Last week, WTA action shifted to the Canadian city of Montreal for the Coupe Rogers. Romania’s number one Simona Halep continued her season revival by capturing her third title of the year, her second title of July and her first title of 2016 on hard courts. With this result, Halep will return to the top three for the first time since February earlier this year.
Last week’s titlist
24-year-old Simona Halep, having endured a not-as-planned start to 2016, has been on a roll since the month of May where she won her first title of the year and the equal-biggest title of her career at the Mutua Madrid Open. Before Madrid, the Romanian amassed a meagre 10-9 season record. Despite making one semifinal and two quarterfinals, she exited three tournaments winless.
Since stepping on the Madrid dirt and prior to Montreal, Halep has won 18 of 21 matches, making the last 16 at the French Open and the Wimbledon quarterfinals. She also won her second title on home soil in Bucharest earlier this month.
Halep entered the Coupe Rogers as the defending finalist. In last year’s final, she made a heartbreaking decision to retire, succumbing to the extreme heat while trailing in the decider to Belinda Bencic. The fifth seed kicked off her Canadian campaign against Australia’s Daria Gavrilova in the second round, having had a first round bye. After prevailing over the Aussie, she sent three seeds packing en route to the final, namely 14th seed Karolina Pliskova, ninth seed Svetlana Kuznetsova and second seed Angelique Kerber, the latter two in three sets. Facing the big-hitting Madison Keys for the title, Halep needed just 75 minutes to sweep aside the American and collect her 14th career title.
This year’s tournament witnessed all 16 seeds (the top eight receiving a first round bye) winning their opening matches with the exception of eighth seed Carla Suárez Navarro, who fell Slovak qualifier Kristina Kucova. Kucova went on to record her best result to date by making all the way to the last four, defeating Eugenie Bouchard and 15th seed Johanna Konta thereafter.
2014 champion and fourth seed Agnieszka Radwanska crashed out in the third round, with sixth seed Venus Williams and seventh seed Roberta Vinci following suit. A pair of Russians, ninth seed Svetlana Kuznetsova and 16th seed Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova fared well, both recording quarterfinal appearances.
Rankings
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Halep rises from fifth to third whereas Keys returns to the top 10 from 12th, currently sitting at ninth. Kuznetsova edges back into the top 10 as well, going up from 11th to 10th. Konta’s run to the last eight sees the Brit rise to a new career-high ranking of 13th. Fellow quarterfinalist Daria Kasatkina is up from 33rd and also hits a new career-high ranking, currently placed at 27th.
Meanwhile, Bouchard and Varvara Lepchenko, who both made the round of 16, move up from 42nd to 39th and 50th to 45th respectively. Surprise package and semifinalist Kucova makes a 44-spot vault into the top 100, recording a new career-high ranking off 77th.
Road to Singapore
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In the race to the WTA Finals, Halep advances into the top three and she is now at third, from her previous position of sixth. Keys improves from ninth to seventh while Kasatkina moves up five spots to 22nd. Montreal quarterfinalist Pavlyuchenkova rises from 36th to 26th.
Bouchard and Elina Svitolina, who also made the round of 16 in Montreal, are currently tied at 28th with the former going up from 30th and the latter from 31st. Kucova soars into the top 70 standings from 110th, currently sitting at 61st.
This week’s action
With the Rio Olympics now just a week away, tennis action this week will feature a pair of International-level tournaments played on hard courts, the Brasil Tennis Cup in Florianopolis and the Jiangxi Women’s Tennis Open in the Chinese city of Nanchang. Former world number one Jelena Jankovic leads the field in Florianopolis while Kurumi Nara and 2010 French Open champion Francesca Schiavone the spearhead the Nanchang draw.