Strong tennis field produces challenging draw
NEW HAVEN — Looking to highlight the history and architecture of the Yale campus, Anne Worcester came up with the idea to move the Connecticut Open’s official draw ceremony to a different locale this year.
“The Italian Open holds their ceremony at the Coliseum,” the tournament director reasoned. “We wanted to take advantage of one of the beautiful buildings of Yale.”
So Friday’s festivities occurred in front of the Sterling Memorial Library, smack dab in the Yale campus, rather than at the Connecticut Tennis Center as in years past. It may not be the Coliseum, but it provided a fittingly attractive backdrop to what promises to be one of the event’s most intriguing weeks in a while.
Half of the world’s top 10 players are in this year’s Connecticut Open, the tournament’s best field in 12 years. World No. 1 and reigning French Open champ Simona Halep headlines that group, but the field has plenty of talent and depth beyond those top-10 players.
Look no further than some of the first-round matches unveiled at Friday’s ceremony. World No. 6 and three-time champ Petra Kvitova gets 20-time WTA Tour winner (including 2016 CT Open champ) Agnieszka Radwanska. Defending champ Daria Gavrilova faces rising star Kristina Mladenovic, while No. 10 Julia Goerges drew eight-time WTA winner Dominika Cibulkova.
“You want to have tough matches and have the real challenges,” said Goerges, a Wimbledon semifinalist this year. “That’s what I’m gonna get from her. It’s a nice preparation for the U.S. Open because you can also face her there, and it’s good for me to get a big challenge right away.”
Being scheduled the week before the U.S. Open can be a blessing or a curse for the tournament. Some players want to take the week to rest or, like Serena Williams this year, have numerous other obligations. Others, like Goerges, want to get in as many matches as possible before New York.
“Women’s tennis is so competitive right now,” Worcester noted. “When players don’t get enough matches leading into fourth and final Grand Slam of the year, they know New Haven is the same surface, the same climate, the same time zone, the same ball as the U.S. Open, and 90 minutes away. They feel like they’re already in-market. The
players have always coined this ‘the calm before the storm of New York.’ ”
But the Connecticut Open has fallen on this week for as long as recent memory. So what attracted so many top players this year?
For one, the tournament got “lucky,” according to Worcester, in getting some early commitments like No. 5 Caroline Garcia, Kvitova and Halep.
“When I got a call that Simona Halep wanted more matches from her coach, Darren Cahill, I was so pleasantly shocked,” Worcester admitted.
Worcester also had a successful recruiting trip to Wimbledon, urging players to enter by the July 10 deadline but telling some top players to contact her if for some reason they needed a last-minute wild card.
That’s how the final two commitments, No. 8 Karolina Pliskova and No. 24 CoCo Vandeweghe, were secured.
The city and its worldclass restaurants don’t hurt, either. Goerges was on her way to Claire’s Corner Copia shortly after Friday’s ceremony was over.
But perhaps as big a reason as any, the players know they’ll be treated as well as or better than at any other event on the WTA Tour.
“It’s a small draw, we make everything easy for the players,” Worcester noted. “I’d like to think that our player services and all of our staff treats them well and welcomes them warmly. I think the players consider it a really nice place to be the week before the U.S. Open. They love our restaurants”
“I’m not very surprised about the strong field,” added Goerges, before heading to lunch at Claire’s Corner Copia. “Anne does a terrific job. I think that’s always a point for players to come back, cities where you do well and feel well, it makes it even more fun.”
Goerges, playing in New Haven for the first time since winning the doubles title in 2015, injured her left calf during a match earlier this week in Cincinnati and isn’t 100 percent yet. But she’s confident she’ll get the right treatment to have her ready for her first match.
She’ll need it. Like many of the other top players in this year’s deep field, her first-round opponent is a tough one.