KIRSTEN FLIPKENS IS THE BIG SURPRISE IN LADIES TENNIS THIS WEEK IN THE CONNECTICUT OPEN

Written by: Staff on 24th August 2016

KIRSTEN FLIPKENS IS THE BIG SURPRISE IN LADIES TENNIS THIS WEEK IN THE CONNECTICUT OPEN |

Ready for take off to Rio with @davidbombeke @gregvanavermaet and the rest of the belgian team! #teambelgium #rio #olympics #brusselsairport #brussels-zurich-rio – Photo by @kirstenflipkens via Instagram.

NEW HAVEN ( Campus Of YALE University)

Singles – Second Round: (2) Roberta Vinci def. (Q) Ana Konjuh 6-2 6-2

A nice way for Roberta Vinci to prepare for her big points defense at the US Open. This is not yet enough to count for her; if she wins her next match, she’ll add points, and if she can hold seed and reach the final, she’ll be #7.

Singles – Second Round: (6) Petra Kvitova def. Eugenie Bouchard 6-3 6-2

This was a solid result for Petra Kvitova; she was in trouble early in the first set, but turned things on after that. She hasn’t done that very much lately. She needs a lot more than this to stay Top Fifteen, though. Eugenie Bouchard will be #39 or #40.

Singles – Second Round: (LL) Johanna Larsson def. (WC) Shelby Rogers 7-6(7-1) 6-4

Just winning her opener here should put Shelby Rogers at a career high, potentially #48. Johanna Larsson becomes the first of the many Lucky Losers here to make it to the quarterfinal. Larsson is now just below the Top Fifty; if she can win her next match, she’ll likely hit a career high of her own.

Singles – Second Round: (LL) Kirsten Flipkens def. Caroline Garcia 7-6(7-3) 7-5

Kirsten Flipkens Had just flown in from the RIO OLYMPICS she was wiped out upon arrival in the U.S. And lost in qualifying. Flipkens will rise above #60, but Caroline Garcia, who made the quarterfinal last year, will lose her Top Thirty ranking.

Rio, thank you.. I was so much looking forward to the Olympics! And I never thought my dream would become so special with (one of?) my biggest and most epic win of my career over one of the biggest champions in the history of our sports. I will never ever forget this moment.. Tennis, thank you for giving me so many special moments and emotions every single day.. #rio2016 #olympics – Photo by @kirstenflipkens via Instagram.

Doubles – First Round: (2) Mirza/Niculescu def. (WC) Chirico/Riske 6-0 6-3

Sania Mirza is winning with everyone now that she has split from Martina Hingis — although, to be fair, she was playing opponents who seem to be much stronger in singles than doubles.

Doubles – Quarterfinal: (1) Babos/Shvedova def. Groenefeld/Peschke 7-6(7-3) 6-2

This is fascinating — Neither Timea Babos nor Yaroslava Shvedova is in the singles draw here (and they weren’t in the qualifying either). We have to guess that they want to win the US Open, and are doing their best to prepare.

Doubles – Quarterfinal: (3) Klepac/Srebotnik def. Bertens/Larsson 7-5 7-6(7-3)

TODAY’S UPDATE

What Luck!

The draw at New Haven this year was shocking. Six Lucky Losers. In a draw of thirty. Every player who made the qualifying final made the main draw either as a qualifier or a Lucky Loser, and 40% of the players in the main draw came through qualifying. That, on its face, seems hard to believe. (Technically it was seven players listed as Lucky Losers at one time or another, but since Lucky Loser Kirsten Flipkens replaced Lucky Loser Lesia Tsurenko, there were never more than six Lucky Losers in the draw. In this column, we’ll count how many draw slots went to Lucky Losers.)

But we can make a pretty good guess as to why: The US Open. No one wants to get hurt the week before the year’s last Slam. Which raises the question: Is there a pattern here?

We thought we’d check. We took all the Lucky Losers in the last five years (that is, from the 2011 US Open until now). There are, by our count, 219 of them (in other words, just about 44 per year, which means that quite a few events have no Lucky Losers at all). We sorted the Losers based on the tournament they played, and counted how many were at each event. That looks like this:

New Haven: 12

Canadian Open: 10

Linz: 9

Cincinnati: 8

Hobart: 8

Marrakech+Rabat+Fes: 8

Stuttgart: 8

Sydney: 8

Eastbourne: 7

Acapulco: 6

Dubai: 6

Birmingham: 5

Brisbane: 5

Nurnberg: 5

Paris: 5

Rome: 5

Strasbourg: 5

Bad Gastein: 4

Charleston: 4

Doha: 4

Katowice: 4

Luxembourg: 4

Moscow: 4

Roland Garros: 4

US Open: 4

Wimbledon: 4

Brussels: 3

Florianopolis: 3

Hong Kong: 3

Madrid: 3

Miami: 3

Prague: 3

Quebec City: 3

Stanford: 3

Bogota: 2

Bucharest: 2

Indian Wells: 2

Kaohsiung: 2

Nottingham: 2

Osaka: 2

Pattaya City: 2

s-Hertogenbosch: 2

Shenzhen: 2

St. Petersburg: 2

Tashkent: 2

Wuhan: 2

Auckland: 1

Australian Open: 1

Baku: 1

Barcelona: 1

Bastad: 1

Beijing: 1

Dallas: 1

Estoril: 1

Fes: 1

Guangzhou: 1

Nanchang: 1

Oeiras: 1

Palermo: 1

Pan Pacific: 1

San Diego: 1

Washington: 1

And so, yes, New Haven is the “withdraw-iest” of all WTA events. It should be noted, however, that this year’s tremendous rash of withdrawals put it in first place; if it had maintained its rate of the previous four years, it would have been ninth — high but not exceptionally so.

