Kontaveit extends win streak, clinches semifinal berth

Anett Kontaveit earned her first victory in four career
matches against Karolina Pliskova. 2016 photo by
Paul Bauman

   Nobody seems to be able to stop Anett Kontaveit these days.

   The Estonian, seeded eighth, defeated Karolina Pliskova, seeded third, 6-4, 6-0 today in the WTA Finals in Guadalajara for her 12th consecutive victory and 28th in her last 30 matches. 

   The hot streak began just after Kontaveit hired Dmitry Tursunov, a 38-year-old Moscow native who trained in Northern California as a junior and professional, as her coach.

   Kontaveit beat Pliskova, the Stanford runner-up in 2015, for the first time in four meetings and clinched a semifinal berth with a 2-0 round-robin record. Pliskova fell to 1-1.

   Later, sixth-seeded Garbiñe Muguruza, who won the Stanford doubles title in 2014 with just-retired Carla Suarez Navarro, outlasted second-seeded Barbora Krejcikova 2-6, 6-3, 6-4 to improve to 1-1 in round-robin play. Krejcikova, this year's French Open champion, dropped to 0-2.

   In doubles, second-seeded Shuko Aoyama and Ena Shibahara, a 23-year-old native of Mountain View in the San Francisco Bay Area, beat fourth-seeded Nicole Melichar and Demi Schuurs 6-4, 7-6 (5) to improve to 2-0 in round-robin play. Melichar won the San Jose title in 2019 with Kveta Peschke, who was 44 at the time.

   Fifth-seeded Samantha Stosur and Zhang Shuai, the reigning U.S. Open champions, lead seventh-seeded Darija Jurak and Andreja Klepac, the San Jose winners in August, 7-6 (10), 2-2.