Venus Williams wins at Zurich Open; Cara Black & Liezel Huber lift dubs title

Venus Williams won the Zurich Open on Sunday for her second singles title of the season.

Williams beat Italy’s Flavia Pennetta 7-6 (1), 6-2 to take the tournament she last won as a teenager in 1999.

The win should seal the 28-year-old American’s place at the season-ending WTA Tour Championship in Doha next month.

“I love the pressure,” Williams said.

“I need it in my life."

“It is great to come here and play my best tennis of the week in the final against someone who is playing as well as she is.”

Venus is being congratulated by her Dad and her dog, Herald.

Flavia Pennetta (far left), winner Venus Williams, Elmar Ledergerber the Mayor of Zurich, and tournament director Beat Ritschard (far right) pose after the Final Singles match at the Zurich Open tennis tournament.

Pennetta had upset top-ranked Jelena Jankovic in the second round and went in with a 3-1 career record against Williams after beating her in Moscow last week.

“She just played unbelievable today,” the 17th-ranked Pennetta said.

“It is tough to play against someone who serves like she did today. I didn’t have any chance to make any breaks.”

Williams said she would return to Florida before the Nov. 4-9 Tour finale in Qatar.

“I will go home and rest a little bit and continue to prepare and get ready for Doha,” she said.

Williams is expected to climb one place to No. 8 when the new WTA rankings are published Monday; Pennetta hopes to rise three spots to a career-best 14th.

Liezel Huber (left) and Cara Black collected their 9th doubles title of the year and
their first career Zurich trophy.

In the doubles final, Cara Black and Liezel Huber quickly bounced back to their title-winning ways when they clinched the Zurich Open yesterday.

Exactly a week after losing in the final of the Kremlin Cup in Moscow, Russia, top seeds Black and Huber were smiling again yesterday after beating home favourite Patty Schnyder and Anna-Lena Groenefeld of Germany in straight sets 6-1, 7-6 (7-3) in the final of the US$600 000 Tier II indoor tournament, according to reports from the Swiss capital.

This was Black and Huber’s ninth doubles title of the year.

For beating the wildcard pairing of Schnyder and Groenefeld in the final of this year’s Zurich Open, Black and Huber, will split US$30,000 which was at stake for the winners of the doubles title.

They are currently leading the Tour with 5 060 points, with more than 1 800 points over the third player (Katarina Srebotnik with 3 200 points) and with the level of tennis they have been playing these past two years, the domination of the African born duo is most likely to continue for quite some time.

(Via AP, herald.co.zw, Images via Yahoo! Sport, WTA official website)

Rendy Yen-Hsun Lu emerges winner at Tashkent Challenger; Flavio Cipolla & Pavel Snobel take dubs title

Thanks Esther for this press release from the media team at Tashkent Challenger.

Top seeded Yen-Hsun Lu of Chinese Taipei stopped the winning run of Frenchman Mathieu Montcourt to lift the singles title at the $125,000 Tashkent Challenger, an ATP Challenger series event which concluded at the Olympic Tennis School here.

In a one sided final top seed Rendy outplayed Montcourt 6-3, 6-2 in a 1 hour 24 minutes final to take his first title in 3 months.

Rendy won $18000 and 90 ATP points for his win, while Montcourt had to be content with $10,600 and 63 ATP points.

The finalist were also presented with the national dress of Uzbekistan.
The finals played in a full capacity stadium was expected to be a close encounter with both players in good form, but turned out to be damp squib with Rendy taking charge from the very beginning of the match.

“I twisted my ankle four days before coming here and I thought would not be able to play in the event, but my trainer has done a fantastic job and I ended up winning the event,” said an elated Rendy.

"I had a plan for him, I decided to cut the speed and not give my opponent any rhythm, this ploy worked for me," he added.

"My win here is not luck, I beat many good players, I played the best tennis of my career, after my win here I’m confident that I’ll be able to play good tennis and beat many good players in the future."

A dejected Montcourt said all credit to Rendy,

"He did not give me chance at all, basically I’m a patient player wait for my chances, but today I had no chance."