But wait — how does draw size figure in? After all, the #2 event on the list is the Canadian Open, but it has a large draw size, and it has been played all five years. So it’s had lots of Lucky Losers but also lots of draw spots. With only two lucky losers per 56 players per year, its rate of Lucky Losers is only slightly above average. To take that into account, we took all events with three or more lucky losers (there are 33 of them), and divided by the number of draw slots. This is a little rough, because there have been draw size changes, and we’re dealing with that by memory, but it will get the idea across. Here are the events with the highest fraction of their draw slots filled by Lucky Losers. And, yes, New Haven still leads:

New Haven: 8.3%

Nurnberg: 7.8%

Linz: 6.2%

Paris: 6%

Stuttgart: 5.7%

Sydney: 5.6%

Hobart: 5%

Marrakech+Rabat+Fes: 5%

Eastbourne: 4.9%

Hong Kong: 4.7%

Prague: 4.7%

Acapulco: 3.8%

Canadian Open: 3.6%

Dubai: 3.6%

Brussels: 3.6%

Brisbane: 3.4%

Strasbourg: 3.1%

Bad Gastein: 3.1%

Katowice: 3.1%

Cincinnati: 2.9%

Moscow: 2.7%

Luxembourg: 2.5%

Florianopolis: 2.3%

Stanford: 2.1%

Quebec City: 1.9%

Birmingham: 1.8%

Rome: 1.8%

Doha: 1.6%

Charleston: 1.4%

Madrid: 1.1%

Roland Garros: 0.6%

US Open: 0.6%

Wimbledon: 0.6%

Miami: 0.6%

We won’t try to twist more out of that. We’ll just take a very quick look at the Lucky Losers themselves…It turns out that 154 players have managed to be a Lucky Loser at least once in this time. But only 46 of them have managed it more than once, and only eleven players have been a Lucky Loser more than twice. It’s an odd list, but here are the Luckiest (?) Eleven:

Tsurenko: 6

Hlavackova: 5

S. Zheng: 5

Beygelzimer: 4

Goerges: 3

Hercog: 3

Hradecka: 3

Karatantcheva: 3

Lepchenko: 3

Soler-Espinosa: 3

Voegele: 3

STATS AND FACTS

Rankings

Estimated WTA Singles Rankings

1..(1) SWilliams ……… 7050

2..(2) Kerber ………….6860

3..(3) Muguruza ………..5830

4..(4) ARADWANSKA ………5340*

5..(5) Halep …………. 5151

6..(6) VWilliams ……… 4005

7..(7) Azarenka ………..3551

8..(8) VINCI …………. 3465*

9..(9) Keys ……………3286

10.(10) Kuznetsova ………3190

11.(11) KaPliskova ………3135

12.(12) Suarez Navarro …..3100

13.(13) Cibulkova ……… 3100

14.(14) Konta …………. 2905

15.(16) BACSINSZKY ………2713

16.(15) KVITOVA ……….. 2495*

17.(17) Stosur ………….2370

18.(18) Pavlyuchenkova …..2195

19.(20) VESNINA ……….. 2054*

20.(19) Strycova ………..2050

21.(21) BERTENS ……….. 1945

22.(23) SVITOLINA ……… 1896*

23.(22) BEGU ……………1835

24.(24) KASATKINA ……… 1773

25.(25) Stephens ………..1612

26.(26) BENCIC ………….1602

27.(28) Siegemund ……… 1600

28.(29) ERRANI ………….1590

29.(36) MAKAROVA ………..1582*

30.(30) Vandeweghe ………1561

DRAWS

New Haven — Week of August 22

…………………QF

1 A. Radwanska (WC)..(1)Radwanska

[Flipkens(LL)]…….Flipkens

6 Kvitova…………(6)Kvitova

[Gibbs (Q)]……….Makarova

10 Svitolina………(10)Svitolina

[Giorgi (LL)]……..Vesnina

7 Bacsinszky………Larsson(LL)

2 Vinci…………..(2)Vinci

STATUS OF SEEDS:

1 A. Radwanska (WC)

2 Vinci

3 Keys……………WITHDREW

4 Kuznetsova……..,WITHDREW

5 Konta…………..WITHDREW

6 Kvitova

7 Bacsinszky………lost 1R (Larsson)

8 Ka. Pliskova…….WITHDREW

9 Pavlyuchenkova…..WITHDREW

10 Svitolina

SCORES

WEDNESDAY

New Haven

Singles – Second Round

(2) Roberta Vinci def. (Q) Ana Konjuh 6-2 6-2

(6) Petra Kvitova def. Eugenie Bouchard 6-3 6-2

(LL) Johanna Larsson def. (WC) Shelby Rogers 7-6(7-1) 6-4

(LL) Kirsten Flipkens def. Caroline Garcia 7-6(7-3) 7-5

Doubles – First Round

(2) Mirza/Niculescu def. (WC) Chirico/Riske 6-0 6-3

Doubles – Quarterfinal

(1) Babos/Shvedova def. Groenefeld/Peschke 7-6(7-3) 6-2

(3) Klepac/Srebotnik def. Bertens/Larsson 7-5 7-6(7-3)

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