It was last week for the best tennis players on the planet on the courts of Guadalajara, Mexico, as the men’s best took part in the sixth edition of the Laver Cup. Following the outbreak of the pandemic and the sensational Peng Shuai case that could not be solved, ATP 250 and WTA 250 tournaments started in China, where tennis players did not travel.

WTA 1000 Guadalajara

Elina Svitolina, who did not play in the US Open, did not go to Mexico. He is currently recovering from his ankle injury. Ukraine’s singles honor was defended by Angelina Kalinina, Marta Kostyuk and Dayana Yastremskaya.

It so happened that the composition of participants in competitions of this caliber was quite weak. The organizer failed to get the 64 strong athletes on base, so the first round looked like an easy walk or another qualifying hurdle for most.

At the start, Kalinina easily beat American Grace Min (6:2, 6:0), who is ranked in the fourth hundred in the world rankings, as expected. However, Yastremskaya and Kostyuk experienced difficulties even at this stage. Dayana tormented for two hours in two sets against 29-year-old Mexican Ana Sofia Sanchez (7:6, 6:4) from the fifth side, and Kostyuk even gave the match to Canadian Stacey Fung (6:3, 2:6, 6: 0). However, it is also worth noting that Martha’s opponent is a little stronger and has concentration problems.

The second round was also the last for all Ukrainians. Angelina faced Sofia Kenin for the fourth time this season and lost for the third time (2:6, 6:7), although the chances of a comeback in the second match were quite high. The American is currently on a good roll, playing in the WTA-500 final against Barbora Krejcikova in San Diego a week ago and reaching the top four in Guadalajara. He has been knocking on the door of the top thirty since Monday and will try to surprise everyone at the Australian Open 2024, just like he did 4 years ago. As for Kalinina, she is still in the top 30 and will lose less than 200 points by the end of the year, if we take into account hidden reserves from tournaments in the uncountable category (at this stage they are not included in the list). number of tournaments). The task is in principle within my abilities.

Yastremskaya ended up with former world number one Victoria Azarenka. Dayana had already beaten this tennis player, but the Ukrainian player was different and was higher in the rankings than her opponent. Although Azarenka is no longer in the top ranks, she is still among the top thirty. The match was competitive, with Yastremskaya missing two set points in the second game (4:6, 6:7). As a result, Victoria gained only 5 more points, crushing the noticeably outmatched Kudermetova in the next round and losing to Caroline Garcia of France. Meanwhile, Diana has returned to the top 100 since Monday and has almost nothing to defend by the end of the year.

In the second round, Kostyuk played against Alena Ostapenko for the first time in her career, Marta again could not oppose anything to the powerful hitting tennis player. Kostyuk fell to 3rd place in the rankings WTAHe has almost nothing to defend until the end of the season. These 90 points that will be lost will be covered by 85 points from other tournaments.

The tournament in Guadalajara continued without the Ukrainians and there were some surprises. Last year’s finalist Maria Sakkari won the championship by beating Emiliana Arango from Colombia in the quarter-finals and Caroline Dolehide from the USA in the final. The Greek athlete also defeated Storm Hunter, Camila Giorgi and Caroline Garcia in competitions in Mexico. It’s not often you see a tournament path like this to victory at a thousand points. Meanwhile, Dolehide reached the final of a WTA tournament for the first time and broke into the top fifty.

The Ukrainians were not successful in doubles either; Lyudmila Kichenok, who was paired with Arancha Rus, was defeated as the third seed in the second round. We keep in mind that we will play against Russia and the Dutch national team in the Billie Jean King Cup on November 11-12 in Vilnius.

WTA 250 Guangzhou

Katerina Beindl went to a tournament in China and lost in the first round to fifth-seeded Spaniard Rebeka Masarova. The Ukrainian lost her fourth match in a row, has almost 300 points to defend until the end of the year, and this is bad news for Katerina; It will be incredibly difficult to get into the top hundred.

In singles, the first championship and first final at the WTA 250 level was won by 22-year-old Wang Xiyu. In the later stages, the Chinese woman beat Gret Minnen and Magda Linett, the opponents at this level are very good.

In Guangzhou, Nadezhda Kichenok continued to impress, playing well in the doubles with Anna-Lena Fridsam. After the championship in Osaka, the girls won two more matches and lost in the 1/2 finals only to their rivals from China in the championship tiebreaker. Guo Hanyu and Jiang Xinyu eventually took the title.

