This is James of Moo’s Tennis Blog taking over Women’s Tennis Blog for the next four days! The WTA Finals in Singapore kicked off on Monday with victories for Serena Williams and Simona Halep. Tuesday saw the first set of matches from the white group. The first one was dramatic to say the least. Caroline Wozniacki outlasted Maria Sharapova in an absolute epic, 7-6(4) 6-7(5) 6-2 in three hours and 13 minutes.
In a tight opening set, Sharapova was unable to serve it out at *5-4 as Wozniacki came from behind in the tiebreak to take it, 7-6(4). Caroline had gone up an early break to lead 3-0*. Both players finished the set with identical percentages on their serve, winning 67% on first serves and 36% on second serves. The second set was similar to the first one in that the player who served for the set ended up losing it. In fact, Wozniacki served for the match at 7-6 *5-4, but Sharapova’s characteristic fighting spirit saw her come back to force a decider.
In the deciding set, Sharapova seemingly ran out steam as Wozniacki, who will run the New York marathon in two weeks time, rolled through the last four games of the match to claim another huge win over Sharapova. This was a great contest, but the stats were not kind for this match; Sharapova finished with 76 unforced errors and 15 double faults, meanwhile Wozniacki hit just 14 winners. Caroline though, deserves a lot of credit for digging out this impressive victory over the world number two.
In the second match of the day, which started gone 11pm local time in Singapore, Agnieszka Radwanska played an excellent match to defeat an out-of-sorts, Petra Kvitova, 6-2 6-3. It was Radwanska’s second victory over Kvitova and both of them have come at the WTA Championships. Radwanska was at her crafty best in this match, getting a sluggish Kvitova on the run and constantly forcing her to hit one extra ball. Radwanska was fully deserving of the victory; she finished with a positive winner to unforced error differential, hitting 13 winners to 9 unforced errors. All you need to know about Petra is that she hit 42 unforced errors in this match…
On Thursday, Kvitova will take on Sharapova and Wozniacki will play Radwanska. The white group looks very intriguing now…
