Category Archives: Copenhagen

Semifinals Set in Washington, San Diego and Copenhagen

ATP Washington Draw
WTA San Diego Draw
WTA Copenhagen Draw

Washington saw more upsets on Friday as the first and third seeded pair of Tomas Berdych and Fernando Verdasco were ousted from the competition. After given only 12 hours rest between his third round and quarterfinal matches, Berdych was furious with the tournament organizers and even commented on possibly skipping Washington next year because of it. Verdasco reacted to his loss in a different however, instead taking to twitter and interacting with fans. The remaining winners on Friday were Marin Cilic and David Nalbandian, who took out Gilles Simon in a topsy-turvy three set match. Nalbandian will look to continue his run later on today against Marin Cilic, while surprise semi-finalists Malisse and Baghdatis will fight for a place in the final.

Over in San Diego, Samantha Stosur’s game was taken apart for the second week in a row - this time to Flavia Pennetta. Pennetta attributed her success over Stosur (a 3-0 H2H) to her outstanding return of serve and backhand down-the-line. She expertly neutralised Stosur’s serve and forehand time and time again with those plays, exposing the Australian’s poor technique and ultimately taking the match. The other winners of the day were Svetlana Kuznetsova, Agnieszka Radwanska and Daniela Hantuchova, who fought back for the second time this week - this time recovering from a 6-4 3-0 deficit to Alisa Kleybanova to claim the match 6-3 in the third. Today will see Radwanska up against Hantuchova and then Kuznetsova squaring off against Pennetta.

In Copenhagen, Caroline Wozniacki booked her place in the semi-finals of the e-boks Danish Open by recovering from a 3-5 0-30* deficit to see off Julia Goerges in a three-set in a dramatic third-set tiebreak. The latter part of the tiebreak saw a number of horrendous calls against Julia Goerges which effectively ended her contention in the match. In the remaining quarterfinals, second seed Na Li moved into the semis without any hassle and will now face Klara Zakopalova of the Czech Republic. Meanwhile, the other semi-final will pit a current top five player against a former top five player, as Caroline Wozniacki and Anna Chakvetadze face off. The Russian has enjoyed a revival of late, notching up ten straight wins and she will be looking to make her second straight final later on today.

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Posted in Copenhagen, Fernando Verdasco, Flavia Pennetta, Li Na, San Diego, Washington | 4 Comments

Picture this: Queen Wozniacki with the Prince Of Denmark

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Seeds Tumble as Jankovic, Querrey, Gulbis and Wawrinka All Lose

ATP Washington Draw
WTA San Diego Draw
WTA Copenhagen Draw

There was a mass exodus of seeds in Washington as the 6th, 7th, 9th and 11th seeds of Querrey, Wawrinka, Gulbis, Stepanek and Hewitt all lost on Wednesday in straight sets. Some of the losses weren’t too surprising as Sam Querrey went down to Janko Tipsarevic and David Nalbandian continued his stunning Davis Cup form by demolishing Wawrinka 6-1 6-3. The real shocks came at the hands of the other three seeds as Hewitt was forced to withdraw with a calf injury and Gulbis retired with heat illness and was rumored to be throwing up in the lockerrooms after his match before being admitted to hospital later on. Interestingly, in his first match back after marrying former player Nicole Vaidisova, Stepanek fell easily at the first hurdle. Many blamed him for the decline of the former top tenner Vaidisova, so this is irony at it’s finest.

While there were not as many upsets in San Diego, the Mercury Insurance Open lost it’s number one seed as an injured Jelena Jankovic went down in straight sets to Alisa Kleybanova. Jankovic had twisted her ankle two weeks ago in Portoroz and was forced to withdraw from there, but she chose to play on in San Diego though not at full health. We have seen a lot of that this year with players like Azarenka and Wozniacki among others playing while injured and a lot of it is down the the fact that they will get a big fat ’0′ on their ranks and lose their chunk of the WTA bonus pool. More on that soon.

