WTA: Sloane Stephens has to postpone season start

Sloane Stephens intends to approach the year 2018 with a positive attitude. The start in Brisbane, however, falls into the water.

At the beginning of September 2017, Sloane Stephens set out from nowhere for a race that brought her her greatest title with a very smooth final victory against Madison Keys: the one at the US Open in New York City. Since then, however, things have not been going well for Stephens, most recently she lost her two singles matches in the Fed Cup final in Minsk against Belarus. Coco Vandeweghe made everything clear, however, for Stephens there remained a second triumph in 2017, although one with a bittersweet aftertaste.

The preparation phase for the 2018 season, which will soon begin, is not running as planned. It was actually planned that Stephens would start the season at the WTA tournament in Brisbane, but now her management has announced that the US-American needed an additional week of regeneration time for her damaged knee. The competition in this tournament would have been fierce, with Garbine Muguruza, Karolina Pliskova, Elina Svitolina and Caroline Garcia citing four players who qualified for the WTA finals in Singapore in 2017.

Prior to her rejection, Stephens had reaffirmed that the main goal for 2018 was to remain injury-free,”I’m going into the new season with great motivation and enthusiasm. There are not so many people who can say they have won the US Open.” She is not insecure about the weaker results towards the end of last season.”I’m going into 2018 with a good attitude.”