The 2017 WTA Nuremberg Cup is on its way. The top players generally try to rest a week prior to Roland Garros. The prize money and ranking points lure lower-ranked players to participate in such events. The points won through the tournament in Nuremberg have no bearing on the seedings for Roland Garros. However, this is a championship, and everyone will pursue it boldly.
The competition in the 32-player main draw began on Sunday, May 21.
Event Details
Event: WTA Nuremberg Cup
Category: WTA International tier
Date: May 21-27, 2017
Location: Tennisclub 1 FC Nuremberg – Nuremberg, Germany
The 2017 Nuremberg Cup will mark just the fifth edition of the tournament. This is an event which is trying to find its footing, given its precarious place on the calendar. Nevertheless, coming right before the French Open, there is a hope that players will always see this as a place to tune up and regroup before Paris. With a prize money allotment in the area of $250,000, there won’t be a lot of fat paychecks for most players.
Points
Champion – 280
Runner-up – 180
Semifinal – 110
Quarterfinal – 60
Round of 16 – 30
Former Champions and Results (4 Years)
Year Champion Runner-up Score
2016 – Kiki Bertens def. Mariana Duque Marino – 6-2, 6-2
2015 – Karin Knapp def. Roberta Vinci – 7-6, 4-6, 6-1
2014 – Eugenie Bouchard def. Karolina Pliskova – 6-2, 4-6, 6-3
2013 – Simona Halep def. Andrea Petkovic – 6-3, 6-3
Player Info:
Anastasija Sevastova has enjoyed some great results in the recent past. Quarterfinal appearances in Charleston and Stuttgart, and a semifinal showing in Madrid, have firmly established herself in the WTA top 20. An early defeat in Rome to Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova seems to be a mere aberration after showing consistency since the start of the clay season. Another early defeat before Roland Garros might worry her, but that’s an unlikely scenario.
Kiki Bertens is slowly finding her touch on the red dirt in Rome. She beat Monica Niculescu 2-6, 6-2, 6-1 in her opening-round match and then destroyed teen sensation CiCi Bellis 6-4, 6-0 in the second round. Bertens then beat Ekaterina Makarova. The talented Dutch is only 13-13 on the season, but you have to factor the surface. She was just 3-7 on the hard courts in main tour draws but she’s been much stronger on clay. She is 10-4 so far through the clay court season. With the French Open around the corner, she is peaking just at the right time.
Yulia Putintseva suffered a straight-set hammering at the hands of Johanna Konta in a round-of-32 clash on Wednesday in Rome. What’s worse is it included a bagel set. Putintseva is struggling on clay. Her losses have come against players ranked way lower than her– Donna Vekic in Madrid, Varvara Lepchenko in Morocco, and Magda Linette in Charleston. Putintseva is ranked 29th in the world but is an abysmal 9-11 this season. On clay, she is merely 2-4 so far. It’s hard to imagine how she is going to change her fortunes in Nuremberg.
Laura Siegemund won the title in Stuttgart but understandably hasn’t gone past the third round in the following tournaments in Madrid and Rome. Siegemund can play on clay, and in a field which doesn’t contain top players, she’d like to believe she can dominate and perhaps win the title. She won in Stuttgart beating some top players, so there is no reason she can’t win against a weak field. She is 6-3 on clay and 5-0 in indoor clay matches. Her game suits this surface well.
Julia Georges beat one of the WTA’s most in-form players, Kristina Mladenovic, in straight sets in Rome. The Georges forehand was firing from all corners. She struck 23 of those for winners to stun Mladenovic in the one-hour, 52-minute contest. The German backed up her win with another hard-fought victory over former World No. 1 player Jelena Jankovic. Georges is a decent 16-11 in 2017 and is hitting the right notes as the marquee event, Roland Garros, gets closer.
Tennisclub 1 FC Nuremberg
The network of outdoor clay courts in Nuremberg features a central stadium court with 2,200 seats in a sideline-seating format (with no seats behind the baseline at one end of the court), plus a second show court with 400 seats. This is an intimate tournament, as one might expect from an event which immediately precedes the French Open.
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