The WTA tour doesn’t feel the same without Serena Williams, who is undoubtedly one of the greatest players the sport has ever seen. So when she recently announced her return on her Instagram account, it drew a lot of positive reactions from her peers and tennis fans alike.
While many can’t wait to see the American international back in action, the 2022 Berlin Open, meanwhile, is fast approaching its climax as we’re down to the final four participants in Belinda Bencic, Maria Sakkari, Ons Jabeur, and Coco Gauff.
The said event in Germany not only provides additional points to help boost their rankings, but it also serves as a warm-up for these players ahead of the highly-anticipated Wimbledon which will start sometime next week.
Without further ado, continue to read on below as SBOTOP recaps the latest WTA 2022 updates.
Serena Williams to play at Eastbourne, gets wild card draw at Wimbledon
Serena Williams is on the verge of making her WTA tour return as she’s back in action after an injury-riddled 12 months. The 40-year-old superstar has not played since last year’s Wimbledon when she was forced to retire after slipping on the Centre Court, which then led to doubts on whether she can still compete on a high level again.
With her sidelined for an extended period because of a leg injury, Williams has dropped to 1,208th in the WTA rankings and she’ll have an uphill climb to return to the top once more.
Williams will see action at the Rothesay International in Eastbourne which begins tomorrow. She will team up with Ons Jabeur for doubles, who’s currently fourth in the WTA rankings.
“I have no idea. I’m pretty lucky that she picked me,” answered Jabeur when asked about teaming up with Williams. I’m actually nervous, but I’m going to try to be the doubles specialist for the next week and hopefully make zero mistakes.”
“I cannot wait to play with her, such a legend. I’ve always loved Serena, the way she plays, the way she is on court and outside the court,” added Jabeur.
The 23-time Grand Slam winner also announced that she received a wild card for the singles main draw in Wimbledon which will commence on June 27th. Williams is a seven-time Wimbledon winner, so even if she’s entering as a wild card, she has one of the highest WTA 2022 odds to win the said major.
Her most recent Wimbledon singles title came in 2016 when she defeated Angelique Kerber in the final, and she was also a finalist in 2018 and in 2019.
Maria Sakkari and Belinda Bencic set for a fun collision course
Maria Sakkari won over Daria Kasatkina in the previous round, 6-0, 6-3 in just 72 minutes, while Belinda Bencic outlasted Veronika Kudermetova in a grueling quarter-finals affair with a score of 3-6, 6-3, 6-3.
Sakkari was simply the better player during the quarter-finals, notching 27 winners to only seven for Kasatkina, while also keeping her unforced errors tally down to 16 compared to Kasatkina’s 11.
The Greek set the tone from the get-go as 14 of her winners came from her near-flawless opening set, while preventing Kasatkina from even reaching game point to hold any of her service games.
As for Bencic, she took revenge on Kudermetova after losing to her just last week in the Rosmalen Grass Court Championships quarter-finals. She has now improved to 5-4 in her head-to-heads against the Russian.
This will be the second meeting between Sakkari and Bencic, as the former won their most recent meeting during the St. Petersburg Open quarter-final in 2020, 2-6, 6-4, 6-3.
Coco Gauff maintains her blistering form
Like Sakkari, Coco Gauff has progressed to the first grass-court semi-finals of her young career as she defeated former World No. 1 Karolina Pliskova, 7-5, 6-4.
After winning the first set, Gauff found herself trailing 2-0 when Pliskova came out hot. But the American teenager clawed her way back to draw level at 4-4, and she completed the comeback by converting her fourth break point and then fired her fifth ace to seal the victory.
Gauff is slated to take on Ons Jabeur next, who earned a 6-7(3), 6-2, 6-2 win over Aliaksandra Sasnovich in a quarter-final match that lasted for nearly two hours. The American owns the edge in her head-to-heads against Jabeur and she’s banging in form as of the moment, especially since she’s coming off a Grand Slam final appearance during the French Open against World No. 1 Iga Swiatek.
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