Sloane Stephens advanced to the final by retirement. The much anticipated match between Angelique Kerber and Sloane Stephens was decimated by Kerber’s viral illness, which caused her not to play her best tennis, and eventually to retire from the match at 6-1 3-0 ret.
“I just thought I’m going out to play a match,” Stephens said. “I just thought it was going to be a battle. And unfortunately she wasn’t feeling well. But I mean it’s understandable, it happens. I wish her well. I hope she gets better soon because I know they have Fed Cup coming up next week. That’s all you can really do in that sort of situation.”
Kerber seemed to be in a really good form, winning her last two matches 6-2 6-3 against first Kucova, and then Begu. Things got really unlucky for Kerber, the viral illness taking her out of Charleston will cause her drop to No. 3 in the rankings, and putting her Fed Cup appearance in jeopardy.
“When I was warming up this morning, I felt a little bit like something is wrong,” she said. “But I was thinking that when I’m going on court, the energy will come back and I will feeling okay. And it starts in the first few games in the first set that I was feeling that, yeah, something is not good.”
Stephens’ opponent will be the World No. 85, Elena Vesnina. The Russian is having a dream run in Charleston as a qualifier, gunning for her 3rd WTA Singles title. The live rankings monitor Vesnina as No. 51 right now, meaning that she will raise by 34 places in the rankings. If Vesnina manages to win the tournament, Vesnina will be at No. 39. In the semifinals, she pulled off the upset over the 5th seed Sara Errani 6-4 4-6 6-2 in 2 hours and 21 minutes. Vesnina won 8 out of 11 close games, which was definitely a factor in defeating Errani. Vesnina’s highest ranking is No. 21, but the shoulder injury which she suffered at the 2014 US Open was a major setback to her career, but now she seems to be getting back to her past heights.
“It took a while for me to recover after that,” said Vesnina, who is from Russia. “I was struggling with confidence, I was losing some points, I was dropping in the ranking, I was not winning matches. And it was really difficult to come up. I’m really happy that I actually doing well now, and I’m not actually looking at my ranking that much. I’m just looking at my game. That’s, I think, the most important thing.”
The head-to-head is in favor of the lower-ranked Russian, winning the only meeting so far between them in Hobart 2013. Vesnina seems to be in incredible form, losing only 1 set in her 7 matches here. All that said, Stephens is still the odds-on favorite, and will be less fatigued than Vesnina, having to play only 10 games, compared to a three set drama.
