Results: Kremlin Cup in Moscow (ATP / WTA)
- Richard Gasquet def. Mikhail Kukushkin 4-6, 6-4, 6-4
- Mikhail Elgin and Denis Istomin def. Ken Skupski and Neal Skupski 6-2, 1-6, 14-12
- Simona Halep def. Samantha Stosur 7-6(1), 6-2
- Svetlana Kuznetsova and Samantha Stosur def. Alla Kudryavtseva and Anastasia Rodionova 6-1, 1-6, 10-8
Results: Stockholm Open in Sweden (ATP)
- Grigor Dimitrov def. David Ferrer 2-6, 6-3, 6-4
- Aisam Ul-Haq Qureshi and Jean-Julien Rojer def. Jonas Bjorkman and Robert Lindstedt 6-2, 6-2
Results: Erste Bank Open in Vienna (ATP)
- Tommy Haas def. Robin Haase 6-3, 4-6, 6-4
- Florin Mergea and Lukas Rosol def. Julian Knowle and Daniel Nestor 7-5, 6-4
Results: Luxembourg Open (WTA)
- Caroline Wozniacki def. Annika Beck 6-2, 6-2
- Stephanie Vogt and Yaninia Wickmayer def. Kristina Barrois and Laura Thorpe 7-6(2), 6-4
Tournaments this week:
- Swiss Indoors Basel in Switzerland (ATP)
- Valencia Open in Spain (ATP)
- WTA Championships in Istanbul
While Grigor Dimitrov scored a huge win over 2013 ATP World Tour Finalist David Ferrer in the Stockholm Open final, last week’s most notable wins came from Richard Gasquet and Tommy Haas. While Gasquet powered through the Kremlin Cup draw, using a renewed commitment to fitness to outlast his opponents, Jo Wilfried Tsonga was beaten by Robin Haase in the Vienna semifinals. With Richard’s win and Tsonga’s loss, Gasquet jumped past Jo-Wilfried to 9th in the ATP World Tour rankings, 65-points ahead of his countryman. With Tommy Haas’ win over Robin Haase in the Vienna final, he’s a longshot to win a berth into the ATP World Tour finals, but still within 700-points of Gasquet and Tsonga…with an ATP-500 tournament (Valencia) this week and the Paris Masters-1000 Indoors next week.
With Andy Murray’s withdrawl…Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal, David Ferrer and Juan Martin del Potro are locked-in for the ATP World Tour Finals in London. Four spots remain. Tomas Berdych, Stan Wawrinka, Roger Federer and Richard Gasquet play this week in Basel; while Tommy Haas, Nicolas Almagro and John Isner play in Valencia. Oddly enough, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Milos Raonic, despite the desperate need for points, opted to hold-out for the 1000-point Masters event at the Paris Indoors next week. We’ll see how well that works out for them.
On the WTA Tour, Caroline Wozniacki picked-up a late-season trophy, defeating Annika Beck at the Luxembourg Open. Simona Halep earned her 5th WTA title of the year in Moscow. It has been a very impressive two weeks for Samantha Stosur. Last week, she won in Osaka, Japan, where she was also a doubles finalist. This week, she lost to Halep in the Kremlin Open singles final, but won the doubles final with partner Svetlana Kuznetsova. Hopefully Sam can carry this momentum into the start of the 2014 season on home soil…
Meanwhile, the WTA Championships get underway this week in Istanbul. Serena Williams is the defending champion. This year, Serena Williams, Agnieszka Radwanska, Petra Kvitova and Angelique Kerber will play in the Red half of the draw, while Victoria Azarenka, Na Li, Sara Errani and Jelena Jankovic will compete in the White half of the draw. First matches Tuesday feature Victoria Azarenka vs. Sara Errani, Serena Williams vs. Angelique Kerber and Agnieszka Radwanska vs. Petra Kvitova.
Doubles teams in this year’s WTA Championships include Sara Errani and Roberta Vinci, Shuai Peng and Su-Wei Hsieh, Nadia Petrova and Katarina Srebotnik, and Ekaterina Makarova and Elena Vesnina…
