Alison Riske's great Birmingham run came to an end today when she was defeated 6-2, 4-6, 6-1 by 2nd seed Maria Sharapova. Top seed (and wild card) Li Na defeated Aravane Rezai 6-1, 3-6, 6-3. Sharapova has won the tournament three times; Li was a finalist last year, losing to Magdalena Rybarikova.
In her semifinal match, Sharapova had service win percentages of 84 and 58, and she hit 12 aces.
Riske, playing in her first main draw, defeated 3rd seed Yanina Wickmayer in the quarterfinals.
In doubles, the team of Cara Black and Lisa Raymond defeated Nathalie Grandin and Abigail Spears 6-4, 6-4. Black and Raymond are seeded second. The other semifnal was won by Liezel Huber and Bethanie Mattek-Sands. They defeated Vania King and Yaroslava Shvedova 6-4, 6-0.
6 comments:
Man, I hope there is a live stream of the doubles match tomorrow. I know I should not but I would love to see how they interact on the court. LOL
I know! A doubles live stream might be hard to find, though.
You know I have always liked Laura Robson and I have defended her in the past when others spoke about her bratty behaviour. The faux pax she committed recently I even forgave, but this morning I got up early to watch her match against Dominika and what I saw was what everyone else seemed to have seen. I saw a bratty, petulant sore loser young woman who was just really hard to watch and did not show any of the poise that I was telling people about when I saw her play last year against Hantuchova at Wimbledon. If she does not lose the attitude she is going nowhere fast. Good win for Domi this morning. Hope she can have a good rest of the season.
Well, I'm not past her remark. She said it was "taken out of context," as though there could be an acceptable context. The WTA told her to apologize, so she did, but the apology in no way acknowledged an understanding of why what she said was wrong.
But...she's still very young and therefore more prone to do stupid things. And--more important--her values were given to her by her culture, and we know what that's about.
Laura is going from the pleasant life of juniors into the real world, where just about everybody beats you in the first round. Sounds like she has low frustration tolerance, and she will indeed have to get over that.
Diane, that is so true. She was just mad because Domi was doing what Domi does best. Keep the ball in play until your opponent misses. I did not see the first set but I saw most of the second set to realise what Domi was doing was just frustrating her and clearly Laura had no answers.
That being said, I have to tip my hand once again to Richard and Oracene and how they took their daughters out of juniors. I cannot imagine the pressure that these young people are under to fly the flag of their country as juniors. It cannot be easy.
Jimmy Evert did something similar. He put Chris in juniors, but only in selected events; the goal was always to win in the real tour.
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