WTA Finals: What ham’s g’ says?

Nothing ham’s g’ says. Or to put it in a friendlier way: It should have been a little more than standard phrases at the Media Day of the WTA.

By Florian Goosmann from Singapore

World-shattering words have not been heard today, but it sounded too good: the eight best players of the season, one after the other at the press conference. Of course: At some point everything is in demand, but you can try a little bit on the day off. Venus Williams, Caroline Wozniacki and Jelena Ostapenko in particular stinted at replies that went beyond a sentence – the latter two did so with at least a smile on their faces.

Karolina Pliskova, who was criticized this week especially by the countrywoman Barbora Strycova, started the day with “coach theft”. In Singapore, Pliskova is managed by Rennae Stubbs, the former number 1 in doubles, who wants to work with her mainly on the net game. Pliskova says:”A former professional has the experience we need,” Pliskova is sure to have already passed the most difficult part of the tournament anyway. At the opening gala dress and high-heels stood on the house rules:”Heels, yes, unfortunately,”she said, referring to her choice of clothes and explained her somewhat unrounded run on stage, at least indirectly. For the roses on the black dress, she had the most logical explanation:”I like flowers like all women, so I chose this.”

Caroline Wozniacki, the lady with the most match wins in 2017, was already a little further in her thoughts – at least partly. Of course, she concentrates on her matches, but in her thoughts she is already dreaming about vacation and the beach “It’s nice to see the end of the tunnel,”she says. Wozniacki has played 76 matches this year, more than any other. Conclusion: 56 victories, 20 defeats, six of them in finals, until she could end this curse with her victory in Tokyo a few weeks ago.

Caroline Garcia, on the other hand, was in a good mood to chat – no wonder after the last-minute qualification. Garcia is only in Singapore for the first time in the singles, in the doubles she was already here last year. The French woman has been carrying around Andy Murray’s well-meant tweet since 2011, in which he pointed out that she would eventually become the number 1.”In 2011, I wasn’t able to handle the pressure that accompanied this tweet so well. But the experience of dealing with it helped me a lot,”said Garcia, smiling,”I am now working every day to make it happen,” and she is currently on a dazzling path: Garcia is unbeaten after her double in Wuhan and Beijing for eleven games. But she doesn’t have any imagination, nor does she want to win against the current group opponents Halep and Svitolina in Beijing. She had already faced Svitolina before she was eliminated and fought off a match ball with a brave backhand,”No backhand longline, no Singapore,”she said a few days ago. That is still the case.

“My career has always progressed step by step,”said Elina Svitolina, who played last year’s “little” Masters, the Elite Trophy in Zhuhai, and reached the final. This year she’s top of the league with five tournament victories, which was missing, but she was a really good performance with the majors,”That’s the main goal for the future,”says Svitolina,”I’ll sit down with my team at the end of the year and see what’s going wrong, where we can change or add something”.

Garbine Muguruza came in a chic, but not to elegant summer dress – all Spaniard. It has landed in the White Group – also known as the “Big Hitters”group, because Karolina Pliskova, Venus Williams and Jelena Ostapenko are also here. Lastly, I played hard to beat female players and that was a bit better than before,” she said, explaining that her Wimbledon victory was independent of the French Open. In Paris, she was the defending champion against Kristina Mladenovic and several thousand Frenchmen, but Wimbledon hadn’t been any kind of revenge.” I just thought,”Okay, end it, I’ve got a chance at grass now.”

Jelena Ostapenko, on the other hand, briefly summarized herself and exchanged meaningless one-sentence answers only with meaningless two-sentence answers – as did the visibly unmotivated Venus Williams. She didn’t cheer her up about 20 years from now, like Uncle Toni with Rafael Nadal, asking her niece if she would train in 20 years’ time.

On the other hand, Simona Halep was cheerful, relaxed and seemingly completely at peace with herself, but Simona Halep:”Everything has changed internally,” she said to the question of what number one is like:”The dream has come true, it’s the best feeling I’ve had in my tennis career so far.” Halep has ended up in the Red Group, the “Runners’ Group”.”I’m getting a lot.

In the other statements, almost everyone agreed:”I’m just looking at myself and my game”,”The competition is tough and every match will be difficult” or “Singapore is great, I love it in Asia”, there was one way or the other way to hear it from everyone. All in all, this raises the question of whether the WTA should meet up in the near future to discuss whether it is worth talking to some of the players – so that they might talk a little more to better market their own product.

Good news: Tomorrow we’ll finally start on the pitch. It is to be assumed that the ladies will perform better here than they did in front of the microphone.