After the green clay in Charleston for the Family Circle Cup (where Serena defended her title succesfully after an ass-whooping 6-1, 6-2 against Venus in the semi's and defeating Jankovic: 3-6, 6-0, 6-2) and the red clay in a new tournament in Poland: BNP Paribas Katowice Open (where Vinci established her gravel-skills by beating Kvitova in the final in an extraordinary fashion: 7-6(2), 6-1, we're finally at the true European clay court tournaments!
First up is the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix in Stuttgart with this amazing poster of the German players:
They played their Fed Cup against Serbia (edging it: 3-2) in Stuttgart, so I'm expecting them to make a strong start here because the draw isn't a walk in the park at all!
First round matches to look forward to = Ivanovic vs. Petkovic, Pavlyuchenkova vs. Makarova, Stosur vs. Jankovic.
Underdog of the tournament = Goerges has to get past a strong Flipkens (eight places ranked higher than her) in the first round before encountering Kvitova second and most likely Na Li in the quarterfinals. Either Stosur of Errani will probably await in the semifinals before Sharapova in the finals. Goerges has had incredible results in Stuttgart (upsetting Stosur and Wozniacki, the then number one, to take the title in 2011) but that's one tough cookie right there: good Glück German girl!
Last year winner was Sharapova by defeating Azarenka: 6-1, 6-4 in the final. We're missing the Belarussian here, so she'll lose some more points but her third spot in the WTA rankings isn't at risk since Radwanska is way behind and isn't competing here either. Keep posted!
No comments:
Post a Comment