ON THE COURT: ‘It’s very exciting,’
Mississauga teen downs Venus Williams one day after defeating Wozniacki
Canadian tennis player Bianca Andreescu made two key decisions last year that have helped her kick off the 2019 campaign in style.
After recovering from a back injury last summer, she decided to focus on the lower-level Challenger series and quickly returned to form. Andreescu also moved her off-season training location from Boca Raton to the IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla., which allowed her to practise against tougher opponents.
Those calls helped Andreescu start this season feeling strong and assured. The players she has eliminated at the ASB Classic in Auckland, N.Z. — including former world No. 1s Caroline Wozniacki and Venus Williams — can attest to that.
“She showed up in Auckland full of confidence and playing really, really well,” said Canadian women’s head coach Sylvain Bruneau. “I knew that she was going to get into the main draw and play the top players. I believe in her game a lot.”
A day after stunning Wozniacki in straight sets, Andreescu pulled off another big upset Friday by dispatching Williams — a seven-time Grand Slam champion — 6-7 (1), 6-1, 6-3 in quarterfinal play.
“I believe that anything is possible and tonight I think I did the impossible,” Andreescu said in an on-court interview after the match. “I don’t even know what to say. It’s just such an amazing feeling.”
Not bad for a teenage qualifier who started the week ranked No. 152 in the world.
“She’s only 18 and she’s got really, really good potential,” Bruneau said Friday from Melbourne. “From an athletic perspective and also from a competitive standpoint mentally, (she’s) a great athlete. It’s all very exciting.”
After losing the first set and dropping the opening game of the second set, Andreescu won 11 straight games against the sixth-seeded Williams.
“I was like, ‘What is going on? I just broke her five times in a row,’” Andreescu said. “She’s one of the best servers in the game. Today she didn’t serve as well as other matches I’ve seen her play. But I took control of that. It was honestly a gift, maybe like a late Christmas present.”
After winning the first five games in the decisive third set, Andreescu let Williams back in the match.
“I got really tight at 5-0,” she said. “I’m like, ‘I’m one game away from winning this,’ but then she started raising her level and I kind of stepped back. At 5-3, I’m like, ‘OK, screw this. I’m just going to go for everything,’ and that’s what I did and it worked.”
The 38-year-old Williams, who turned pro six years before Andreescu was born, is ranked 39th in the world. Wozniacki, meanwhile, is the world No. 3 and the reigning Australian Open champion.
Next up for the Canadian is a semifinal matchup against third seed and 28th-ranked Hsieh Su-Wei of Taiwan. Unseeded Viktoria Kuzmova of Slovakia faces No. 2 seed Julia Goerges in the other semifinal after the German downed Canadian Eugenie Bouchard 3-6, 6-3, 7-6 (6).
Bouchard, from Westmount, Que., did post a doubles semifinal win Friday with American Sofia Kenin. They beat the fourth-seeded duo of China’s Han Xinyun and Croatia’s Darija Jurak 6-7 (5), 6-4, 10-8.
The hard-court tournament is a warm-up for the Australian Open. Andreescu is hoping to land one of 16 qualifier spots in the 128-player main draw at the first Grand Slam of the season because her ranking is not high enough for direct entry.
After taking time off to rest her back, Andreescu won a Challenger event last October at Florence, S.C.
She followed that up with back-to-back semifinal appearances in Saguenay, Que., and Toronto before closing the season by winning a title in Norman, Okla.
Those performances gave her confidence ahead of her offseason practice sessions in Bradenton.
“She played a lot of sets, a lot of matches there and she kept winning,” Bruneau said. “She kept doing well. She played a bunch of girls in the top 100, top 150. We did some good work. She basically didn’t lose a set in her two weeks there.”
Once in Auckland, Andreescu recorded three straight qualification victories before topping 59th-ranked Timea Babos of Hungary in the first round.
The Canadian has remained consistent during her run at the US$250,000 event. Andreescu, who has battled cough and cold symptoms this week, has used her diverse skill set to flummox her opponents.
Andreescu will top her careerhigh ranking of No.143 (set Aug. 14, 2017) when the new list is released next week, WTA Tour statistics and information director Kevin Fischer said in an email.
It’s too early for specifics, since other results may factor in, but she’s projected to move to No. 114 by reaching the semifinal. A win on Saturday could bump her up to No.107 and a victory in Sunday’s final could launch her as high as No. 89.