WTA Official End Of Year Rankings

by Savannah

Here are the top twenty women players for 2013.

1. Serena Williams 13260

2. Victoria Azarenka 8046

3. Li Na 6045

4. Maria Sharapova 5891

5. Agnieszka Radwanska 5875

6. Petra Kvitova 4775

7. Sara Errani 4435

8. Jelena Jankovic 4170

9. Angelique Kerber 3965

10. Caroline Wozniacki 3520

11. Simona Halep 3335

12. Sloane Stephens 3185

13. Marion Bartoli 3172

14. Roberta Vinci 3170

15. Sabine Lisicki 2920

16. Ana Ivanovic 2850

17. Carla Suarez Navarro 2735

18. Samantha Stosur 2675

19. Maria Kirilenko 2640

20. Kirsten Flipkens 2495

Serena Williams is 5,214 points ahead of Victoria Azarenka, the only woman who comes even close to her point total. The rest of the top ten are eating the dust of the top player.


Source: Matthew Stockman/Getty Images Europe)

Serena had a great year, a career year to be honest in 2013. She played a full schedule for the first time in recent memory and the toll it took on her mentally and physically was clear in Istanbul. She was running right up to the wall and somehow managed not to run into it. It looked for awhile in the final that Li Na would slam her face first into it but that turned out to be an illusion since Li was being stage managed by her coach, her every move dictated by him. Once Li was forced to stop cheating Serena showed that even running on fumes her killer instinct, her will to win would overcome any of her rivals.

I'm going to be honest here. Serena is 31 now. Her team got her over the finish line this time but will she be able to repeat what she accomplished this year? Will she hit the ground running in Melbourne this coming January? Will she be able to play the schedule she played one more time? In my opinion I don't think she will. She will play the majors including Miami during the US spring hard court swing and Charleston. The big question is will she play Basel again? She got a great welcome from the tournament and the fans there but a championship season depends on more than sentiment. And lets not forget the 2014 YEC will require the women to go from Europe to Asia and all that entails.

In fact the WTA's increased emphasis on Asia is going to force all the players to have to make interesting choices about where and when they play. I'll take the time now to say I'm going to miss Istanbul. The fans there are enthusiastic about women's tennis, a sentiment that's not shared by many fans anywhere else in the world.

But back to the top players.

I'm not sure Victoria Azarenka will hold on to the Number Two ranking. She appeared almost disinterested at the end of the year and you have to wonder if her mind is elsewhere. She appeared in her boyfriend Stefan Gordy's last video and the bright lights can be distracting. Li Na is close but if she has become dependent on Carlos Rodriguez to guide her every move I don't know if on her own she'll be able to push past Victoria, assuming Victoria is still interested. Don't forget Victoria's infamous ten minute medical time out because "she had to win" and it seemed like a good idea to feign injury. The warning Kader Nouni gave to Li may have set the tone for how other chair umps will approach the problem of Carlos Rodriguez. Let's see if he chairs any more of her matches next year or if another ump seems to always in the chair for her matches.

I'm reading all this stuff about Maria Sharapova stepping away from the sport because of her "recurring shoulder issue". Yeah right. With Azarenka and Li ahead of her now and threats being made about her exit I can see more soft draws to get her through to the quarters of majors, pretty much what they've been doing all of her career.
Don't forget Sharapova has all those endorsements that depend on her being a tennis star. Of course we don't know the terms of those contracts and maybe they're going to expire. I'll believe Sharapova is leaving the game when I see it.

I would love to know how Agniezska Radwanska feels looking back on her year. On the outside looking in I'd think she's a bit disappointed. I also think she had some kind of injury this year. Remember all those Player's Party pics where she was wearing flats all the time? Aga is not that girl. I was also surprised that she checked out of the YEC so early. It was obvious that mentally she was on a beach somewhere having an umbrella drink or two. She has firmed up her game and become a bit more offensive minded though and it'll be interesting to see how she plays in Oz.

There isn't much to say about Petra Kvitova. Instead of playing all those exhibitions in the Czech Republic she needs to get in better shape. As an asthmatic - she was seen using her inhaler court side during the YEC - she's always going to have some issues. Her gut hanging over the top of her skirt shouldn't be one of them.

I'm not even going to give more than a sentence or two to Sara Errani. She has no business in the top ten of the main tour. If you get a chance go and see her play live. She's a junk baller with no serve. She can give people a hard time given the right circumstances but I'm still pissed about the two hours of my life she took playing a match that had fans in the stands going "for fuck's sake".

Of the three women left, Jelena Jankovic, Angelique Kerber and Caroline Wozniacki they can move up in ranking but it's going to depend on how they think about how they ended the year and what they expect of themselves for next year.

Wozniacki as we all know finally announced that her father will be stepping aside and that Thomas Högstedt will be her coach for 2014. I'm not quite sure what he will bring to her game but there's no doubt she has to improve her aggressiveness on court. JJ, under her brother's tutelage, has to be happy about how she ended the year. If she can keep it up she's going to make herself relevant again.

