Beatriz Haddad Maia Outlasts Belinda Bencic to Reach National Bank Open Semifinals

Posted on August 12, 2022 by Tom Castaneda

Beatriz Haddad Maia continues her winning ways…

The 26-year-old Brazilian tennis player, who defeated top-ranked Iga Swiatek to reach the National Bank Open quarterfinals, has pulled off another three-set upset.

Haddad Maia reached the semifinals on Friday after overcoming No.12 seed Belinda Bencic of Switzerland 2-6, 6-3, 6-3.

Haddad Maia, ranked a career-high World No.24, took 2 hours and 11 minutes to battle past 2015 National Bank Open champion Bencic.

This week, Haddad Maia has become the first Brazilian to reach the quarterfinals, and now the semifinals, of a WTA 1000 tournament.

Haddad Maia came into the quarterfinals with her career-best win by ranking behind her, having toppled World No.1 Swiatek in the previous round. Haddad Maia became the first Brazilian woman to beat a current No.1 player with her upset of Swiatek.

However, Bencic had a history of success against Haddad Maia coming into Friday’s clash. Not only had Bencic defeated the Brazilian in their only tour-level match earlier this year in Sydney, she also beat Haddad Maia en route to her 2013 Junior Roland Garros title.

But the third time proved to be the charm for Haddad Maia, who garnered the upset to continue her breakthrough season.

Haddad Maia claimed her first two WTA singles titles earlier this year, in back-to-back weeks on the grass courts of Nottingham and Birmingham.

“It’s nice because Brazil is huge, so we have Brazilians everywhere. So I always feel the energy. Someone is always screaming, ‘Vamos Beatriz.’ And today I saw a lot of Brazilian flags. And I feel very proud of us,” said Haddad Maia of her win.

Haddad Maia is into her fifth semifinal at tour-level this season. Only Swiatek (8) and Simona Halep (7) have reached more semifinals on the WTA Tour in 2022.

For her semifinal opponent, Haddad Maia awaits the winner of the late quarterfinal between former World No.1 Karolina Pliskova and rising teenager Zheng Qinwen.

Beatriz Haddad Maia Defeats Iga Swiatek to Notch First Win vs. Top-Ranked Player

Posted on August 11, 2022 by Tom Castaneda

Beatriz Haddad Maia has taken down the World No. 1…

The 26-year-old Brazilian tennis player defeated top-ranked Iga Swiatek of Poland 6-4, 3-6, 7-5 in windy conditions on Thursday to reach the National Bank Open quarterfinals.

Haddad Maia beat a top-ranked player for the first time to become the first Brazilian woman to advance to the quarterfinal of a WTA 1000 tournament.

A back-to-back champion on the grass in Nottingham and Birmingham, she came to Toronto at a career-high 24th in the world.

“I had a lot of tough moments in my career,” Haddad Maia said. “I have already had four surgeries and I’m only 26 years old. So when I have special moments I try to enjoy. ”

Swiatek had nine double faults to one for Haddad Maia.

“Right now it’s hard to say if it was more her game or the wind that really messed up my first set,” Swiatek said. “I think she just used the conditions better than me. When she was playing with the wind she was playing really strong balls and sometimes I was late for them.”

Haddad Maia will face Belinda Bencic of Switzerland in the quarterfinals. Bencic followed her victory over Serena Williams on Wednesday night by beating eighth-seeded Garbine Muguruza of Spain 6-1, 6-3 in the late match.

Laura Pigossi & Luisa Stefani Claim Brazil’s First-Ever Olympic Tennis Medal at Tokyo Games

Posted on July 31, 2021 by Tom Castaneda

Laura Pigossi and Luisa Stefani are celebrating more than an Olympic medal…

The 26-year-old Brazilian tennis player and the Brazilian tennis player defeated the Russian Olympic Committee‘s Veronika Kudermetova and Elena Vesnina for the bronze medal in women’s doubles at the 2020 Tokyo Games.

With their victory, the pair has given Brazil its first ever medal in Olympic tennis.

Pigossi and Stefani won 4-6, 6-4, 11-9 in two hours and 11 minutes at Ariake Tennis Park on Saturday, saving four straight match points and winning six straight points to close out the match.

