Kuznetsova Wins Moscow, Ends 7-Year Drought with WTA Finals Appearance

by Staff | October 22nd, 2016, 4:38 pm
  • 20 Comments

Russian Svetlana Kuznetsova has reached the No. 2 world ranking, and collected two slam titles at the U.S. and French opens. Coming into this week the veteran was told she needed to win the Kremlin Cup in her home country to qualify for the year-end WTA Finals, and she responded.
ADHEREL
Kuznetsova qualified for her sixth year-end championships on Saturday by beating Aussie Daria Gavrilova 6-2, 6-1 in the final.

“Before the match, when I was warming up, my body hurt,” Kuznetsova said. “I felt tired, didn’t really know how I was going to play. I concentrated and thought that I had to be over it. I had the energy and the desire to play.”

Prior to the final Kuznetsova was physically tested by three-set wins over Timea Babos and Elina Svitolina in the semifinals.


“I fought in every match. I tried to win,” she said. “I had very tough matches because I didn’t felt comfortable with the tennis I played. But I understood I could win even with bad tennis. I leveled-up my tennis.”

Gavrilova, who also played a lot of tennis during the week in reaching the doubles final, appeared to run out of gas after the first set.

Kuznetsona has now qualified for the year-end championships in 2004, ’06-09, and ends a seven-year drought in 2016. She has never advanced past the round robin stage at the WTA Finals.

Moscow was her second title of the year after Sydney in January. She improves to 2-1 in finals in 2016, and 2-0 career in Moscow finals, rising to 17-22 in career finals.

Gavrilova was looking for her first career title in her first final. Her previous best result this year was a semifinal in her previous tournament to Moscow at Hong Kong.

Kuznetsova at the WTA Finals in Singapore will play her first match on Monday against Agnieszka Radwanska. In her round robin grouping she will also during the week face US Open finalist Karolina Pliskova and fellow former world No. 2 Garbine Muguruza.


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20 Comments for Kuznetsova Wins Moscow, Ends 7-Year Drought with WTA Finals Appearance

RZ Says:

Seriously WTA, you schedule Kuznetsova for the first match?

I guess Radwanska as defending champ gets to play first but it seems so unfair to Kuzy.


Danica Says:

Happy that Sveta won!! The WTA final has no clear favorite. I’m intrigued as to who the winner will be. Quite interesting!


jalep Says:

Happy Sveta made it too. But sorry for Johanna.

RZ, they started with the other group. Simona got a straight set win over Keys. And I’m up to watch Angie and Cibby!

Sveta and Aga play tomorrow or…whatever time it is there. So she’ll have more time than I expected to rest. Sveta didn’t intend to play Moscow — her schedule didn’t include it. I think she thought she could pick up enough points with what she had scheduled on her Asian Swing: Wuhan, Beijing and Tainjin. She had to get a WC into Moscow and win it to qualify. Massive effort. Unbelievable, really.

Just my opinion, but if they keep this calendar and don’t count Luxumbourg points toward Singapore, I think Moscow shouldn’t count either. So this doesn’t happen again – and it gives the top eight time to be rested. But Sveta made it and we’ll see if she can improve on her past performance in a WTA year end finals.

Angie and Dominika match starting!


Willow Says:

Jalep i personally love all these ladies, and would be happy for any one of them to win the title, with Serena missing its wide open ….


jalep Says:

Willow, It’s and awesome group — I love them all too few especially. A couple annoy me if they show up out of shape – let’s use Halep, Radwanska, Cibulkova, and Kerber, Wozniacki, an example of fitness. Most the times the ones that don’t turn up in the best shape are either the young who haven’t got a plan down or the very talented that might take longer to understand how there’s no way around putting in hours of training and cardio. (I’m thinking about Madison Keys) But I just heard on TC that she’s made a serious commitment to getting more fit.

Kerber and Dominika are going at it LOL and I mean it!


Margot Says:

Absolutely fabulous match between Angie and Dominika, both of them playing so aggressively and chasing everything down. In fact Dominika played so well was a bit surprised Angie won in the end. Just knuckled down and gutsed it out in the third.
Hope all those moaning Mickeys, who regularly denigrate the WTA, were watching.
Thumbs down for D’s huge grunts tho. I found them irritating and I wasn’t even on the court, no really ;), but darling Angie hardly ever makes a sound.


jalep Says:

High level tennis Margot – fantastic match! Dominika’s grunts get pretty loud. Pome!in a lower decibal than the shriek but yeah she gets loud. Very proud of #1 and surprised/happy Angie made it.

http://www.flashscore.com/standings/xxIinqxb/v7uQNW9S/#table
standings w/l per sets
Red Group
1.Halep 2:0
2.Kerber 2:1
3.Cibulkova 1:2
4.Keys 0:2

Delpo beat Pieman! And allez Gasquet!


jalep Says:

Margot ☝ First place ATP Moscow. That’s incredible forecasting.
Fabio had a meltdown. Congrats PCB! Good job, Pablo and Margot.


jalep Says:

Time to buy a lotto ticket :D


Margot Says:

Wheeee! Pablo and me win Moscow. What a team!
Cheers jalep, think I’d better lol.


jalep Says:

Did you see how mad Fabio was at himself? Be very afraid. hahaha

Picking him (Fog) deep in Vienna. Not as Deep as Andy tho…


Margot Says:

Foggy Dew gets mad…..yawn. Not nearly so tasty with short hair either. Needs more than a bin bag….;)


Margot Says:

jalep, fabulous tennis going on all over the place and it’s mainly you and me and a couple of other folk.
Makes you wonder.


jalep Says:

Well, I do watch a lot of tennis, Margot. So do you, I think. And I seriously think others watch less/ only when their favorite plays or it’s a big tournament.

Singapore is a huge tournament but what irks me is the fans who dis the WTA and serioulsly paid attention or watched WTA for ages or…


jalep Says:

have not paid attention…to WTA


jalep Says:

He’s married, Fabio. He’s not a sexy like he used to be — only for Flavia :)


Willow Says:

Jalep / Margot rest assured when i can get it, i will certainly watch it, most of the matches this week havent been televised where i am unforunatly, and the WTA SECs are all on BT sport pay per view, so ive had to rely on live scores on this laptop, add to that and hubbys watching Football, which is only fair, as he thinks the only thing i watch on TV is tennis, the WTA has become really interesting lately, and i really wouldnt like to pick a winner at the SECs, i think you could make a case for any player winning it, all wide open ….


Willow Says:

Also agree on Foggy, not as hot as he used to be, but then again neither am i LOL ;-)) ….


RZ Says:

Thanks Jalep. I had checked the WTA site before yesterday’s play and they only showed the schedule for tonight starting with Radwanska-Kuzentsova, so I thought that meant they were up first. Regardless, still a tough schedule for Sveta.


MMT Says:

Very happy to see Kuznetsova win again – resourceful, athletic, and highly technical. The kind of player who could play and beat you with a frying pan if she had to (a la Bobby Riggs).

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