Archive: samantha-stosur
It's interesting to realize that Serena Williams can't add any points here -- her results are so strong that a mere Premier title doesn't count for her! She drops Jelena Jankovic to #8 -- meaning that Simona Halep, despite her injury, will be hitting a new high of #7.
A quartet of current and former No. 1 players made winning starts, with top-ranked wild card Serena Williams leading the way. The winner of 11 title in 2013 who has never done better than the semi-finals in the Gulf, defeated Ekaterina Makarova 7-6 (10-8), 6-0 in a hard-fought second-round battle at the Aviation Club after a bye.
Sorana Cirstea was hurting in Fed Cup. It was a bit of a surprise she did so well in the first round. But it appears it caught up to her. Which means she will stay below the Top 25.
Ana Ivanovic emerged as the only winning seed on the day as the No. 9 advanced into the second round when Daniela Hantuchova retired injured trailing 7-5, 1-0. A similar fate befell Australian Open finalist Dominika Cibulkova as the tenth seed was unable to continue at 5-5 against Russian cancer survivor Alisa Kleybanova.
Click here to view the Qatar Total Open results, order of play and more.
Eugenie Bouchard has been getting better almost daily in recent months. It showed in the first set of her match with Serbia's Vesna Dolonc; Bouchard blasted through it in twenty minutes. Then -- perhaps she realized that she was a set away from winning the tie.
At least it looks as if the Russians will soon be out of their misery. As soon as the teams were announced, it was obvious that the Russians would be overmatched by Australia, but the actual contest was more sad than anything else.
The ITF has announced the official team nominations for the 2014 Fed Cup by BNP Paribas World Group and World Group II first round ties taking place on February 8-9.
Australian Samantha Stosur is baffled by the lack of name recognition of a Russian team of total unknowns which will face Australia in Tasmania in weekend Fed Cup first-round play. Top Russian is the anonymous Victoria Kan on No. 158 and playing for a nation boasting six players in the top 35.
Almost all of the Russian women were unavailable for the tie, with Maria Sharapova most notably doing TV color work at the Sochi Olympics. Also playing for the visitors: No.650 Veronika Kudermetova and 259th-ranked Valeria Solovyeva.
Teams are already moving into place for the season start of Fed Cup play at the weekend. In the first round, Italy will play the US without any household names, Australia will face Russia in Tasmania, the Czech Republic take on Spain and Germany play the Slovaks.
The former manager of Ivan Lendl is denying that his NY company Star Games owes any money to Hong Kong tennis authorities as an escalating commercial dispute threatens to wreck next month's men's and women's exhibition in the former British colony.
The WTA Premier 5 tournament in Doha, which starts Feb. 10, the day after Fed Cup weekend, is already wreaking havoc on the competition. Few players want to fly to the tournament on Sunday night or Monday and not all have byes.
Click here to see the Australian Open results.
Click here to see the latest tennis results from the Australian Open.
« Previous Page — Next Page »
