Tuesday 27 June 2017

Federer takes 9th Halle crown

In the week before Wimbledon, some of the players are practicing through tournament play, while others are choosing just practice.
Meanwhile others outside the main draw are already on the courts in qualifying, hoping to survive that tournament within a tournament.

Last week, Petra Kvitova stamped her return with a title win at Birmingham, although Aah Barty gave her a scare, winning the first set.  Unfortunately Petra suffered an abdominal strain which forced her withdrawal from this week's Eastbourne event but hopefully it will be ok for Wimbledon.

Kvitova moves up four spots to 12 in the rankings while Barty sails up 23 places to a career high of 54.  I said top 50 was coming soon for the talented Aussie.

Also in England, at Queens Club, unseeded Feliciano Lopez in his second successive final, went one better than Stuttgart, taking out the final against fourth seed Marin Cilic.
Lopez moves up seven places to 25 in the world.

The Halle final was a lesson for young gun Alexander Zverev as Roger Federer sounded a warning for those thinking of Wimbledon success.
Federer won his ninth Halle crown, losing just four games to the talented German.

In Mallorca it was success for Anastasija Sevastova, her first grass court title coming in three sets over Julia Goerges.
Sevastova remains at 19 in the rankings but Goerges bounces back into the top 50, up nine spots to 45.

This week there are WTA and ATP events at Eastbourne, and an ATP tournament in Antalya, Turkey.

So far, we have seen the fourth straight first round exit for Dominika Cibulkova, this time at the hands of Heather Watson.  Cibulkova was defending champion at Eastbourne so the defeat was extra hard to take. 
For a top ten player 2017 has been ordinary for Dominika, with only a 50% winning record.

The only other seed to fall so far in Eastbourne, male or female, has been Daria Gavrilova (16) to Lara Arruabarrena after winning the opening set.

Already in Antalya Borna Coric (7) and Viktor Troicki (6) have lost opening matches to Adrian Mannarino and Carlos Berlocq respectively.
The top four seeds have been given first round byes.

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