The Wozniacki Invitational was largely quiet, with all but one seed going through. That would be Tsvetana Pironkova, who fell in straight sets to Anna Lapushchenkova. It’s quite ironic that Wimbledon semi-finalists Pironkova and Kvitova have been struggling ever since. However Kaia Kanepi who blew matchpoints in her quarterfinal match against Kvitova, has since picked up her first ever title and has been looking impressive as ever.

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Movin' On — Verdasco wins, Ivanovic loses, Hantuchova fights

ATP Washington Draw
WTA San Diego Draw
WTA Copenhagen Draw

Tuesday saw the first rounds conclude and the second rounds begin in all three tournaments taking place this week. At the ATP 500 event in Washington, the most significant result was Fernando Verdasco’s comeback against Berrer. He saved two match points on Berrer’s serve in the second set before storming back to take the match to a third set tiebreak. At 6-6 in the tiebreak he sprained his ankle and all looked lost, but he recovered to win the next two points and wrap up the match. Hopefully this will be a confidence boost to the Spaniard who has been universally criticized recently for his poor schedule. He also joined twitter a couple of days ago so say hi!

Other (second round) winners include Roddick, Cilic, Isner, Fish and Simon. Really nice to see Gilles winning through easily and apparently he was playing great so long may it continue! The only bonafide upset of the day was American qualifier Ryan Sweeting taking out fourteenth seed Michael Llodra. Sweeting is a talented player with an attractive game so keep an eye out for him.

Over in San Diego, there was more drama as Daniela Hantuchova fought back and saved three match points (*gasp*) to defeat sixth seed Marion Bartoli 3-6 7-6 6-4. The Slovakian, not usually known for her mental strength, produced quite a shock considering only last week she had collapsed to Shahar Peer after winning the first set 6-0. Elsewhere, Zvonareva won her first match since the Wimbledon final, Kuznetsova got a rare win and A-Rad moved through. The only non-Grand Slam 4th rounder to go through was Coco Vandeweghe who took out an injured Gisela Dulko 6-0 3-0 ret. Also check out the new partnership of Kirilenko and Zheng, sure to be a crowd pleaser for cuteness alone.

Meanwhile, Ana Ivanovic lost out to Peer in two tight sets. You have to wonder when she is going to realise that she is in a slump and actually drop down to play some lower events, or else this will just keep on happening. She is saying that she will “consider” playing qualifiers at Montreal but it shouldn’t even be something she needs to think about. She desperately needs to get back into the feeling of winning and even if she does win a match at one of these events, just like last week she will eventually come up against a top 30/20/10 player and just be brushed aside.

And finally, the Wozniacki Invitational in Copenhagen. Miss Wozniacki herself was an easy winner against Petra Martic and she was joined by Keothavong, Baltacha, Benesova, Hercog and Cirstea who took out Wimbledon semi-finalist Petra Kvitova in three sets. Kvitova has actually gone 0-3 since Wimbledon but don’t be quick to label her a ‘fluke’. Her uncompromising aggressive game is always going to produce streaky results and it has throughout her career already. Unless she decides to be more conservative and play the margins a little more, expect the Czech to have more big runs in the future followed by letdowns like this.

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E-boks Danish Open report Day Three - The Emergence of Miss Wozniacki.

Hi everyone, Andreas here. This report will be a bit shorter as I got back so late but hopefully you will still enjoy it.

I got to the courts a bit later today and by that time Chakvetadze was already a set up over Wörle. She was better than yesterday but Wörle really had nothing to hurt her with. Her forehand was a mess and it quickly became monotonous and boring watching her hitting forehand error after forehand error. Even though the scoreline indicates a fairly close match, the win for Chakvetadze was inevitable.

The next match on was Elena Bovina vs. Alexa ‘Big Al’ Glatch. Bovina started off really well and was hitting winners from all over the court as well as approaching the net to play some spectacular volleys. However, as the set went on she unravelled. Glatch was more consistent and played the big point extremely well and that was the difference in the first set. As usual, Bovina was screaming after every point (even a double fault from Big Al) and looking scary as ever.

