Wozniacki Ends Her Season With A Triumph

Caroline Wozniacki defeated German rising star Annika Beck 6-2 6-2 in the WTA Luxembourg final to grab her 21st career title - her first of the year.

 The Dane came to the final as the heavy favourite because of her top-seeded ranking and experience, while Annika Beck, at the age of 19, was at her first final on the tour. Moreover, the quality showed by the former world number one in the previous rounds enforced her status as favourite, having defeated tricky opponents en route to the final.

Wozniacki looked pretty gloomy and unfocused in the first two rounds despite the wins in straight sets over local Wild Card Mandy Minella and last year’s finalist Monica Niculescu.

In her quarter-final match, Wozniacki was challenged by Serbian Bojana Jovanovski, who had defeated the Dane twice this year already. The Serb pushed Wozniacki to a third set, but there, Wozniacki was too solid and in the end she could seize the win showing a different and more focused attitude on court.

In the previous round, Annika Beck conquered her best career win by defeating fifth seed and world number 28 Lucie Safarova in a tight three-set match, where she had to come back from a break down in the decider. The German’s run needed another massive effort to continue when in the quarter-final she had to face Polish qualifier Katarzyna Piter in a three-hour match, ending in a heart- breaking tie-break.

Beck could then take advantage of the retirement of her semi-final opponent, Stefanie Voegele, who had defeated the second seed, Sloane Stephens, in the round before.
Wozniacki had a tougher semi-final to face, as her opponent, Sabine Lisicki, was the Wimbledon runner-up and her game is particularly suitable for the fast conditions of the indoor courts of Luxembourg.

The match was close in the first set, but in the end Wozniacki nailed it down by being aggressive whenever she had the chance of clinching the key points. Lisicki seemed to suffer from losing the first set as she quickly fell behind in the second, and her reaction came too late as Wozniacki closed the match in straight sets.

The final match was expected to be one-sided, but Beck put up a fight, showing probably the best tennis of her repertoire in the early games of the match, forcing Wozniacki to go for her shorts more and in the end it was the experience of the Dane that decided the first set.

Despite the situation, Beck kept fighting and Wozniacki needed great resolve to win most of the long and intense rallies of the match.



Once again it was the lack of experience that betrayed the young German, who in the end had to surrender to a very focused Wozniacki 6-2 6-2. This title is the 21st in Wozniacki’s career and allows her streak to continue as this is her sixth consecutive year in which she has won at least one title.

With this title, Wozniacki has qualified for the Sofia Tournament of Champions, but her dad and coach Piotr said she won’t be involved.

Originally written for the Sports Gazette

the hardworker who dared to dream big: Marion Bartoli wins Wimbledon

A dream that lasted two weeks was the one that just ended with the best possible finale for Marion Bartoli. The 28 year old French woman was playing her 47th Slam of the career and clearly wasn't among the faves when the tournament started despite having been on a Final on the most famous grass of the world once before, in 2007, when en route defeated Justin Henin before falling to the hands of Venus Williams.
Her run that year came as a surprise and despite having shown to be a top player through the years she never reached a slam final again before this week. Marion capitalized a draw that surprisingly fell apart because of upsets and injuries, with her half being deprived of Sharapova (l.t. Larcher de Brito in R2), Azarenka (injured, w/o to Pennetta in 2R), Wozniacki (injured, l.t. Cetkovska in R2) and finally Kvitova, the only Wimbledon champion left when the quarter finals were set, who lost to another dream-runner, Kirsten Flipkens from Belgium.
But if the ranking of the players she defeated en route to this title might make her run seem an easy

one, it was everything buy easy, because some of the players she had to take down are always dangerous on grass courts as it was the case with Italian Camila Giorgi, who recently had also defeated the French woman in Strasbourg. It was impressive, nonetheless, that Marion lost no sets on her way to the title, edging past some tough battles like the one against Sloane Stephens in the QF, when rain and public seemed to be against her as much as her opponent, but through her experience she could stay calm and take home what eventually happened to be the toughest of her battles in the late stages of this tournament, because in the Semifinals she looked like the only player on court. Flipkens was at her first Slam Semi and the big stage reached thanks to the huge upset over Kvitova seemed to block her rather than pump, so that in no time she was sent back to the shower by the powerful and accurate strokes of Marion which led to a 6-1 6-2 final score.
In the Saturday's final she was facing the girl that was then said to be the favourite for the title, German Sabine Lisicki, the first German to reach a slam final since Steffi Graff in 1999. "Bine" made a terrific run to reach the final by defeating last year winner and current world n°1 Serena Williams in the 4th run and last year's finalist Agnieszka Radwanska in a tight semifinal ended 9-7 in the third.
But if bookmakers were giving her the favourite, tennis fans knew that the biggest enemy for a German win was Sabine's own mentality: the German, despite the huge talent and perfect game on grass had never been that far of a slam and often has been proved to be mentally frail whenever it was about seizing a great chance. And the same happened yesterday.
Despite the early break that sent the German 1-0 up, she looked tense on court and immediately Bartoli started to play her aggressive and powerful game that completely crashed Lisicki, like a typhoon does to a raft. The more the match was going on, the most Bartoli looked confident and her shots heavier, while Sabine's serve started to go missing and every service game of hers was in jeopardy. In no time it was 6-1 for the French player.
A toilet break seemed to help the German to find little of her game back as she finally held for the first time in the match for a 1-0 lead in the second set and the very tense and long game that followed was crucial for the final result, because Sabine tried everything to break and re-open the match, but every time she had a chance for a break, Marion could raise her level and save, until after almost 10 minutes she hold and on the burst of confidence go fast up 5-1, while tears and sighs broke on Lisicki's face.
When everything seemed to be lost, 15-40 down on her serve, the German suddenly found the calm of the despair and saved 3 match points before holding and go back on track. Marion the felt little tight and the weight of the wasted chances took their toll in the following service game when with no chance to serve it out she got broken by the German, who kept her momentum going as she hold for 5-4.
Marion was then sent to try serving for the tournament again, but this time she didn't let the chance leak out of her hands and with a terrific ace -only the 2nd of her match- that lifted a small cloud of gypsum from the green grass of the centre court she finally could fall on her knees and let the joy for the first slam of her career flow. With this result Marion will be back in the top 10, as high as 7th, which is her best ranking...what's more, she is the first player with double-handed forehand and backhand to win Wimbledon.

