Danish top seed Caroline Wozniacki slumped to a shock 6-4, 6-2 defeat to 60th-ranked Varvara Lepchenko in her opening match of the WTA Tour’s Stanford tournament on Thursday.
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Karolina Pliskova will be playing to win when she takes the court for Sunday’s championship match of the Bank of the West Classic at Stanford, but if it doesn’t work out, she won’t be too disappointed.
“Yeah, I felt it, but I think it brings me really more motivation to play better and to play better shots”, Svitolina said. “But in the big picture of tennis I still have to go on the court and play well”. “The ball was flying a lot and I really didn’t practice much the last few days”. “I still thought I had enough to play and beat her. The ball was coming at me so fast I couldn’t get into a rhythm”. “It is going to be a troublesome remaining, however I am wanting ahead to it”. Pliskova will be looking avenge a loss to Kerber in the final of the WTA Birmingham tournament earlier this year.
She averaged 105 miles per hour on her first serve and had five aces en route to winning 81 percent of her first-serve points. The German swatted young top prospects, Daria Gavrilova and Ana Konjuh aside before edging (7/2) Agnieszka Radwanska 46 64 64 in the quarters as I predicted she would. Beyond that, they are both baseline bombers with excellent returns of serve, and true to their nine prior head-to-head meetings, it was a protracted battle of physical will and strategic wile. She was then forced to recover from a set and a break behind to beat Mona Barthel 67(3) 62 63 to reach her first semi final since January.
The out-of-nowhere win by Lepchenko, ranked No. 60, officially turned the BOTWC upside down. It was her first match since Wimbledon, where she made it to the fourth round before losing to Garbine Muguruza in straight sets. Regardless, payback was sweet for the Japanese star.
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Croatian third seed Cilic, who faced a possible rematch with Nishikori in the semifinals, outfought 32nd-ranked American Sam Querrey 7-6 (7/2), 7-6 (7/3) at the US Open hardcourt warm-up event. Svitolina also won that match against Riske, ranked 59th in the world, in three sets. Pavlyuchenkova will meet American Sloane Stephens, who reached her first career final with a 7-6 (4), 6-0 win over 2011 U.S. Open champion Samantha Stosur.