The pair upset two seeded teams in the first rounds of the tournament before losing to Belinda Bencic and Viktorija Golubic, who’ll play for the gold, in the semifinals.

Ane Mintegi del Olmo Becomes First Spanish Player to Win Wimbledon Girls’ Singles Title

Posted on July 12, 2021 by Tom Castaneda

Ane Mintegi del Olmo has made junior tennis history…

The 17-year-old Spanish tennis player has added her name to the list of junior Grand Slam champions at Wimbledon, making history for her home country in the process.

Mintegi del Olmo outlasted fellow 17-year-old Nastasja Schunk of Germany, 2-6, 6-4, 6-1, becoming the first Spaniard to claim the girls’ singles tite champion’s trophy on No.1 Court, fighting back from a set and a break down to outlast Schunk and notch her first junior Grand Slam title.

Mintegi del Olmo won nearly half of the points returning Schunk’s second serve, helping her attain one more service break than her opponent to pull off the come-from-behind victory.

The aggressive play of left-handed Schunk garnered her an 82 percent success rate at net, but the German was undone by 41 unforced errors, compared to just 24 from Mintegi del Olmo.

“The first set, [Schunk] played incredible,” Mintegi del Olmo. “I have nothing to say. She played very good the first set. Then I served better in the second set, and in the third set I play very well. But she played very well.”

At the outset of the match, strong passes intermixed with powerful forehands to help Schunk build an early 3-1 lead. Schunk then broke at love to lead 5-2 and serve for the set, where Mintegi del Olmo fended off two set points and used stellar depth of shot to reach break point. Schunk used her lefty forehand to grit out a hold and a one-set lead.

“In the first set I’m a little bit nervous, but slowly, slowly when I finish the first set, the [nerves] go down and I start playing better,” Mintegi del Olmo said.

Despite dropping the opening game of the second set, Mintegi del Olmo continued to show off improving form, and quickly struck back for 1-1. Mintegi del Olmo used a variety of weights on her shots and superb defense to draw an increasing number of errors from Schunk, and the Spaniard moved ahead 5-3 after firing a strong return to break Schunk.

Serving for the second set, Mintegi del Olmo lost control of her shots to drop serve, but the Spaniard got a bigger opportunity in the next game when Schunk fell behind 0-40, queuing up triple set point. On her second set point, Mintegi del Olmo came out on top in a rally, and the match was leveled at one set apiece.

After saving two break points at 1-1, Mintegi del Olmo took control, using spins and well-timed service winners to reel off the final five games of the affair. A passing winner gave Mintegi del Olmo a 5-1 lead and the chance to serve for the match, and though Schunk used her power game to erase four match points, Mintegi del Olmo converted her fifth to break new ground for Spain.

Both of the junior finalists have already started to make waves at WTA events this season. Mintegi del Olmo pushed former Top 10 player Kristina Mladenovic to a final-set tiebreak in Madrid qualifying. Schunk won two matches to qualify for the Stuttgart main draw on home soil, before falling to Belinda Bencic in her WTA main-draw debut.

https://twitter.com/Wimbledon/status/1414253786697289732

Carlos Alcaraz Among ESPN’s ’21 Under 21′ Tennis Players to Watch in 2021

Posted on January 10, 2021 by Tom Castaneda

Carlos Alcaraz is among the phenoms to watch this year…

ESPN has announced tennis’ 21 under 21 for 2021, with the 17-year-old Spanish tennis player among the sport’s rising stars making the grade.

Despite the circumstances of the 2020 season, Alcaraz managed to move up 350 spots the rankings by year’s end, moving from No. 491 to No. 141, even reaching a career-high of No. 136 in October.

He started the year with back-to-back titles on the ITF Futures tour and was granted a wild card into the Rio Open in February. And the then-16-year-old made the most of his ATP Tour level debut, upsetting former World No. 17 Albert Ramos-Viñolas in 3 hours, 36 minutes in the opening round to become the first player born in 2003 to win a match and the youngest match winner since 2013. Alcaraz called the victory the high point of his season.

