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The WTA Auckland final will be a battle of the fallen after both Venus Williams and Ana Ivanovic won through their semi-finals in contrasting circumstances.
Williams entered her first final since winning Luxembourg in 2012 via a walkover after compatriot Jamie Hampton was forced to withdraw before their semi-final due to a hip injury, while Ivanovic was flawless on serve in a 6-0, 7-6 (7-3) victory over good friend and doubles partner Kirsten Flipkens in the only semi-final that was played.
This showdown has been dubbed “the dream final” for what is only an International level event. It’s these type of events that many top players rarely play, even though Serena Williams did play a minor clay court tournament in Sweden (winning it) after losing to Sabine Lisicki at Wimbledon last July.
But very significantly, the final between Williams and Ivanovic will be a battle of two former world number ones and Grand Slam champions who have fallen dramatically from the top in contrasting circumstances since the turn of the decade.
Since winning the French Open in 2008, Ivanovic has struggled to maintain the standards which saw her become world number one that year.
Just 25 months after winning in Paris and subsequently capturing the world number one ranking, a mix of injuries, poor form, early exits at major tournaments and self-doubt saw her ranking plunge to a five-year low of 65 in July 2010.
It appeared as if there was no coming back, but a change in attitude and some tweaks to her coaching staff (at the time, she was coached by Steffi Graf’s former coach, Heinz Guntnardt, and then later on, Nigel Sears) saw her rocket back up the rankings at the end of the year, re-entering the top 20 for the first time in 12 months.
The last two years has seen her rediscover some of her best form, as evidenced in 2012 when she dethroned Caroline Wozniacki as the defending champion at Indian Wells, eventually going on to reach the semi-finals, and at the US Open, when she took advantage of an open draw to reach her first Grand Slam quarter-final since that glorious day at Roland Garros in 2008.
And last year, she enjoyed a pair of victories over Angelique Kerber, reached the semi-finals in Madrid and also recorded her first 40-win season since 2007.
But what has set her back is her inconsistency against top-ranked players and at major-level tournaments – she hasn’t reached a Premier final since 2009 and continually struggles against the world’s best, especially the top seven.
Last year, she went 0-10 against them (she did not play Serena Williams in 2013) – of those losses, five of them were in straight sets (three times against Agnieszka Radwanska and one each against Maria Sharapova and Petra Kvitova), while the other five were in three sets.
She also has the tendency to suffer losses against lower-ranked opposition, but that is something that she will hope to cut down on in 2014 in her quest to re-enter the top ten.
Opposing Ivanovic in the Auckland final will be Venus Williams, who after a solid second half to 2012 which saw her capture a title in Luxembourg and raise her ranking above the Grand Slam seeding threshold of 32 by the end of the year, suffered a mostly disappointing 2013 marred by injury and inconsistency.
Williams, like Ivanovic, has suffered a dramatic fall from grace at the top since reaching the semi-finals of the 2010 US Open, in which she lost to eventual champion Kim Clijsters in three sets (she has not reached another Grand Slam quarter-final since).
The elder of the Williams sisters suffered what is known as Sjogren’s syndrome in the middle of 2011; it was this illness which caused her to withdraw from the US Open and subsequently saw her ranking drop to as low as 134 in the world.
After missing the Australian Open at the beginning of 2012, Williams started her comeback at Miami and reached the quarter-finals, upsetting then-world number three Petra Kvitova and Ivanovic in consecutive rounds before succumbing to eventual champion Agnieszka Radwanska in the final eight stage.
Her performances at the Grand Slams that year were disappointing (she lost in the second rounds of the French and US Opens, and in the first round of Wimbledon), but this did not deter her from climbing back up the rankings.
She had a couple of victories over Samantha Stosur and Sara Errani (including at the Olympics), and won her first title since February 2010 by defeating Monica Niculescu in Luxembourg at the end of the season.
But 2013 did not produce similar results, as she tumbled back down the rankings to her current world ranking of 47.
At the Grand Slams, she lost in the third round to a rampant Maria Sharapova at the Australian Open, bombed out in the first round at the French Open to Urszula Radwanska, and fell in a final set tiebreak to Zheng Jie in the second round at the US Open. She missed Wimbledon due to injury.
However, she did reach two semi-finals during the year; first at Charleston, when she lost to her sister and eventual champion Serena in their first meeting since 2009, and in Tokyo in September, when she lost to eventual champion Petra Kvitova in a final set tiebreak after defeating world number two Victoria Azarenka in the second round.
The aforementioned victory over Azarenka was her only top ten victory of the season (not including Fed Cup matches).
Both Williams’ and Ivanovic’s decision to play in the New Zealand city to kick off the 2014 season has paid massive dividends. Both will now seek their first titles in a long time; in the American’s case, Luxembourg 2012, and Ivanovic’s, Bali 2011.
Venus Williams leads the head-to-head very easily, winning eight of their nine meetings, but the only blot did come south of the equator, when Ana Ivanovic defeated her in the quarter-finals of the 2008 Australian Open, en route to reaching the final, which was lost to Maria Sharapova.
Their most recent meeting was in Miami two years ago; Venus Williams winning after losing a first set tiebreak. This will be their first meeting in a championship match.
It’s known that Ivanovic does struggle against the Williams sisters, but she tends to perform better against Venus than she does against Serena.
In addition to the victory at the 2008 Australian Open, another two matches have lasted the distance, and she also did push Venus to two tiebreak sets in their very first meeting, at Zurich in 2004, as a 16-year-old.
And after romping through her four matches without the concession of a set, and without the concession of her serve in her semi-final against Kirsten Flipkens, with whom she reached the quarter-finals in doubles, this may be the test Ivanovic needs heading into the Australian Open.
Likewise, this will also be a good acid test for Williams, who enters her first championship match since 2012 having dropped only one set, against Yvonne Meusberger in the second round.
Victory for either player will give them a lot of confidence entering the Australian Open, where both will have to face dangerous opponents in later rounds. As Ivanovic will be seeded around the 13-16 area, she will draw one of the world’s top four in the fourth round, and as Venus will be unseeded, she could find herself facing even her younger sister, world number one Serena, in the first round.
Very importantly, for Ana Ivanovic, winning the title in Auckland will give her the confidence that she has lacked in recent years. It could also provide the springboard for her to return to the world’s top ten and rediscover the form that saw her win the French Open and top the world rankings in 2008.
In fact, this will be her first outdoor final since 2009, and she will also shoot for her first outdoor title since the aforementioned French Open victory, as well as a 12th career title.
Perhaps she must be inspired by her compatriot Jelena Jankovic’s revival, which saw her re-enter the top ten, capture her first title in three years and reach the semi-finals at the year-ending Championships in Istanbul.
While for Venus, winning the title would see her start to wind down her career on a high note, as she will be 34 in June.
How important can a final be for both players leading up to the Australian Open? For the winner, confidence will be high entering the year’s first Grand Slam.
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