2017 Boston Open Women’s Preview

Official Sponsor of the APTA

January 27-28, 2017
Boston, MA

This weekend’s Boston Open, featuring almost all of the top-ranked players, is shaping up to be the toughest tournament yet on the 2016-2017 APTA Grand Prix circuit. With the exception of seventh ranked Hallie Bodman and Liz Hayward, and top-notch players Lauren Gebbia , Ana Brzova, and Dana Parsons, all of the top 10 ranked teams and many of the top 20 are vying for the Boston title. An added bonus, the women are competing for prize money this year.

Everyone will be gunning for the top seeds Gabriela Niculescu and Martina Ondrejkova, who won the Grand Prix tournaments in Patterson and Chicago to start the season but haven’t competed together since. At The Midwesterns Grand Prix less than two weeks ago, Boston’s third seeds Liz Cruz and Roxy Enica took a tough three-set final from Boston’s second seeds, Cynthia Dardis and Amy Shay. Both Cruz/Enica and Dardis/Shay, who also won the Women’s 50+ Nationals on Friday, are in excellent form coming into the Boston Open.

Fourth seeds Heather Prop and Ania Kazakevich continued their consistently good results at The Midwesterns, reaching the semifinals before losing a tight straight set match to Cruz and Enica. Fifth seeded Kerri Flynn and Myrthe Molenveld are hitting their stride this season, winning the Connecticut Classic and coming in fifth at Chicago Charities.

Two newer teams are real threats to win the title. When Kerri Delmonico and Florentina Hanisch obliterated the competition at the Long Island Invitational in December, losing only four games to Dardis/Shay in the quarters and three games to Cruz/Enica in the finals, each showed some potent weapons. They are not playing together in Boston, but will tough to beat with their partners Jessica Guyaux and Annica van Starrenburg, respectively. Delmonico/Guyaux are seeded sixth, and Hanisch/van Starrenburg are seeded seventh. The eighth seeds, Liz Jaffe and Alison Morgan, are a first-time team who should be able to combine Morgan’s quickness and Jaffe’s court sense to gel quickly.

Because of the depth in the Boston draw, there are plenty of unseeded teams who could make an impact. No one wants to see the two-time National Champion Viki Stoklosova and the talented newcomer Jade Curtis in their section of the draw, nor will the seeded teams want to face Suzanne Lemery and Kelly Rohrbach, who haven’t played much this year but have had great results in the past. Peachtree Invitational champions Agata Cioroch and Lisa Teer, Mirian Cruz and Marina Ruiz de Gauma, Cooey Lyon and Charlotte Sikora, and Sue Tarzian and Kelly Cobbs are all exciting new teams that could pose problems for the seeded players.

The Live Streaming crew will be covering the women’s action on Friday and Saturday, January 27-28. You can also follow the results as they happen on Live Scoring.