TENNIS – WTA Finals finished last week, but the season did not: Andrea Petkovic won Sofia’s Tournament of Champions, Woznaicki ran the NYC Marathon.
German Andrea Petkovic won the last WTA event of the year by defeating Flavia Pennetta in a high quality final of the Tournament of Champions in Sofia 1-6 6-4 6-3.
If one wanted to read between the lines of this result, quite a metaphor of both players’ season can be found. Petkovic started the tournament with a bagel received from Suarez Navarro, but eventually reached the final playing probably her best tennis in a long while. Again in the final, she started poorly, but managed to improve her level and finally outlast the Italian.
This has been the leitmotiv of the German’s season, who was seen in tears no longer than two weeks ago in Luxemburg, but, like many times in her career, she managed to fight back.
On the contrary, Pennetta lost a golden chance to finish the year in the top 10 for the first time in her career. Aged 33, the Italian found the best months of her life earlier this year, reaching the Australian Open last eight and winning Indian Wells, but her form disappeared ever since.
In Sofia she needed a clean swap to reach the top 10, but she lost two matches –one in the round robin to Muguruza and then the final-, despite losing one game in the first set of both these losses combined.
The Italian showed some of her best tennis in Sofia, but eventually ran out of gas not too far from the finish line.
Next weekend, Petkovic will try to bring this form to the Fed Cup final, where the German team will start as the underdog against the home-favourite team of Czech Republic.
Wozniacki at the NYC Marathon
The former world number one announced during the summer that she would have run the New York City Marathon for charity, but at the point she made the announcement, she was way out of top 20 in the race for Singapore.
Her crazy decision (she called herself crazy for this many times) came after the sudden breakup from his fiancé Rory McIlroy, but ever since her tennis improved drastically, as much as she finished runner-up at the US Open and, little more than a week ago, lost in the semifinals of the WTA Finals to eventual champion Serena Williams.
Her good friend was there in a very cold New York, waiting at the finish line, cheering for her mate, who closed the race with a sensational time for any non-professional runner: 3 hours 26 minutes!
The time officially qualifies her for the Boston Marathon, but the Dane said that, for how proud she is of herself, she will not be running another marathon for a few more years.
She beat the time of Kimiko Date Krumm, who ran the London marathon while being retired in 2004, but, most importantly, she raised more than $80,000 for her charity cause. You can still donate for a couple more days on the official page: https://www.crowdrise.com/carolinew/fundraiser/carolinewoz