2011 BNP Paribas Open: Women’s Tennis Association seeds Part VII
The 37th edition of the BNP Paribas Open is slated to begin this week, as the event will commence with the WTA draw on Wednesday. This series aims to provide a brief introduction to the 32 seeded players in the tournament.
World Number 15 Flavia Pennetta
Thirteenth seed Flavia Pennetta has appeared in the BNP Paribas Open twice in the last two years. She was seeded fifteenth at the Premier Mandatory event in the year 2009, and performed admirably up to the fourth round of the tournament, which lasts twelve
days. She defeated her competition to reach the fourth round against eventual finalist Ana Ivanovic, whom she managed to take a set against before losing the match 6-4, 4-6, 6-4.
Pennetta also participated in the BNP Paribas Open in California in 2010, where she was once again a seeded player. However, her performance was somewhat below par and not at all reminiscent of her 2009 run at the Indian Wells event. She received a bye in
the first round, but could not produce good results consistently. She scraped through the second round, but lost her third round match against Shahar Pe’er.
However, the Italian pro has been performing quite well recently. She was seeded eleventh at the Dubai Tennis Championships and defeated players like Jelena Dokic, Klara Zakopalova, Victoria Azarenka and Alisa Kleybanova, before reaching the semi-final and
losing to Svetlana Kuznetsova in straight sets. She is also the first Italian in the world to become World Number 1 in the doubles ranking. These achievements may give her the encouragement needed to perform well at California this year.
World Number 16 Kaia Kanepi
Fourteenth seed Kaia Kanepi stayed out of the BNP Paribas Open in 2009, but chose to participate in the event the next year. She qualified for the tournament as an unseeded player, and could not perform well. She suffered a defeat in the first round, losing
the match to Romanian tennis pro Sorana Cirstea in three sets. This, coupled with her first round defeat at the Sony Ericsson Open, contributed to her falling out of the WTA Top 100 players.
However, the player recently reached her career-high ranking of World Number 16 after her great showing at the 2011 Open GDF Suez. She was seeded third at the event, and defeated players Anastasija Sevastova, Sofia Arvidsson and Dominika Cibulkova before
falling to Australian Open champion Kim Clijsters in the event’s semi-final. Her ranking rose considerably after this, and the fact that she is now on the verge of breaking into the World’s Top 10 may be motivation enough for Kanepi. However, her previous
appearance at the event has been lackluster.
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