Category: Tennis

Angelique Kerber brushed aside the challenge of Carla Suarez Navarro to move into the final of the season-opening Brisbane International on Friday. The German fourth seed was simply too strong for her Spanish opponent, taking 75 minutes to win 6-2, 6-3. Kerber is the highest seed left in the tournament after the injury withdrawals of Simona Halep, Garbine Muguruza and […]

World number nine Lucie Safarova will miss this month’s Australian Open as she has yet to regain full fitness following a bacterial infection last year, the Czech said on Friday. “As an athlete I’m used to fight, usually on the court to get a win, today it’s off court to get my health back,” the 28-year-old, who was runner-up at […]

Victoria Azarenka maintained her surge in form while the leading women on the tour are struggling with injuries or inconsistency at the start of the season, reaching the Brisbane International semifinals with a 6-1, 6-2 win over eighth-seeded Roberta Vinci. The two-time Australian Open champion has dropped just 10 games en route to the semis, where she’ll meet Samantha Crawford, […]

Former world number one Rafael Nadal survived a first-round scare in the Qatar Open on Tuesday, winning in three sets against fellow Spaniard Pablo Carreno Busta. Nadal lost the first set in a tie-break and looked set to follow defending champion David Ferrer out of the tournament, who lost earlier in the day to Ukraine’s Ilya Marchenko, ranked number 94 […]

After two injury-interrupted seasons, Victoria Azarenka is emerging from the shadows of some her highly-ranked rivals who have either withdrawn from Australian Open warmup events or lost in the early rounds. The two-time Australian Open champion reached the quarterfinals of the Brisbane International a tournament she won in 2009 with a 6-3, 6-2 win over Ysaline Bonaventure. Bonaventure, a lucky […]

Maria Sharapova has withdrawn from her season-opening event at the Brisbane International because of an injury to her left forearm. Sharapova, the defending champion, was scheduled to play fellow Russian Ekaterina Makarova on Tuesday at the Australian Open warm-up event but withdrew hours before the match. She said she’d hurt her forearm in practice a couple of days earlier and […]