WTA Championships Diary: Battle for world No 2 as Petra Kvitova to face Victoria Azarenka for title

Petra Kvitova has her sights set on the world No 2 ranking

Hot and cold

When Petra Kvitova hits the lines, she’s unbeatable. When she misses, she misses by a long way. Thus was the story of her semi-final against Sam Stosur, which essentially was the Czech’s for the taking from the off. But the 21 year-old surrendered a 4-2 lead to drop the opening set 5-7, looking extremely non-plussed at her inability to hit the ball in.

All credit to Stosur, who had stick-bageled Li Na the day before, who seized her opportunity. Two decisive breaks made the difference in the next two sets though, although yet again Kvitova somehow managed not to hang onto a 5-0 lead in the decider, eventually winning 5-7, 6-3, 6-3. She’s got some way to go. Which is all the more scary, given how good she is already.

Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

A day after essentially tanking her way through her final round robin match against Marion Bartoli in a very Mr Hyde manner, Victoria Azarenka came up with the goods better suited to Dr Jekyll to beat Vera Zvonareva in a match far tighter than the 6-2, 6-3 scoreline suggested, and advance to her first WTA Championships final.

Bizarrely, having been effusive to say the least in her match-winning celebrations all week, all Azarenka did was salute to the crowd. As my press centre neighbour observed, you’d have thought she’d lost.

World No.2

The result means that there will be more than the title of WTA champion at stake when Kvitova takes on Victoria Azarenka in the final…the winner will move up to world No.2, the loser to world No.3. Scary. Look out Wozniacki, who will be just 115 points in front if Kvitova wins.

Get well soon

Speaking of Wozniacki, no sooner had she secured the year-end No.1 ranking than she was struck down with a fever, and spent the whole of Friday in bed. She still managed to revive herself for a spot of Turkish shopping though…

Double teaming

The doubles event began yesterday, as Kveta Peschke and Katarina Srebotnik saw off Vania King and Yaroslava Shvedova in straight sets to reach the final. They’ll play either Gisela Dulko and Flavia Pennetta, or Lisa Raymond and Liezel Huber. Props to Raymond, who looks fitter than ever at the grand old age of 38.

Super sub

Called in to replace the injured Maria Sharapova, Marion Bartoli made the most of her cameo appearance, coming up with the goods to beat Victoria Azarenka in three sets. Admittedly, Azarenka appeared to be treating the match as a practice session, in fact that’s exactly what she called it, but Bartoli still managed to take advantage.

Follow our lead

Sam Stosur made a few comments about the proverbial Medusa that is the tennis calendar, saying that the ATP should have a look at how the WTA overhauled their schedule.

“We’ve, on the women’s side, really got a tournament schedule where you can make good decisions and make a good schedule and put good breaks throughout the year. They [the men] kind of complain about it but don’t make the situation any better for themselves either.”

Quite.

Republic day…

…meant that every inch of every building in Istanbul became covered with Turkish flags. Including the seats at the Sinam Erdem Dome. It was thus a fitting day for the tournament to donate $200,000 towards the Turkish earthquake appeal.

Lessons from Istanbul…No is not an answer

I got approached about having my shoes shined, and let’s just say I ended up having my shoes shined.

Soundbite

“I’m tired now”

Petra Kvitova. Why say more?

The final preview

Petra Kvitova v Victoria Azarenka

Battle of the young guns as the tour’s newest newcomer, Czech Kvitova, takes on Azarenka. Expect emotions and noise levels to be running high as Kvitova screeches after every point and Azarenka shrieks during every point, but the way these two have been playing, it is sure to be an exciting contest.

The Czech leads their head-to-head 3-2, their most recent encounter coming in the semi-finals at Wimbledon. Kvitova came through 6-1, 3-6, 6-2 on that occasion, and won the two meetings before that, in Madrid on clay, and at Wimbledon again last year. Azarenka won their first two encounters, at Prague in 2008, and the Australian Open in 2009.

Form would probably favour Azarenka, who despite losing to Marion Bartoli, has looked the more consistent, when she tries to be. Kvitova on the other hand as been as up and down as the Istanbul weather. She won’t be able to afford to make the mistakes she has been making this week. Even so, I’d go with Kvitova in three.

The daily click

There's no one quite like Marion Bartoli…

WTA Championships Diary: Grunting issue rears its head as Stosur upsets Sharapova in Istanbul

Tenth time lucky: Sam Stosur defeated Maria Sharapova for the first time in Istanbul

To grunt or not to grunt

Grunting has become the issue of the day once again after Caroline Wozniacki revealed that from her point of view, when opponents grunt, it disguises the way they’ve hit the ball, and how hard they’ve hit it. The WTA is committed to finding a way to tackle the grunting issue, but crucially catching it early when players are still young before it becomes embedded in their style of play.

