My 2014 US Open Review WTA

OY....What the heck happen to the ladies???  I went through all this draw and pick Simona Halep to make it to the final and all the ladies to watch got knocked out in the first week!!  I didn't even look at my draw anymore.  Seriously:

Petra Kvitova OUT
Agneskia Radwanska OUT
Angelique Kerber OUT
Dominika Cibulkova OUT
Sloane Stevens OUT
Sabine Lisicki OUT
Simona Halep OUT
Madison Keys OUT
Carla Suarez Navaro OUT
Taylor Townsend OUT
Francesca Schiavone OUT
Ana Ivanovic OUT
Svetlana Kuznetsova OUT
Zheng Zie OUT
Andrea Petkovic OUT
Coco Vandeweghe OUT

Seriously the best match of the whole Tournament was Cici Bellis (USA) v Zarina Diyas (Kazakhstan).  I didn't even know Kazakhstan was a real place.  I thought they made it up for BORAT.  I'm dumb.

Cici is 15 as I write this blog.  Apparently she is the future of USA tennis because she upset Dominika Cibulkova in 3 sets.  Number 2 in the Juniors and a great competitor.  But...look at her:

She's TEENY.  I'll be very interested in how she develops but she will probably not be the girl the US is hoping for.  Fighter or not I don't think she can take out any heavy hitters.  Cibulkova is fast and speeds up the pace but the big girls hit heavy, that girl is in for a lot of running.

Notwithstanding, it was a good match and Diyas shut the crowd up.  The commentators spent a very long time talking about how great Bellis is and how she is training.  I honestly didn't want to hear about it anymore.  It's basically like saying "This girl could go to an academy but she is richer than that so she stayed home and her parents paid lots of coaches and hitting partners."  Yup....just in case you want to know how to make a professional tennis player.  It helps if you start off rich.

Another match that I enjoyed immensely was Serena Williams v Varvara Lepchenko.  Normally I don't watch Serena's matches until the end.  I believe that Serena has an issue with blond women and that she REALLY hates losing to them.  So she TRASHES them.  So I only really watch the matches with Brunettes.  But this match was pretty good.  Way better than the score dictates.  Serena learned how to slide on hard courts AND she had much quieter footwork.  Usually she is a little heavy footed but I was REALLY impressed.  Serena was very cat-like and this is coming from a person that doesn't like talking about Serena.

Anyway the final came out to be Caroline Wozniaki and Serena Williams with Serena winning pretty easily.  I didn't know if she was going to beat Lepchenko but Serena is REALLY consistent when it comes to finals.  I can't remember her losing one other than Sam Stosur a few years back.

This win marks Serena's 18th slam which ties her with Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova and they both came to commemorate the occasion.



More notable things:

• Peng Shuai cramping so bad in the semifinals that she had to default the match.  Ugh...I've seen it happen a bunch of times and it always sucks.  Muscles just seize up and lock because of the tremendous pressure.  Sigh... 
• Martina Hingis and Flavia Pennetta losing the doubles final.  Great match if you can look it up on espn3.com