Week 12 - WTA Premier Mandatory $8.6M - Miami, USA Hard

Helen40 · Grand Slam Champion

Week 12 - WTA Premier Mandatory $8.6M - Miami, USA Hard

blob · All-time great

As good as she was yesterday, she was as bad today.

Samson · Lower Club Player

Indeed, a bit poor from Jo. Her first serve was a tad terrible and she was generally overhitting, more likely to make a mistake than Venus. She seemed to be getting annoyed at how long Venus was taking to serve and at the vociferous crowd. One thing I dont understand is that her coach regularly tells her to hit the ball in the centre of the court when I thought Jos main strength was the ability to move her opponent around a bit. Just hitting into the middle of the court gives the opponent a chance to rally and direct the ball more, but Im sure they know a lot more than I do!

Jan · Hall of fame

Oh Jo cry cry

Michael D · All-time great

Yes, I agree that I'm not over enamoured with her current coaching set up, but I guess we will see more over the coming months whether it shows any sign of working or not. Jo's tactics weren't great, and I must admit a match in which she looks like she was outlasted by Venus is of enormous credit to Venus, and really not much at all to Jo. She has to be trying to work Venus around the court more. Even the first set which Jo won was mostly because Venus' UE count in that set was twice that of Jo's.

JonH · All-time great

I was just trying to see what patterns had emerged over the initial womens Slam and Premier Mandatory/5 (as the top 9 events on the WTA tour after the slams) events to date.

There have been 4 of course - Melbourne, Doha, Indian Wells and this week in Miami.

In terms of which players have made the latter stages of each (last 16 Melbourne, last 8 in the other events), then 10 players have managed to do it more than once: listed in what i would say is reverse order of performance, 10th to 1). This is not really a ranking as a played consistently ytd and performed well list.

2 latter stage appearances -

10 - Garcia (Melbourne last 16, Doha last 8)
9- Martic (Melbourne last 16, IW last 8)

8 Suarez- Navarro (Melbourne last 8, IW Last 8, so slightly better overall than above 2)
=6 Svitolina (Melbourne last 8 and Miami last 8 and of course still in Miami so hence ahead of CSN)
= 6 Venus Williams (IW last 4 and Miami last 8 and of course still in Miami so hence ahead of CSN)

5 Osaka (Melbourne last 16 and IW winner)
4 Wozniacki (Melbourne winner and Doha semi - not done anything in the US events)

3 latter stage appearances:

3 Pliskova (Melbourne quarters, IW quarters, Miami quarters but still going in Miami. Probably not better than Wozniacki but 3 appearances put her higher in the consistency stakes)
2 Halep (Melbourne RU, Doha semis, IW semis)

4 latter stage appearances:

Kerber (Melbourne semi, Doha/IW/Miami quarters but still going in Miami)

It is probably hard to rate who is having the best season but Kerber is proving to be the most consistent and maybe therefore could be the player of the year to date if she goes further into Miami. Halep clearly runs her close if not ahead of her.

Not sure if folks agree, Halep and Kerber are players of year to date on the hard courts , Wozniacki slipping with a poor US swing.

Of course this differs from the WTA Race where Wozniacki leads and Kvitova and Svitolina show well, but I was just looking at the big events that attract the real attention.

Shame of course that no Jo Konta in the list and cant see clay bringing her back into it at all

PaulM · Tennis legend

A better week. Small steps

blob · All-time great

Vika in to the SF is pretty remarkable.
After almost a year being unable to compete, she turns up, plays tennis, wins, leaves immediately, goes and plays with her son, comes back the next day, does the same,

the addict · Tennis legend

Vika up to 92 in live rankings now - not going to need wild cards much longer. Playing better and better as she gets back in the groove.
One more MDWC available for GB at Wimbledon wink

Sim · County player

blob wrote:
Vika in to the SF is pretty remarkable.
After almost a year being unable to compete, she turns up, plays tennis, wins, leaves immediately, goes and plays with her son, comes back the next day, does the same,

Even more remarkable when you take into account that she stopped playing in May 2016 due to pregnancy, came back and played 2 tournaments in June/July 2017 (including Wimbledon) and then had her enforced layoff so nearly 2 years off in total

JonH · All-time great

Sim wrote:
blob wrote:
Vika in to the SF is pretty remarkable.
After almost a year being unable to compete, she turns up, plays tennis, wins, leaves immediately, goes and plays with her son, comes back the next day, does the same,
Even more remarkable when you take into account that she stopped playing in May 2016 due to pregnancy, came back and played 2 tournaments in June/July 2017 (including Wimbledon) and then had her enforced layoff so nearly 2 years off in total

genuine talent will always prevail, once the initial rustiness is gone at least.

theemptyvessel · Club Coach

Happy to see Vika playing so well but unless I missed something she is still locked in her custody battle and so I am not sure if she will be able to play in many more tournaments this year. Although I would not consider myself a Vika fan I do hope she can get this sorted once and for all as with the inevitable decline of the Williams sisters I actually think she is better than the other contenders for the number 1 ranking and is being forced to miss a golden opportunity in the prime of her career.

indiana · Tennis legend

Rather surprising 4 semi finalists, not been exactly as a group the form players of the year so far with the highest in the race coming into Miami being Danielle Collins!

32. Collins 391
51. Ostapenko 299
102. Stephens 136
281. Azarenka 35

In the QFs they took out 4 much more generally in form players. Indeed Kerber, Svitolina and Ka Pliskova were in the top 10 in the race coming in and adding in Venus all 4 losing quarter finalists are in the top 7 for mandatory tournament latter stage consistency this year in Jon's post above. Actually "rather surprising" may be putting it mildly!

For reaching the SF here, Collins adds 420 points ( including her qualifying points ) taking her up to live race #11 and the others add 390 points.

-- Edited by indiana on Thursday 29th of March 2018 06:13:39 PM

Julia Carrot · All-time great

I thought Fitzy was back as Sloane's hitting partner, or did I imagine that ? I'm not seeing him there though.

Michael D · All-time great

Julia Carrot wrote:
I thought Fitzy was back as Sloane's hitting partner, or did I imagine that ? I'm not seeing him there though.

Yes, as I understand it Fitzy is still part of Sloane's coaching team, having rejoined in Dec. I've seen no information to suggest he has left, but maybe he's not there all the time? He is not a hitting partner per se any longer, but acts as a kind of understudy to the main coach, who Kamau Murray, for Sloane, which is similar to the role he played with Jo. So maybe Fitzy travels with her when Kamau is not available? Don't know really, if anyone has any further info...