Professional Tennis
Simona Halep battled past Angelique Kerber on Thursday, getting past the 13th seeded German 6-3, 5-7, 6-4 to reach the Rogers Cup quarterfinals. Halep ended the seven-match winning streak of Kerber in a tough three-set affair. After Kerber edged out the second set 7-5, the German took a 3-2 lead in the deciding frame. Halep…
It was business as usual for the top seeds at the Rogers Cup in Montreal on Thursday, as the number one, two and four seeds all rolled to victories to reach the quarterfinals of the ATP World Tour Masters 1000 tournament. World number one and top-seeded Serb Novak Djokovic was one of the first matches…
Victoria Azarenka rolled past third-seeded Czech Petra Kvitova 6-2, 6-3 on Wednesday, notching her first win over a top four player since 2013. Azarenka came out firing against Kvitova, building a hefty 6-2, 4-1 lead. After Kvitova trimmed that lead to 3-4, Azarenka rattled off the next two games to close out the fourth-ranked player…
Rafael Nadal got his Rogers Cup tournament off to a winning start on Wednesday, downing Ukrainian Sergiy Stakhovsky 7-6(4), 6-3 to reach the third-round in Montreal. The seventh-seed Nadal had a chance to serve out the first set, but was broken by Stakhovsky to send the opening set into a tiebreak. Nadal outdueled him in…
Novak Djokovic recorded his 250th career win at ATP World Tour Masters 1000 tournaments on Tuesday, beating Brazilian Thomaz Bellucci 6-3, 7-6(4) in the Rogers Cup second-round. Bellucci played Djokovic tough, but was just never able to break the Serb. Djokovic broke once in the first set to take it 6-3, and then after both…
World number one Serena Williams came out of the gate slow on Tuesday afternoon at the Rogers Cup in Toronto, but in typical Serena fashion, rallied back for a 2-6, 6-3, 6-0 victory over Italy’s Flavia Pennetta to move into the tournament’s third-round. After dropping the first set, Serena found herself down a break early…
German Sabine Lisicki had to wait out a long rain delay to defeat American Venus Williams on Monday night, but did so in routine fashion, beating the American 6-0, 6-3 in a first-round matchup at the Rogers Cup in Toronto. The two didn’t take to the court until after 10:00 p.m. on Monday night, as…
Germany’s Angelique Kerber won her fourth title of the season on Sunday, beating Karolina Pliskova 6-3, 5-7, 6-4 to win the Bank of the West Classic trophy in Stanford. In this tightly-contested match that lasted over two hours, Kerber was just a bit more efficient than Pliskova. While Pliskova nearly doubled her up in the…
Two Americans found themselves in the Citi Open finals from Washington, D.C. on Sunday afternoon. On the women’s singles side, Sloane Stephens was seeking her first career WTA title, while John Isner looked to take down last year’s U.S. Open runner-up Kei Nishikori in the Men’s Singles Final. Stephens was playing in her first career…
American Varvara Lepchenko played lights out tennis on Thursday, defeating top-seed Caroline Wozniacki 6-4, 6-2 to reach the Bank of the West Classic quarterfinals in Stanford, Calif. Lepchenko fired 26 winners, committed just 17 unforced errors and broke four times to beat Wozniacki rather routinely. “I think I just followed my plan. I was doing…