As for Kerber she shouldn't have been shoe horned into the YEC and she may think more of her abilities than she should. She's got a wonky serve and trouble closing out the big girls. She's not my cup of tea but it seems some are really anxious to make her a favorite.

I am going to mention two players not in the top ten, Simona Halep and Sloane Stephens. She had a very nice end to the year and won a total of six titles out of the blue. Fans are predicting her to take the top ten by storm. One thing about the WTA is that doing well on the International level and so so in the majors is a route to the top that many have taken in the past. JJ and Wozniacki of course come to mind. You just play as much as you can physically stand and suddenly you're in the top five or approaching the top three. Halep is going to have to play big tournaments better. She's going to have to get past Jelena, Angelique and Caroline. None of them are going to hold the door open for her.

Stephens problems are different from those of Halep. Sloane became the Queen of Semifinals in 2013 since she could never get herself into a final. The one thing I think Sloane needs to do is trust her instincts. She does think pretty well on court when she's not throwing temper tantrums because frankly her opponents don't give a shit that she beat an injured Serena in Melbourne early in the year. It's fascinating that she plays a great first set with minimal interference from her coach. After a good first set the coach comes out and whatever he tells her she goes off the rails and stops doing what she was doing. All that smoke blown up her skirt by those around her didn't help her one bit and at some point someone is going to have to cull the herd that surrounds her now. I don't know what happened to her first coach but he seems out of the picture now. He played up her strengths and her on court attitude was so much better. Sloane you're not the shit. Not yet anyway. You're young I know but you've got to start handling your business.

Finally I can't say enough about the effect the increased WTA presence in Asia will have on the players. It has to be depressing to play in mostly empty stadiums where canned cheers are pumped in to give the illusion that there are really lots of fans there when that's obviously not the case. As for fans twelve to fourteen hour time differences don't make it easy to see matches and no one likes scoreboard watching. I'd like to be wrong but I don't think I am.
I plan to watch as much women's tennis as I can and I'm sure other fans will as well.

I also hope the WTA will start promoting the SPORT of women's tennis and not try and sell women's tennis as a bunch of hoochie's who happen to play tennis. We're often told that blondes are big in Asia so I guess that's the emphasis on players like Sabine Lisicki, Kerber and yes, Sharapova. That's why I don't see Pova walking away from the sport. They're going to find some way for her to win big again. You can bet that it won't involve her making too many changes to her game though. I think that horse is long gone.

Miami & The WTA

by Savannah



There are those who seem to think that Agnieszka Radwanska woke up in this year and decided she was going to play watchable tennis. The reality is that she woke up late last year.

I've never been able to watch Agnieszka play (I'm trying to learn how to spell her last name and not keep calling her Aggie or Aga). If I had not slept well the night before and I knew Agnieszka was playing I was thrilled knowing I would have a good nap. That changed towards the end of last year when I was watching one of her matches. I was actually interested and watched her dismantle her opponent with cleverness and guile. I had never realized that her strategy was to lull her opponent to sleep and then go for the jugular. It's not scintillating tennis - it reminds me of Martina Hingis who I had the misfortune of seeing play live twice - but in this age of power tennis it's definitely something many of the current crop of WTA players haven't seen much of in recent years. The ones who have - Venus Williams and Serena Williams - may be past their prime now no matter how much they want to prove otherwise. Somehow I don't think that they'll be dispensing what they know about that style to their peers.

So who has beaten Agnieszka since she started on her tear? Current WTA #1 Victoria Azarenka did it with a little sleight of hand - or should I say ankle - that ruptured what was said to have been a friendship.

Let's look at the WTA Top Ten as of Monday April 2, 2012.

1 Azarenka, Victoria 31/07/89 BLR 8980

2 Sharapova, Maria 19/04/87 RUS 7930

3 Kvitova, Petra 08/03/90 CZE 7095

4 Radwanska, Agnieszka 06/03/89 POL 6710

5 Stosur, Samantha 30/03/84 AUS 5825

6 Wozniacki, Caroline 11/07/90 DEN 5720

7 Bartoli, Marion 02/10/84 FRA 5020

8 Li, Na 26/02/82 CHN 4880

9 Zvonareva, Vera 07/09/84 RUS 3895

10 Williams, Serena 26/09/81 USA 3830

The first thing that jumps out at me is the age of the top four women verses the age of the bottom 3, numbers 8 - 10. Samantha Stosur is ranked number five and is thus the oldest player of the Golden Circle or Top Five.

Regular readers know that I've been saying for the last couple of years that Victoria Azarenka doesn't have the temperament to be a Number One. That doesn't take away from the fact that she fought her way to the top taking the Australian Open along the way but as she exhibited in Miami that no amount of work on the part of her coach Sam Sumyk can change her nature.

In case you don't remember she was getting her ass handed to her in her match against Dominika Cibulkova. The crowd on the Grandstand Court was hostile to say the least but as a top pro hostile crowds are something she's going to have to learn to deal with. Instead at one crucial point Azarenka hit a ball in the direction of a lines person. I don't think that particular lines person had done anything to Azarenka. Instead she just happened to be standing there doing the job they were being paid to do. Azarenka didn't hit a lob. She hit the ball really hard.