What do you think? Will that work? Or is it something we're going to have to live with.

Speaking of noise, one of a rather different sort is Petra Kvitova’s who screeches like a swooping eagle every time she wins a point. It’s extraordinary. The Wimbledon champion delivered a topsy turvy performance to beat Zvonareva 6-2, 6-4, afterwards admitting that she was very nervous.

Nobody beats Sam Stosur 10 times in a row…

At least not Maria Sharapova. Stosur produced a true ‘winning ugly’ performance in a way, her strengths nullified by the slower court, to beat the Russian 6-1, 7-5 for the first time in her career. Sharapova produced 30 unforced errors to Stosur’s 18, and is clearly not 100%. But still. It was a big win for the Aussie.  “To win without using your best strengths I think is a big bonus,” Stosur said.

Still on top

Caroline Wozniacki delivered a virtuoso Caroline Wozniacki performance, winning a match she was expected to win, despite looking for most of it like she might lose it during her 5-7, 6-2, 6-4 victory over Agnieszka Radwanska. Wozniacki had three set points to win the first set, squandered them, but gritted her way through the next two, urged on by some exuberant on court coaching from father Piotr Wozniacki. Whatever anyone thinks about Wozniacki’s style of play, there’s no denying the girl can fight till she’s flat on the floor.

Winning the numbers game

Both Sharapova and Vera Zvonareva confessed to being “impressed” by the numbers of fans who had flocked to the opening day yesterday. With attendance surpassing 10,000, the fans were not only in their seats, but also fully engaged with what was going on the court, producing tuneful, and some not so tuneful, chants throughout all three matches.

“Pretty incredible,” said Sharapova about the atmosphere. “Yeah, I mean, to see I think it was like about 10,000 people out there, so enthusiastic and you never quite know what to expect when you come to a new place and a new city at an event like this. And I think that the attention that the tournament has got and the respect that the players have received has been really incredible. It's really nice to see.”

Multi-linguals

Credit to the umpires, who may well be dressed rather like air hosts and hostesses, but have seemingly mastered the Turkish language after just one day.

 Coming up…

Sam Stosur v Victoria Azarenka

Another bout of ‘I have never’ for Stosur, who is yet to beat the Belarusian. This is their fifth meeting, all of which have been on hard courts, but they have never played indoors, so perhaps that will make a difference. Stosur should be high on confidence after beating Sharapova yesterday, but will that make it easier or harder for her to pull off a repeat? I think Azarenka might have too much for her.

 Maria Sharapova v Li Na

Sharapova did not look her best by any means yesterday, but the fact that she has still made it to No 2 in the world this year shows that it’s certainly still there. Li on the other hand is the first to admit she hasn’t been hitting a ball in the court lately. So this could be interesting. Sharapova leads the head to head 5-3, and should really make it 6-3.

Caroline Wozniacki v Vera Zvonareva

Tied at 4-4 in their head to head, the last time these two met, Zvonareva came out on top, in the Doha final. But whether she has the weapons to break down Wozniacki remains to be seen. As she proved last night, the Dane can run and run from Europe to Asia and back again, so the smart money would be on her.

Catchphrase

“I think if there is any court that Radwanska likes, that’s slow. So I’m not sure what the complaint is about.”

A gentle dig from Sharapova about Radwanska’s court speed preference. The Pole had said she found the court a bit slow.

The daily click

Highlights from day one…

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WTA Championships Diary: Petra Kvitova the favourite as stars gather in Istanbul for season finale

The stars of the WTA at the official draw ceremony

Action stations

Today marks the first day of the TEB BNP Paribas WTA Championships in Istanbul, Turkey, the WTA's season ending crown jewel, which brings together the top singles players and doubles teams of the year. Here are a few bits and bobbles in the run-up to the season finale…

Surviving adversity

The preparations for Istanbul's first stint as host of the year-end Championships were dealt a bit of a shudder when the 7.2 earthquake hit the Van region of Eastern Turkey on Sunday morning, as almost 1,000 buildings collapsed killing hundreds. With the players sending their best wishes to all those affected, the official player party and various other promotional activities were cancelled.

Old vs new

The week's field of eight players, seven of whom are from different nations, has quite an eclectic mix of year-end championships' experience. Top of the list is Maria Sharapova, who is making her fifth appearance, and won the whole thing in 2004. Next is Vera Zvonareva, who is on visit number four, then Caroline Wozniacki and Victoria Azarenka both on number three, Sam Stosur is on appearance number two, and Agnieszka Radwanska is making her first proper visit, although she appeared as an alternate in 2008 and 2009. And there are two total first-timers – Petra Kvitova and Li Na.

