Race to Fort Worth

[jimlosaltos]

Is it just me, or does using "Race to Fort Worth" to describe the year end(ish) WTA Tour Finals sound odd?

Regardless, there's more odd than the name.

This from nom-du-web Oleg S via uber-coach Ivan Ljubicic:

"all 12 finalists of the six biggest WTA tournaments of the 2021 season — Grand Slams, YEC, Olympics — will NOT be ranked Top 10 at the end of the 2022 season. And 10 of 12 won't even be ranked Top 20."

Further, on the top finishers in Last Year's WTA Tour Final in Guadalajara "Champion (Muguruza), finalist (Kontaveit) and semifinalist (Badosa) of the 2021 WTA Year-end Championships will finish the 2022 season outside Top 10"

Here are the latest scenarios for qualifying, for people that like to solve puzzles:
https://www.wtatennis.com/news/28608...for-fort-worth

We've already come to think of WTA as a synonym for "Chaos" but this is beyond randomness.

Ivan would like to know why? Dimitry says it's all about "Ego"?

filedata/fetch?id=98810&d=1666293525&type=thumb

[stotty]

Not sure what Tursunov is alluding to when he cites ''Ego''.

[jimlosaltos]

Meanwhile, Pegula meets the winner of Sakkari v Bouzkoa for the title in Guadalajara.

The first semi is rain delayed after an 83-minute first set, so whoever comes out of that one will have to play 1.5 - 2 matches in one day.

Having outdoor, hard court tournaments in rainy seasons for those areas (Naples, Guadalajara ) yields predictable problems.

It's rather unusual that both Pegula and Coco Gauff, qualified for both her singles and doubles debuts at the WTA Finals,

[jimlosaltos]

Sat Nov 5, round robin is over, semifinals almost set.

Sakkari won the Richey Group, thus avoiding a semi vs Iga who won the Tracy Austin opposite side. Instead, she'll meet the winner of Garica vs Kasatkina.

Sabalenka blasted her way through. Her "reward" is meeting Iga in the other semi

Here's a great capture from HawkEye stats of how Sakkari sprinted to the end. What incredible returning! 95% of second serves returned at an average of 76 MPH.

filedata/fetch?id=98986&d=1667670186&type=thumb

[jimlosaltos]

Today's semifinals. I believe these times are EST, but not sure.

Schedule of play

• Not before 3:30 p.m.: [5] M. Sakkari vs. [6] C. Garcia
• Not before 7 p.m.: [1] I. Swiatek vs. [7] A. Sabalenka

[stroke]

I did see some news report that the attendance there has been abysmal.

[jimlosaltos]

I did see some news report that the attendance there has been abysmal.

Yup. In fairness, the WTA's winter schedule since canceling/ being cancelled by the Asian swing is incredibly challenging.

They had a big, positive surprise when they held the WTA TF in Guadalupe last year. Big success. Good turnout. So, they tried to leverage that by creating an event there, plus moving the TF to Texas before going back to China next year.

Texas appears to be a failure, overall. One problem, opening night was opposite the World Series with the Houston Astros and Monday Night football, I believe also with a Texas team.

Opps.

Another is that the event was announced only weeks in advance, for unknown reasons.

[jimlosaltos]

We have a surprise champ at the WTA's Tour Finals in Fort Worth, veteran Carolina Garcia topped Aryna Sabalenka in a battle of big serves and big swings, 7-6 (4), 6-4, collecting $1.57 million and 1,375 rankings points (highlights & discussion at that link). Garcia, who led the WTA in aces, hit 11 aces last night and didn't face a breakpoint.

https://www.wtatennis.com/news/2898398/garcia-caps-off-comeback-season-with-title-at-the-wta-finals

At 29 yo the Frenchwoman is having her best year and I believe she is the only woman on the tour, including Iga, to have won titles on all three surfaces. (It's a bit difficult to figure that out from the WTA site, so please correct me if I'm wrong).

The finals match-up is perhaps a logical outcome to playing on a temporary court that players in the early rounds called extremely slow even by today's diminished standards. One of the odd dichotomies in tennis is how court speed affects WTA play differently than it does ATP matches. Slow courts generally help men that are better at defense and tactics by slowing down opponents' huge serves and forehands. Yet on the WTA slow courts seem to favor the bigger hitters. More tactical, consistent WTA players seem unable to end points while huge swingers are able to "hit through the courts".

Kudos to Garcia. Andy Murray once semi-infamously labeled here "the world next number one" after she beat Maria Sharapova at the French as a teen. Since then she's had a very good but not luminous career. Her breakout at 29 yo might be credited in part to her father who changed her tactics this year. We saw Garcia at the US Open using aggressive court position, including returning first serves from well inside the baseline, to disrupt opponents. Backfired in the semifinals against Jabeur, but it got her to the semis to begin with. Tactics that few others use can be disruptive simply by taking opponents out of their comfort zone.

An irony of round robin tennis is that you might have to beat the same person twice. Another big hitter (if not a physically big player) that did well in Texas, was Maria Sakkari -- who beat both of the finalists, yet lost in the semifinals to Garica.

filedata/fetch?id=99036&d=1667937328&type=thumb

#