Heading towards the QFs of the most random Wimbledon ever? (part 2 - women)

(24) S. Lisicki vs K. Kanepi
In the top quarter of the draw one already meets a totally unexpected clash because whenever Serena Williams loses it's a surprise, but whenever she does it with such an open draw it's ever more. Serena was indeed given as the sure winner after the fall of Sharapova and Azarenka in the second round and ever before that, considering her record on Grass and the great win in Paris, she was the one to defeat for the title. Her executioner was German Sabine Lisicki, whose form seems to hit every year around this time, since she reached the QF last year too by defeating RG's reigning champion Sharapova before falling by the hands of Kerber -who was taken out by her next opponent just few days ago. This year Lisicki took down again the RG champion, but she seems the favourite to win her clash with Estonian Kanepi, because the two play a very similar game, but probably Sabine has more experience on the surface and Kaia is not known for her brave heart when it comes to seizing chances. 

(4) A. Radwanska vs (6) Li Na

The only match one could espect when the draw came out, is the only one that seemed more unlikely for both players to reach that far, because the Polish came to Wimbledon without the same positive results of the last year and Li Na had quite a few tricky opponents on her way too. Last year's champion needed all her talent to edge past American big hitter Keys and then to come back from a set down against grass-specialist Pironkova, while Li Na needed a huge focus to defeat in three sets Romanian Halep, who came to the match with two tournaments won in a row and then she edged 8-6 in the 3rd set against Czech Zakopalova. Nonetheless, Li Na found her whole game and security to easily thunder past Italian Roberta Vinci and head to this match with the best hopes to finally go beyond the QF of Wimbledon, something she had never done before. My guess is that if Radwanska passes this test, she's going to win the whole thing, but Li Na won't surrender easily.


(17) S. Stephens vs (15) M. Bartoli

In the section of the draw where Maria Sharapova was given as the biggest fave to reach this far and Caroline Wozniacki as the second fave, no-one of the two could go further than the second round as the first was shocked by Portugues Larcher de Brito and the second defeated by Petra Cetkovska, but most of all by a nasty ankle injury happened in the very first games of this match. It wasn't much of a surprise the fell of the second highest seed of this section, as Sara Errani (5th seed) was routined by youngster Monica Puig, whose game and power were too much for the Italian clay-courter. In the end Stephens could take advantage of the lack of real contenders left and despite playing quite below her best level, she could go through quite a few potential good matches, mostly because of her mental strenght, opposed to the fear of winning that hit both Cetkovska and Puig, when they were called to close their matches.

On the other side of the net there's 2007 finalist Marion Bartoli, whose experience on the surface is surely big, but her form was given dire as she retired from Eastbourn last week and her results this year were quite below her talent. Yet, she's a great fighter and could get this far by defeating en route a few tricky grass specialists like Giorgi and McHale. If the French can play the whole match on a good level for her standards, she can be quite safe for a place in the semifinals, but the young American seems never to fear taking chances, so don't count her off.


(8) P. Kvitova vs (20) K. Flipkens

In the section towered by world number 2 and Australian Open champion Victoria Azarenka, it was Belgian late-comer Kirsten Flipkens to get the chance to reach her first slam Quarter Final of her career. Her story seems the one of a movie, as only last year around this time, she was playing ITFs because injuries and losses were keeping her away from the best 200 of the world. "Flipper" with her deadly slice and fighting attitude won her place in the QF by facing no seeds en route, thanks to the walkover of the world n°2 given to Italian Flavia Pennetta, who later defeated Alize Cornet to reach her 3rd Wimbledon 4th round. The Italian wasn't the favourite in her clash with Flipkens, mostly because they had faced in RG round 1, when the Italian was defeated after a very long battle. On grass things didn't change much, with the Italian being the best player on court until she served twice for the first set. From that moment on Pennetta looked tense and couldn't express her best game, while the Belgian started to believe in herself more and the match went all the way on her favor.

Her opponent will be the former champion Petra Kvitova, who seems to be far from the form that gave her the title few years ago, she struggled to win her first round against Vandeweghe and then she was saved by a rain break against Ekaterina Makarova. Yet, her game seemed to click against Suarez Navarro in the 4th round and she probably is the fave against Flipkens and even if case of an upset, it is more likely to be Petra's fault, as her game is always down to all or nothing.


Bold Prediction for the final:
Radwanska def. Bartoli 7-5 6-2