Blog of the week: Beyond all plausibilities

The big highlights of 2017 on the WTA tour have been played – it’s time to take stock of a season in which many things have turned out differently than expected.

And that was? it’s almost the season in the female travelling circus. The B-final in Zuhai and the Fed Cup final between Belarus and the USA will follow on 11. and 12. November, but hardly anyone cares except the participating nations. Time for an interim balance sheet is always.

At the World Cup in Singapore, the 2017 series came to an end, as it had also been shown in many parts of the year: completely unpredictable, beyond all plausibility and expectations. Whoever had expected the obvious to happen again, i. e. a victory for the two top-ranked players in the world ranking, Simona Halep and Garbine Muguruza, was once again deceived: The Romanian and the Spaniard did not even survive the first round matches. And when the strong Czech Karolina Pliskova was believed to be able to take advantage of the moment, she lost the Habfinal game against Carolina Wozniacki and finally cleared the way for the future winner. Wozniacki’s opponent in the final was one of the opponents with Venus Williams, who repeatedly gave the impression of disinterest and indifference throughout the entire tournament week. The external image of the 37-year-old old champion was nothing less than catastrophic.

Wozniacki joined the gallery of many surprise winners at top events. Jelena Ostapenko at the French Open and Sloane Stephens took the trophies out of the blue without anyone really having them on the bill. Before she went into her maternity leave, Serena Williams had once again aired dominance and stability at the top, as the Australian Open winner she also marked a historic triumph, Grand Slam title number 23 adding her to her record. A constant in 2017 was her sister Venus, albeit for the individually wrong reasons. She lost the finals in Melbourne and Wimbledon, and finally the World Cup final. Nevertheless, with her comeback at the top of the world, she was among the winners of the year.

If there has been talk of the unexpected in recent months, then unfortunately the descent of Angelique Kerber has also been part of it. The German went into the season as number one, slipped out of the top ten, the top 15 and was even ousted by Julia Görges as the German number one. Although it was expected that the year after the 2016 triumphal series would be difficult, such a fall was not to be expected. After all, Kerber can still achieve a conciliatory season’s end at the B-WM. Julia Görges, the current season’s best, will also be competing there. She recently set a big exclamation mark with the title in Moscow behind her march to the front.

Seven German players will be among the top 100 at the end of the season, including Luxembourg winner Carina Witthöft and tennis mama Tatjana Maria, who have recently improved considerably. The two can look back on a good season overall. Laura Siegemund, who has been knocked out of action at the Porsche Grand Prix in Stuttgart since her cruciate ligament rupture, is still among the top 100. She’s in 69th place. Undoubtedly one of the unsatisfied is Andrea Petkovic, who is only ranked seventh in Germany, in 99th place in the world rankings.