Azarenka, Li and Stosur are joined by Sharapova in what is the White group, while Wozniacki, Radwanska, Zvonareva and Kvitova make up the Red group.

Boys in town

The WTA's leading ladies were joined by two sporting gods (forgive the artistic licence) over the weekend in the form of Rory McIlroy, Wozniacki's beau, and Sasha Vujacic, Sharapova's fiancee. Rory's visit was fleeting as he had to disappear back to the golfing world, but Sasha will be a more permanent fixture, which is good news for those wanting fist-pumping tips. He's playing for a Turkish basketball team during the NBA off-season, although is apparently nursing a broken finger.

Breezy in the Bosphorus

Gusty breezes are certainly not lacking in the straights of the Bosphorus, to the extent that Sunday's draw had its very own natural wind machine for the official photos of Sharapova and co. It's just as well the tennis is indoors, as otherwise we'd be seeing a lot of ball tosses.

Turkish people like…

Banks, barber shops and screeching tyres. And meat. Lots of it.

Here to stay

Congratulations to WTA CEO Stacey Allaster, who has signed on for another five years as the proverbial mother hen of women's tennis. May her hard work continue.

Joining up?

The jury still seems to be out on combined events and whether they work or not, but that hasn't stopped Allaster floating the idea that the WTA and ATP could look to hold their season-enders together. How it would work with the calendar, of course, remains to be seen, but it's an interesting proposition, and is all part of the drive towards greater cooperation. She also mentioned that the tours are seeking to align their broadcast rights from 2017.

Today's round robin matches

Petra Kvitova v Vera Zvonareva (Red group)

The honour of opening the very first WTA Championships in Turkey goes to Petra Kvitova, making her season finale debut. The wimbledon champion hasn't exactly been firing on all cylinders since shocking Maria Sharapova to win Wimbledon. But she's dusted off her groundstrokes a bit in recent weeks, and received a huge confidence boost after winning Linz two weeks ago. That, and the way her game works on hard courts, has prompted the bookies to list the 21 year-old, newly invested as world No 3, as the favourite. But she'll have her work cut out against Vera Zvonareva, the epitome of hard court defence. Kvitova should edge it in two close sets to narrow her losing record against the Russian.

Caroline Wozniacki v Agnieszka Radwanska (Red group)

The battle of the Polish-borns. Wozniacki has her sights on that year-end No 1 ranking, but to get there, she'll have to do what she does best – stay solid from the back. She leads the head to head against her good buddy 4-1 but Radwanska is coming off a two-title tear in Tokyo and Beijing, and has lost just one match since the US Open. Still, a well-rested Wozniacki should be able to handle whatever comes out of the Radwanska tool kit.

Maria Sharapova v Samantha Stosur (White group)

As Sam rather cheerily aluded to, the Australian doesn't have the best record against the multi-Grand Slam champ. Stosur is yet to win a set in her nine previous meetings with the Russian, but all eyes will be on Sharapova's ankle, and whether it can stand up to shuttling side to side along the baseline in the face of Stosur's power. If she plays the sort of first-strike tennis that won her the US Open title, the Aussie has a shot. Still, if Sharapova's back in the zone after an extended break since Tokyo, it's likely to go her way.

Catch phrase

"East meets West"

You'll be hearing it a lot.

The daily click

The ebullient Ipek Senoglu takes you on a tour of the tournament..

US Open 2011 Diary: To roof or not to roof at Flushing Meadows?

Flushing Meadows was hit by a day of rain

Tuesday in New York

Lashings of Tropical Storm Lee meant there was no play at all yesterday in New York…

Wimbledon weather

Earthquake, hurricane, plague, and then…torrential rain. Flushing Meadows has not been treated kindly by the weather gods. There was not a ball hit in anger in Queens yesterday as the rain fell from noon till night. There had been rumours of a dry patch between 2 and 4pm in the afternoon, but it was not to be.

So the locker rooms of the Billie Jean King tennis centre took on a distinctly Wimbledon-esque hue, players huddled around their iPads, plugged into their iPods, or, if you're Boris Becker, reminiscing about chess and backgammon.

Thankfully though, the powers that be recognised early on that the deluge wasn't going to stop, and called a halt to the waiting sooner rather than later, allowing players to either get on with indoor practice, gym work, or simply sleeping, rather than worrying about if they'd be getting on court or not.

To roof or not to roof?

The abysmal weather, for the third year running, yet again raises the hydra of whether the USTA should follow the lead of the Australian Open, Wimbledon, and the French Open (it's on the way, apparently), and build a roof.