Following the restart of the season in August, Alcaraz went 20-4 in ATP Challenger events and won three titles at Trieste, Barcelona and Alicante, as well as playing in the final at Cordenons. He was named the ATP‘s Newcomer of the Year and is the youngest player in the top 600.

But Alcaraz, who idolizes fellow countryman Rafael Nadal, has even bigger goals for 2021. He hopes to make his first main draw appearance at a major in Australia in February and then play in all of the Grand Slams. As for his ranking? He’s hoping to make another big push in the new year.

“I want to finish the year in the top 50,” he said.

But Alcaraz isn’t the only Latinx tennis player to make the list…

Canada’s Leylah Fernandez completed her high school studies in the spring during the tour stoppage.

The 18-year-old half-Ecuadorian tennis player made her major main draw debut at the Australian Open in January — just a year removed from winning the junior title — but it was what she did in the weeks following the event that raised tennis fans’ eyebrows.

After losing in the first round in Melbourne, Fernandez scored her first win over a top-10 player (Belinda Bencic) while representing Canada in the Fed Cup (now known as the Billie Jean King Cup) in Switzerland. Later that month, she won six matches in seven days as a wild card qualifier in the Mexican Open, rolling into the final, where she ultimately lost to Heather Watson. The following week, she advanced to the quarterfinals at the Monterrey Open, defeating 2017 US Open champion Sloane Stephens in the second round.

Fernandez made a second-round appearance at the US Open and advanced to the third round of the French Open, where she took a 5-1 first-set lead over Petra Kvitova before the two-time major champion came back to win.

Fernandez thinks her 2021 will be even more successful. Her plan is to reach the top 10 by the end of the year.

Thiago Seyboth Wild wasn’t exactly the favorite entering the Chile Open last February after cracking the top 200 for the first time. But having notched one of the biggest wins of his career the week prior at the Rio Open in 3 hours, 49 minutes — the longest match ever in tournament history — over Alejandro Davidovich Fokina, and taking World No. 32 Borna Ćorić to three sets the next round, the then-19-year old Brazilian tennis player was flying high entering the event.

What he did over the course of the week in Santiago was even more impressive.

Seyboth Wild knocked off three seeds en route to the title, becoming the first player born in the 2000s to win an ATP event and the youngest Brazilian champion in the Open era.

He found mixed results after the restart, losing in the first round of the US Open and not making it past qualifying at the French Open. But he made a finals appearance at a Challenger event in Aix-en-Provence, which lifted him to a career-high No. 106 in the rankings.

Seyboth Wild hopes to build off what he achieved in 2020 in the new year, although he says he focused more on some of the small things during the preseason.

Here’s the complete list in alphabetical order:

Carlos Alcaraz
Age: 17
Ranking: 141
Country: Spain
Career highlights: Winner of three ATP Challenger titles and three ITF Futures titles; Won his ATP main draw debut at the 2020 Rio Open

Bianca Andreescu
Age: 20
Ranking: 7
Country: Canada
Career highlights: Champion, 2019 US Open, 2019 Indian Wells and 2019 Canadian Open

Amanda Anisimova
Age: 19
Ranking: 30
Country: USA
Career highlights: Semifinals, 2019 French Open; Champion, 2019 Copa Colsanitas

Felix Auger-Aliassime
Age: 20
Ranking: 21 (77 in doubles)
Country: Canada
Career highlights: Fourth round, 2020 US Open; Six-time ATP finalist; Doubles champion, 2020 Paris Masters

Leylah Fernandez
Age: 18
Ranking: 88
Country: Canada
Career highlights: Third round, 2020 French Open; Finalist, 2020 Mexican Open

Hugo Gaston
Age: 20
Ranking: 162
Country: France
Career highlights: Fourth round, 2020 French Open

Coco Gauff
Age: 16
Ranking: 48 (45 in doubles)
Country: USA
Career highlights: Fourth round, 2019 Wimbledon and 2020 Australian Open; Doubles quarterfinals, 2020 Australian Open; Champion, 2019 Linz Open; Doubles champion, 2019 Washington Open and 2019 Luxembourg Open

Varvara Gracheva
Age: 20
Ranking: 94
Country: Russia
Career highlights: Third round, 2020 US Open; Seven ITF titles