Stefi Voegele vs. Julia Gorgeous was next and though they are two talented, young players it was a bad, bad match. Miss Gorgeous wasn’t playing particularly well and she gave Stefanie so many chances to make the match closer but every single time she had a chance she would just slap a ball into the bottom of the net.

Zakopalova is such a frustrating player to watch. She is so inconsistent and made things so much harder than they should have been today. I was literally just sitting there and shaking my head throughout the whole match as Zakopalova would hit a gorgeous winner from an awkward position, followed by two horrific errors in the most neutral position. De los Rios had nothing to hurt her with and just waited/hoped that the error would come and more often than not it did. After Zakopalova choked away the third set and 5 (FIVE!) match points, I just had to get away from there but thank god she eventually got the win!

The next match was of course the doubles match of Miss Wozniacki and Ejdesgaard against Voegele and The Meusburger. It was pretty hilarious that after sitting in near-empty stands for the first two days and even earlier on today also, so many people just came out of nowhere to watch. By the time the match had begun, it was full to the brim. The Danish pair played very well but Voegele continued from where she left off in her singles match and The Burger was herself – just getting the ball over the net and not really very much else and so it was an easy win for the Danes.

The final match of the day was between Na Li and the Wimbledon Junior Champion Kristyna Pliskova. It wasn’t awfully thrilling as after a great start in the beginning, Li began to commit so many errors. Pliskova served well but it turned out to be a ‘Big Babe Tennis’ at its worst as the points were short and mostly ended in an error. Pliskova seemed to give up towards the end.

Random:

- No sighting of the Queen of Denmark, Miss Wozniacki as there is so much security around her. I did see Piotr Wozniacki though. On Center Court there are screens which constantly show a phone commercial starring Caroline and he was discussing it with another guy. No doubt he was discussing her paycheck from that advert.

- Wozniacki broke her own service speed record today as she hit a 199 km/h serve. Ejdesgaard was quick to bring it up after the match and they joked about it for a bit. - A foot fault was called on Ejdesgaard, to which Wozniacki turned around and shook her head at the linesjudge. I have a feeling I won’t see that linesjudge again tomorrow…

- I caught the last game of Domachowska’s win and hilariously this time Kosinska was coaching her. No wonder Marta has been so terrible recently

- Bovina asked for a towel but the ball girl (the ball kids have been terrible this week) just brought her the first and towel she saw – A.K.A. Alexa Glatch’s sweaty towel.

I believe the livestreaming on livescorescorehunter begins today so i’ll try to really keep my eyes peeled for even more drama today. Wish me luck!
Andreas.

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Onto The Next One - The US Open Series Continues

WTA San Diego (Premier)

Draw

OOP

Having been absent from the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour for the last two years, the Mercury Insurance Open in San Diego is back with a vengance. The top seeds here are Jelena Jankovic and Sam Stosur with all but two main draw players having reached at least the fourth round of a Grand Slam. So buckly up for yet another week that promises to be full of excitement, drama and (possibly) most importantly, quality tennis.

ATP Washington (500)

Draw

OOP

The ATP US roadtrip has begun very curiously with two Americans not named ‘Andy Roddick’ dominating the first two events. This week sees the players heading to Washington D.C as more elite players begin their US campaigns. The field is headed by Tomas Berdych and Andy Roddick with countless other elite players occupying the other seeded placements. Interesting times ahead!

WTA Copenhagen (International)

Draw

OOP

After Caroline Wozniacki’s rise into the top 10 last year and consequently her celebrity skyrocketing to that of a princess, it became apparent that she had no local WTA event to play in. So what did they do? Her father Piotr Wozniacki only went created one. The field is of course lead by Ms Wozniacki with her challengers this week including recent conqurers Na Li and Petra Kvitova. At the very least it will be interesting to se how she deals with the added pressure and the huge expectations placed upon her in Denmark, and of course Andreas will be blogging from the tournament.

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