The tournament in Guangzhou was also remembered for the abnormal temperature of 40 degrees. Danish Clara Tauson had to leave the field on a stretcher after suffering heat stroke during her match against Yulia Putintseva.

Clara Tauson collapsed at the beginning of the 3rd set, probably due to extreme heat, had to withdraw from the game and was carried off the court… she’s been struggling physically lately, she definitely needs some time off to figure things out pic.twitter.com/Krz8Urb4ne

— Melanie Lautrup (@melanie_lautrup) September 20, 2023

Laver Cup

The sixth edition of the Laver Cup, the brainchild of Roger Federer and his manager Tony Godsick, was held in Vancouver from Friday to Sunday local time. This year the competition was moved from London to Vancouver and without the Big Four the lineup looked less spectacular. However, two players in the top 10 were from Europe, and four were in the top 15 from the World team. This was the second favorite.

If you remember, last year the world’s young and hungry team won the championship in a sensational way by beating 5 people in the top 10, Federer, Murray and Berrettini. This was the first defeat of the European team in these competitions, before that all the championships remained with them.

The start of the competition this year was surprising; The rest of the world team won the first matchday outright (4-0), losing only one match in the second (10-2). Before the final day, Team Europe faced the difficult task of winning all matches worth three points on Sunday (one on Friday, two on Saturday). There was no need to suffer for long; Americans Ben Shelton and Francis Tiafoe achieved the desired result for their team in the first doubles match.

There were also scandals in the competition. Gael Monfils and Felix Auger-Aliassime got into an argument during the match on the first day of the match. The Canadian did not like that the Frenchman was spending time between draws and trying to flirt with the public. In fact, when Felix asked the referee if this was an exhibition tournament, he was answered that the matches were played according to ATP rules. Apparently the organizers invited Monfils to entertain the audience a little, but they forgot to warn Auger-Aliassime about it. Later, Gael even had to write an article stating that the smile on his face during matches did not prevent him from playing seriously.

ATP 250 Chengdu / ATP 250 Zhuhai

Also this week, the ATP men’s tournament took place in China for the first time since the Shanghai Masters in 2019. Unfortunately it’s not over yet, the semi-finals will be held on Monday and the squad is good too. For example, Grigor Dimitrov won the 400th match of his career in this tournament.

ATP Challenger, WTA 125 and ITF tournaments

After his successful performance in the national team, Alexey Krutykh went to Saint-Tropez (France), where he reached the second round, losing to second place Sebastian Ofner. Vladislav Orlov lost in the heats of a similar category competition in Romania. Vitaly Sachko lost to Dennis Novak in the second round of clay competition in Bad Waltersdorf (Austria).

Katarina Zavacka performed well at the WTA 125 tournament in Parma. In the second round, she faced world number 71 Ana Bogdan from Romania on clay, but lost 4:6 in the final set.

26-year-old Christina Wozniak became the doubles champion of the ITF W15 tournament held in Monastir, and this was her first title at this level.

It is also worth noting that last week ITF President David Haggerty was re-elected for a new four-year term. The current president of the International Tennis Federation received 318 votes (72.94%) in the elections. He has chaired the ITF since September 2015.

off the field

The season is slowly coming to an end and the top four participants of this year’s WTA Final Tournament, which will take place in Cancun, Mexico (29 October – 5 November), have already been announced. These are Arina Sabalenko, Iga Swiatek, Coco Goff and Elena Rybakina. Jessica Pegula should be fifth, followed by Vondrousova, Muchova, Jabeur and Sakkari as strong candidates for the remaining three spots. But there are also two WTA 500 tournaments where someone in good shape can shoot, like Beijing and Krejcikova.

Veronica Miroshnichenko, who lost to Lyudmila Kichenok in a doubles match at a tournament in Guadalajara, said she considers herself Ukrainian even though she plays with a Russian passport, which she dreams of throwing away. She plans to change her citizenship in the near future.

A not-so-pleasant incident occurred with Brazilian tennis player Bestris Haddad-Maia at a tournament in Guadalajara. As the world number 20 was getting out of the shower, the doors exploded, causing his hands to be cut.

On Instagram tsitsidosa, created by the highest-rated couple in the modern tennis world, all posts are hidden, no matter what they mean. Let us note that Stefanos Tsitsipas and Paula Badosa announced that they were together in June 2023.