Weekend winners: Wozniacki in Charleston, Azarenka in Marbella
Two WTA events were played this week and two good friends clinched titles: Caroline Wozniacki at the Family Circle Cup in Charleston and Victoria Azarenka at the Andalucia Tennis Experience in Marbella.
The world No.1 Wozniacki survived a string of tough matches to reach the final for a chance to win her first Charleston title in three appearances (one of which was a runner-up finish in 2009 and last year’s hurtful injury retirement in the semifinals). On her first tournament on clay this year, Wozniacki survived Barbora Zahlavova Strycova in the third round after two tiebreaks, and followed it with another thriller, in the quarterfinals against Yanina Wickmayer. The Dane avoided an upset in the semis against Jelena Jankovic, beating the Serb 6-4 6-4, and in the title match she didn’t face much threat against surprise finalist Elena Vesnina and won 6-2 6-3.
Wozniacki has now added Charleston to her Dubai and Indian Wells 2011 titles. Her number of WTA titles now totals 15. As for the 56th-ranked Vesnina, the week will stay as a bright point in her career, she recorded upsets of Bethanie Mattek Sands, Julia Goerges, Peng Shuai, and most importantly, her first Top 5 win against Samantha Stosur. Read more »







World No.40 Patty Schnyder lost in the first round of the Family Circle Cup to Chanelle Scheepers 6-4 6-4, after saving nine match points, and will never again play in singles at the tournament which had been her mandatory stop for 15 successive years.
Samantha Stosur won her second singles title on the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour by impressively storming past Vera Zvonareva 6-0 6-3 in the final of the Family Circle Cup in Charleston.
Top seed Caroline Wozniacki fell during the first set of her semifinal against seventh seed Vera Zvonareva at the Family Circle Cup, injured her right ankle, retired and ended her eight-match winning streak.