Some talking head said that the Number 1 shouldn't be on the Grandstand court at all. My question is why? Would it make it different if the fans were booing in an empty main court? The number one should want to play in front of any crowd and give fans reason to like him or her. Hitting balls at lines people isn't going to do that.

I should say that Cibulkova fell off my like list after she let Azarenka take the match from her and go on to win a match she should've lost. The reason why will be found in the end notes of this post.

On to Maria Sharapova. You can be a fan of hers all you want. Even I've come around to admiring her fight. But Sharapova's game is as predictable as the sun coming up in the morning. Yes she screams and hits the ball like it personally offends her but in the end she is playing the same way now as she did when she first came on the scene. Any coach worth his salt ( there are so few women coaches I think it's safe to say "his salt") should be able to construct a plan to neutralize her.

What has been happening with Sharapova is that they "hide" her in the middle of the draw somewhere. Even ranked #2 she still gets a draw consisting of players who have no weapons against her power. When she came up against Agnieszka who was not afraid of her or her reputation neither she or her coach could find a way to counter how Agnieszka played her. I do hope that Maria's coach's advice consists of more than "wait for her to implode". Agnieszka has become a player who is not going to implode mentally unless you box her in.

As for Petra Kvitova she still has the deer in headlights look when she takes the court. Her game is also very similar to Sharapova's especially when it comes to movement and I don't see that changing much.

Samantha Stosur has been a total hot mess since defeating Serena Williams at last years US Open. Like Kvitova the pressure a top player faces has gotten to her.

As for Caroline Wozniacki nothing has changed. She's trying to be a little more aggressive in her play but in the end she's still the same Caroline who needs her father to give her a pep talk or tell her what to do.

Vera Zvonareva has been in a tailspin since she made a sudden and unexpected coaching change last year. She's in the top ten but right now she's not a top ten player. To say Li Na has been inconsistent is an understatement. She won the French Open and now seems totally baffled as to what to do to generate any momentum to move higher in the rankings.

Marion Bartoli wants it badly but she's joined the ranks of other quirky players from France. She seems to have cut back on her jumping and carrying on between points but she seems to be unable to make a change in her mental approach that will propel her into the Golden Circle.

That leaves Agnieszka. Has she won a Slam? No. Winning Miami is a big deal but now lets see how she plays in the dirt. As I said I've ignored her for so long I can't honestly discuss her prior dirt play. I could look it up but I'm pretty sure the way she's playing now is not the way she was playing last year or the year before so all bets are off.

If we don't look out we'll see another Slamless wonder sitting atop of the WTA rankings. At least we know how that debate goes don't we?

End Notes

There were some jaw dropping quotes made during the Sony Ericsson Open. They speak for themselves.

Why Dominika Cibulkova will never be top five. This is from her presser after losing to Victoria Azarenka Monday.

Q. Do you think there was any particular turning point in the match?
DOMINIKA CIBULKOVA: The turning point was 6 1 up and 5 2 up on my serve, and I just didn't finish the match, you know. Until then, I was killing her from the return and just from the forehand.
After that, I just didn't want to go for so much. I just wanted her to beat herself. That didn't happen, you know. I gave her like very little small chance.

Andy Roddick suffers from foot in mouth disease.

ANDY RODDICK

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.

Q. So how do you feel? It's a horrible question, but...
ANDY RODDICK: How do I feel?

Q. Yeah, after the big excitement last night. You said it yourself, you couldn't get that excited because you had this match to play today.
ANDY RODDICK: Yeah, I mean, there's no real way around it. When you have to make a quick recovery, it will expose you if you're not in shape.
Most people can play a match and it's fine. It's the recovery where it kind of defines you.
You know, there are a lot of positives out of this week. I feel healthy. You know, I played matches, and I was running, you know, hard. Um, my lack of any sort of fitness regime, you know, on my leg is apparent, but that's something that is a matter of work. It's not a matter of health. That's something that's in my control.
Um, I just didn't have it physically. I got to about 4 All, and I was you know, I'm out of shape. That's it, you know. So, yeah, I mean, that's it.

Caroline Wozniacki feels entitled...

Q. Does it make you feel better that the replay on television showed that the serve was actually on the line?
CAROLINE WOZNIACKI: Sorry?

Q. Does it make you feel better that the replay showed that Maria's serve at the end actually was on the line?
CAROLINE WOZNIACKI: No, it doesn't. No, because I think when the ball is so close that I think he should give her a chance to challenge at least when I don't have any challenges.
She was gonna challenge it, anyways. So if it shows it's good, it's good. If it shows it's out, it's out. The ball was so close that it might as well have been out.

Q. You seemed to have other problems with him throughout the match, kind of, or later in the match?
CAROLINE WOZNIACKI: Well, during this match? No, I didn't have any problems with him.

All of these interviews can be found in their entirety on the Sony Ericsson Open website.