"I was hitting the ball very well, but my legs just did not support me, I was tired after the four good matches I played this week," he added.

Speaking at the prize distribution ceremony the Tournament Director Mr. S. Uthrapathy said that he was hopeful that the Tashkent Challenger would become an annual feature on the ATP calendar.

He added that there will be many more exiting professional tennis events in Uzbekistan next year.

The Mayor of Tashkent Abdukhahhor Tukhtaev, the Deputy Minister of Sports and Culture Erkin Kutibaev, Tournament director S. Uthrapathy and ATP Supervisor Carl Baldwin presented the awards.

In the doubles final on Saturday, Flavio Cipolla and Pavel Snobel won the doubles event after defeated 4th seeded Russian pair of Michail Elgin and Alexandre Kudryatsev 6-3, 6-4 in a one sided encounter.

The winning pair received a purse of $7,750 and 90 points, while runners-up had to be content with $4,500 and 63 points.

“We’re both good friends and have played for the first time and won, may be we will play more events in the future,” said Cipolla.

The Deputy Minister of Sports and Culture Erkin Kutibaev, Tournament director S. Uthrapathy and ATP Supervisor Carl Baldwin presented the awards.

An interview with Michael Berrer at Tashkent Challenger

Once ranked around top 50 in the world Michael Berrer, comes out as straightforward person. Currently ranked 105 in the world Berrer is looking to gain points and more than that a lot of confidence to get him back into the top 50.

Q: Why did you choose to play at Tashkent Challenger this week?

Berrer: One of the reasons I entered the event was to make up points. I dropped quite a lot of points from Moscow, where I had entered the semifinals last year.

Q: After being on the ATP tour and playing at the grand slams, isn’t playing Challengers like coming down a bit?

Berrer: Yes, It’s a Catch 22 situation really, playing at the bigger events I did not win many matches frankly and losing matches surely harms confidence of players. I feel by playing in challengers is not disgrace; a few wins and close matches surely help to regain confidence back into the game.

Q: How was your experience on the ATP tour tennis wise?

Berrer: I played many of the top players in the world like Federer, Schuettler, Roddick at the Grand Slams. Playing on tour is tough, tensions are high, and there is tremendous pressure at events. That’s professional tennis; those who survive and conquer it are winners.

Q: It’s like getting back to basics, what do you expect for yourself in the new season?

Berrer: My aim to play some very good tennis, and get back into the groove and gain confidence and make up points till the end of the year , there a few more events . Then it is to get back to my rankings and then to improve on it steadily.

Q: So do you think the Tashkent challenger will help you in your effort?

Berrer: Surely, I really had not expected this kind of high ranked players to be playing here, and it’s a tough tournament, which is even better for me. I playing well and am feeling comfortable.

Q: This week you have seen a lot of Asian players and you are also played against Lu who is the top Asian Player, Your thoughts on the difference in the game compared to Europeans?

Berrer: The Asians are coming up very strongly and are very tough players, most of them have flat strokes, because they are used to playing on hard courts. Lu is a different player as he has the European style of play.

Q: Is there any difference in the organizational aspect between Asian and European events of this stature?

Berrer: Anytime, hospitality in Asian countries is better than in Europe, Mostly the tournaments are well organized here .

Q: Your comments on the Tashkent Challenger?

Berrer: This is my first time in Tashkent, before coming here there were apprehensions about the event, the food, language. But some of the senior players and other German player who have played in Uzbekistan before have said a lot of good things about how events are organized here.

I’m happy that I came here. I would like to compliment the organizers of this event for putting an excellent week for the players.

(Via Sunder Iyer on behalf of the media team at Tashkent Challenger)

Venus and Serena Williams swinging in style for Harper's Bazaar

Venus and Serena Williams recently posed for the November issue of Harper’s Bazaar.

They were photo shooting on a tennis court but with a little twist.

Playing against each other, the sisters were styled in high fashion dressed from Versace to Ralph Lauren and accessorized from Prada to Jimmy Choo.


(Images via harpersbazaar.com)