Oh my god, this is amazing Please don't treat Auckland like Bastad, Serena
And contrary to the thread so far, I reckon this would be great for Serena. We all know whether she is winning any tournament or not is about her game, not where she's playing, so a nice low key environment with likely decent (top 20) competition from the SF, is probably a great idea to put her in swing for AO.
Venus said she told Serena how great it was - guess it worked? Pity she can't play as well unless she totally drops the ball in Asia - only 1 top 10 allowed in Auckland due to the amount of prizemoney
This tournament has been wanting Serena to play for quite some time. So, Im sure the signing bonus will be pretty big specially since shell probably get fined the 125K for not playing the year end finals im still not convinced she will play this tournament. Some people talk about the farewell tour or even retiring and i think that when she decides to retire her year schedule will just consist of the 4 majors and probably Miami but thats it no more than that
She already said she's targetting Singapore. It's not uncommon for her not to play in fall except for the YEC. As for playing Auckland, she will play if she is fit. This isn't like Bastad which is a randome tournament played on clay after Wimbledon which is not ideal.
I was expecting either Hopman Cup or Brisbane, so this is a total surprise to me. Serena always did well in both events, but Auckland will be a great change up to prepare for Australia, being outdoors and having the warmer conditions. No doubt, they're gonna sell a LOT of tickets, and it's gonna be jam-packed all week. The atmosphere is amazing and there's always a lot of great matches, so I'm definitely looking forward to next year's event, now that Queen Ree is coming!
Zvonareva used to tell the other Russian players how much she enjoyed this tournament and Myskina, Kuznetsova and others played it
Now Venus and Caroline play it and they probably told Serena how player friendly it is
But this is a surprise because I ddnt think Serena wanted this kind of AO preparation.
Hopman Cup she is guaranteed matches and no pressure
Exciting! The difference between 280 and 470 points is inconsequential for someone at Serena's ranking and lord knows money isn't an issue at this point, so she should play wherever she feels gives her the best preparation for the Australian Open. Getting five matches against players outside of the Top 15 will allow her to more comfortably test out anything she's worked on during off the season.
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