A victory in the last group match and Julia Görges is certain to be in the semi-final of the WTA Elite Trophy. The opponent seems currently feasible – and can therefore become very dangerous.
Julia Görges feels comfortable in Zhuhai. You can’t get a different impression if you follow your Twitter profile and accompany the currently best German tennis player at the Player’s Party or on a trip to the Fisher Lady Statue. That “Jule” yesterday was her 29th birthday. Birthday celebrations on the day off from play – a free addition.
The tournament victory in Moscow was the icing on the cake of a dream season in which, until then, only the last step had been missing, after final marches to Mallorca, Bucharest and Washington. Görges is currently ranked eighth in the world, the highest level in five years; by 2012, it had achieved its best ranking to date with 15th place. Even if the German does not give anything to the world rankings, she says:”I want to develop myself as a player”. Responsible for Görges’ high-flying success: her new team she has been working with for two years, coach Michael Geserer and physio Florian Zitzelsberger, thanks to whom she finally plays painlessly.
Opponent Kiki Mladenovic, on the other hand, could not have been worse. Mladenovic had a great start to the season, with his premiere victory in St. Gallen. Petersburg and finals in Acapulco, Madrid and Stuttgart as well as the quarter-finals at the French Open. In Wimbledon, the French woman injured her knee and lost her momentum, as she said.
Most recently, Mladenovic lost eleven matches at a time, but her opening game in Zhuhai against Magdalena Rybarikova was extremely close to the tie-break of the third set, after a hard fight with six match points fought off. The absurdity of Mladenovic’s anti-run: she has never been as high in the world rankings as she was and moved into the top ten of the world for the first time a week ago.
In the direct comparison between Görges and Mladenovic it is currently 1:1. Mladenovic won in Paris in 2013 (in the third set in the tiebreak), Görges won this year in Rome in two narrow sets.
The current status in Zhuhai: Group colleague Rybarikova is already out. If Görges wins against Mladenovic, she is in the semi-finals and a set win would be enough for her. If Mladenovic wins in two rounds, she’s gone.