For, as picked up on by tennis journalist Simon Cambers, somewhat astonishingly, the USTA's wet weather policy does not even allow for refunds, frankly extraordinary at a tournament that has seen at least a day washed out or interrupted by rain at least once a year for the past three years.

That's an easy fix. What is not so easy, is the roof. Quite why the USTA did not incorporate a roof into the design of the $254 million Arthur Ashe stadium when it was opened in 1997, is as befuddling as why there are no covers for the courts. After all, Rod Laver Arena was built in 1988, and they managed to think about the rain.

The trouble is now, there are all sorts of technical structural reasons why Flushing Meadows is destined to remain roofless for quite some time. Here's why:

1. To put a roof over the 21,500 seats on Ashe would not only be prohibitively expensive, it's also apparently structurally impossible. Without dismantling half of it, that is.

2. To put a smaller, cheaper roof on either Louis Armstrong or Grandstand is possible, but, according to Jon Wertheim, the ground beneath these two stadiums is too soggy to support the construction effort that adding a roof would entail.

3. To build a new court with a roof. Also possible, but would involve tearing down Armstrong and Grandstand to find the space, and, more importantly, where is the money going to come from?

So all in all, it seems like we're stuck with the rain delays, the towels and the mops.

When a joke can go badly wrong

There has been a very mixed reaction to Caroline Wozniacki's re-enactment of Rafael Nadal's painful press conference cramp attack. Some fans reckon it was a perfectly harmless joke, nothing personal, just the bubbly blonde's way of having fun. She was apparently chivvied along by some of the press, and was just messing around.

But others have banged their heads on the table to work out what on earth she was thinking. Imitating someone else's pain is never going to be funny. Surely. Especially Rafa, who 1. was extremely embarrassed about the whole incident, and 2. very definitely does not like being imitated.

Caro later tweeted a sort of apology/clarification: @CaroWozniacki: Had a bit of fun last night b4 my press conference.Hope it was not taken the wrong way. I have the upmost respect and admiration of Rafa!!!!

Fair dos. So…bad move or harmless move? Have a watch of Wozniacki in action, and let us know what you think.

Some indoor tennis to look forward to…

GB captain Leon Smith yesterday announced his squad to face Hungary next week. There are still tickets available!

Coming up this evening

A schedule absolutely chockablock has seen Andy Roddick relegated to Louis Armstrong, and Andy Murray shunted over to Grandstand. Apparently Rafa put up a fight to stay on Ashe.

The weather forecast is one of intermittent drizzle, so expect there to be more than a few stops and starts.

ARTHUR ASHE – Day

Rafael Nadal v Gilles Muller

Novak Djokovic v Janko Tipsarevic

Both foregone conclusions. Maybe?

Night

Serena Williams v Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova

Will Pavs get stage-fright against the big W?

Roger Federer v Jo-Wilfried Tsonga

The last two have gone Jo-Willy's way…

LOUIS ARMSTRONG

David Ferrer v Andy Roddick

It is a truth universally acknowledged that Daveeed is absolutely the last player you want to play if you're not feeling physically tip top. It's exhausting just thinking about it. So Roddick needs to be very much on strike if he is going to compete from the baseline.

Sam Stosur v Vera Zvonareva

Just how in the zone is Vera? She took care of Sabine Lisicki in an awesome display, but are the marbles upstairs sufficiently aligned to withstand Stosur's variety, and, crucially, confidence? Plus, it's her birthday.

Caroline Wozniacki v Andrea Petkovic

The wall versus the machine. Could be interesting. Can Petko stay error-free enough to break down Wozza's barriers?

GRANDSTAND

Andy Murray v Donald Young

Delayed for a day, this much-anticipated clash is going to be a) very loud, and b) hopefully nothing like their previous and only meeting in Indian Wells. Muzza is well aware of what makes D-Young tick now, and bar the partisan crowd messing with Murray's concentration, it should not be too much of a bother.

John Isner v Gilles Simon

Little and large? Power v poise? Something like that. How well Simon can get under Isner's skin and force the errors will be vital. But big John has been playing verrry well of late, so it is a big ask.

Anqelique Kerber v Flavia Pennetta

The one no one's quite sure about. Forza Flavia, I'd say.

Also in action

British duo Colin Fleming and Ross Hutchins aim to make their first Grand Slam semi-final, while the four British boys aim to keep up their four out of four record. Props to Liam Broady for his wet weather gear.

The daily click

Former world No 1 Dinara Safina is taking hairdressing lessons.

And, more of SI Beyond the Baseline's brilliant photo captions.