KitSports » Tennis

Serena Williams eats dog food but reaches Italian Open quarters

kit-sports editor — Fri, 13 May 2016 01:14:55 +0000

Serena Williams made herself ill after eating dog food hours before reaching the last eight of the Italian Open.

The world number one tried “a spoonful” of food meant for her dog Chip before beating fellow American Christina McHale in straight sets in Rome.

“I thought ‘what the heck, I’m gonna try a piece, it looks good’,” said the 34-year-old.

“Fast forward two hours – I just ran to the toilet like I thought I was going to pass out.”

In a video posted on Snapchat before her match with McHale, Williams explained she sampled a dish of chicken and rice offered on a ‘doggy menu’ at her hotel.

“It did taste weird,” she said. “I force-swallowed it. It tasted kind of like house cleaner. I don’t know what they put in these dog foods, but Chip liked it.

“I don’t think it’s consumable for humans – they should have wrote that! So now I feel really sick. It was just a spoonful but I don’t feel so good.”

Williams recovered in time to defeat McHale 7-6 (9-7) 6-1 and set up a meeting with Svetlana Kuznetsova – who beat fellow Russian Daria Gavrilova – in the last eight.

Serena hits milestone with ranking feat……….

kit-sports editor — Thu, 16 Jul 2015 00:47:20 +0000

Serena Williams, who owns all four tennis Grand Slam titles for the second time in her career, has achieved another historic milestone in the wake of her Wimbledon victory.
The WTA Tour revealed Tuesday that world number one Williams is the first top-ranked player ever with more than twice as many points as her nearest rival.
Records dating to the WTA’s 1973 founding show the 33-year-old American’s domination to be the greatest of any point in the rankings’ history, with Williams on 13,161 points and Russia’s second-ranked Maria Sharapova on 6,490.
In addition to sweeping the US, French and Australian Opens plus Wimbledon over the past 12 months, Williams won last year’s WTA Finals in Singapore and at Miami last March to help build her runaway rankings margin.
Williams beat Sharapova in the Wimbledon semi-finals and downed Spain’s Garbine Muguruza in last Saturday’s final to win her sixth Wimbledon crown and 21st Grand Slam title overall.
That puts Williams one shy of matching Steffi Graf for the Open Era-record of 22 Grand Slam singles crowns and just three shy of Margaret Court’s all-time record of 24.
Williams has won as many Grand Slam titles as all other active women’s players combined, including Sharapova’s five and seven for Venus Williams, Serena’s older sister. Petra Kvitova, Svetlana Kuznetsova and Victoria Azarenka have won two major titles each while Samantha Stosur, Ana Ivanovic and Francesca Schiavone own one each.

Kvitova struggles again in Madrid but survives

kit-sports editor — Wed, 06 May 2015 10:23:14 +0000

Fourth seed Petra Kvitova’s stuttering form continued at the Madrid Open as she reached the third round with a 6-4 2-6 6-3 win against CoCo Vandeweghe on Tuesday.

The hard-hitting Czech, who missed the Indian Wells and Miami tournaments because of exhaustion and suffered a first-round exit on indoor clay in Stuttgart last month, was in control when she lead by a set and 2-1

American world number 36 Vandeweghe then took five games in a row to turn the match on its head and stood toe to toe with the Wimbledon champion in the decider before faltering.

Kvitova, also taken to three set by Olga Govortsova in the first round, broke in the eighth game when her opponent netted a forehand and she completed victory with a flourish.

There were no alarms for defending champion Maria Sharapova as she crushed Colombia’s Mariana Duque-Mariño 6-1 6-2.

Former runner-up Victoria Azarenka set up a third-round clash with top seed Serena Williams with a 6-3 6-3 defeat of Croatian Ajla Tomljanovic.

Topping the early men’s programme on Tuesday was Bulgaria’s Grigor Dimitrov and French showman Gael Monfils, both of whom enjoyed easy victories on the red clay.

Tenth seed Dimitrov was 6-4 3-0 ahead when American opponent Donald Young quit with an injury while Monfils dropped only two games against Serbian Viktor Troicki.

Top seed Roger Federer was not in action.