open tennis, Wta

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10sBalls_com says:

August 31, 2015 at 4:33 pm

U.S. OPEN LADIES TENNIS A LOOK AT TUESDAYS LINE-UP-http://t.co/FwgIiVaE7v @usopen #WTA #tennis #USOpen