Kaja Juvan
Age: 20
Ranking: 104
Country: Slovenia
Career highlights: Second round, 2019 Wimbledon, 2020 US Open, 2020 French Open; Seven ITF titles

Sebastian Korda
Age: 20
Ranking: 118
Country: USA
Career highlights: Fourth round, 2020 French Open; One title on ATP Challenger Tour

Marta Kostyuk
Age: 18
Ranking: 99 (112 in doubles)
Country: Ukraine
Career highlights: Third round, 2018 Australian Open, 2020 US Open; Three ITF singles titles, two ITF doubles titles

Ann Li
Age: 20
Ranking: 98
Country: USA
Career highlights: Third round, 2020 US Open; Three ITF titles

Caty McNally
Age: 19
Ranking: 121 (42 in doubles)
Country: USA
Career highlights: Third round, 2020 US Open; Doubles quarterfinals, 2020 Australian Open; Doubles champion, 2019 Washington Open and 2019 Luxembourg Open

Lorenzo Musetti
Age: 18
Ranking: 128
Country: Italy
Career highlights: Semifinals, 2020 Sardinia; Third round, 2020 Italian Open; One ATP Challenger title and two ITF Futures titles

Brandon Nakashima
Age: 19
Ranking: 166
Country: USA
Career highlights: Second round, 2020 US Open; One ATP Challenger title and two ITF Futures titles

Anastasia Potapova
Age: 19
Ranking: 101 (133 in doubles)
Country: Russia
Career highlights: Second round, 2019 Australian Open, French Open, Wimbledon; Finalist, 2018 Moscow River Cup, 2018 Tashkent Open; Doubles champion, 2018 Moscow River Cup, 2019 Lausanne

Thiago Seyboth Wild
Age: 20
Ranking: 116
Country: Brazil
Career highlights: First round, 2020 US Open; Champion, 2020 Chile Open

Jannik Sinner
Age: 19
Ranking: 37
Country: Italy
Career highlights: Quarterfinals, 2020 French Open; Champion, 2020 Sofia Open, 2019 Next Gen ATP Finals

Iga Swiatek
Age: 19
Ranking: 17 (75 in doubles)
Country: Poland
Career highlights: Champion, 2020 French Open

Clara Tauson
Age: 18
Ranking: 152
Country: Denmark
Career highlights: Second round, 2020 French Open; Seven ITF titles

Dayana Yastremska
Age: 20
Ranking: 29 (90 in doubles)
Country: Ukraine
Career highlights: Fourth round, 2019 Wimbledon; Champion, 2018 Hong Kong, 2019 Hua Hin, 2019 Strasbourg

Garbine Muguruza to Play This Year’s Hopman Cup

Posted on October 3, 2018 by Tom Castaneda

Garbine Muguruza is ready to take on the world…

The 24-year-old Spanish-Venezuelan tennis player and compatriot David Ferrer will represent Spain in the Hopman Cup mixed teams event in late December.

The eight-country tournament is scheduled from December 29 to January 5 on indoor hard courts at Perth Arena. It’s used by the players as a tuneup event for the Australian Open, which begins on January 14 in Melbourne.

Serena Williams and Roger Federer have also committed to play, while former Australian Open champion Angelique Kerber and Alexander Zverev will represent Germany.

Frances Tiafoe will be Williams’ partner for the United States, while Belinda Bencic will again represent Switzerland with Federer to defend the title they won in January over Kerber and Zverev in the final.

Williams and Federer are scheduled to play mixed doubles against each other when the U.S. meets Switzerland on January 1.

Hopman Cup Teams:
Australia: Matthew Ebden and Ashleigh Barty
France: Lucas Pouille and Alize Cornet
Germany: Alexander Zverev and Angelique Kerber
Britain: Cameron Norrie and Katie Boulter
Greece: Stefanos Tsitsipas and Maria Sakkari
Spain: David Ferrer and Garbine Muguruza
Switzerland: Roger Federer and Belinda Bencic
United States: Frances Tiafoe and Serena Williams

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Celebrating the Latino Influence

Tag Archives: Belinda Bencic