TENNIS – Caroline Wozniacki fires another coach. Hingis will play doubles with Sabine Lisicki in Miami. Azarenka and Robson will miss the Sony Open and finally Federer and Halep climb to number 5 in the world. Joshua Bosco
Wozniacki fires another coach
Looking from the outside it may look like Caroline Wozniacki and Laura Robson are playing a game called “Who will manage to fire more coaches in their career?”. After Robson hired Mauricio Hadad to replace Nick Saviano last week, this week Wozniacki parted ways with Michael Mortensen.
This is the second time the Danish player dumps a coach in 2014, having split with Tomas Hogstedt at the end of January after just 3 months of collaboration.
“Caroline doesn’t feel that the time is right to work on the things I’d like to change in her game. She wants to work on the things she emphasizes and that’s totally fine” said Mortensen during an interview after being fired
This week Caroline will be at the Sony Open in Miami having dropped out of the Top 15 for the first time in five years.
Hingis, Zvonereva and Petrova in Miami
Former World No.1 Martina Hingis will continue her comeback on the WTA doubles tour after accepting a wild card to enter the Sony Open with her friend Sabine Lisicki, with whom she played (and lost) in the first round of Indian Wells.
Hingis and Lisicki have known each other for a long time now: Lisicki used to practice with Martina’s mother, Melanie Molitorovà, and now the German player has hired Hingis as her full time coach on a trial basis.
In the singles draw, former World No.2 Vera Zvonareva and former World No.3 Nadia Petrova have both been awarded wild cards: the latter is making her return to the WTA Tour after mourning her mother’s death, while Zvonareva is continuing her comeback after a one-and-half-year hiatus.
Azarenka and Robson not in Miami
For the second year in a row, World No.4 Victoria Azarenka has withdrawn from the Sony Open with an injury.
Vika is still recovering from the foot injury she sustained before the Australian Open. After losing to Agnieszka Radwanska in the quarterfinals at Melbourne, she decided to try and make her return at last week’s Indian Wells but lost in straight sets to World No.62 Lauren Davis. She will now rest to be fully prepared for the European swing on clay courts.
Keeping Azarenka company off the court will be British No.1 Laura Robson, who announced her withdrawal from Miami on Thursday and hasn’t played a match since losing to Kirsten Flipkens in the first round of the Australian Open.
Roger & Halep up to No.5
Having started the week at World No.8, Roger Federer has closed it at No.5 after reaching the final in Indian Wells, the first ATP Masters 1000 of the season.
In the WTA rankings, Simona Halep leaped from World No.7 to No.5 after reaching the semi-finals of the BNP Paribas Open, where she lost 6-3 6-4 to finalist Agnieszka Radwanska, making her the first Romanian woman to reach the Top 5.
Just ten months ago Halep was ranked No.64 and had to play the qualifying draw of the WTA tournament in Rome: since then she has won 57 matches (6 more than Serena Williams in the same stretch of time) and 7 titles (a WTA tour high).
