Safarova Wins Doubles

     Serena Doesn't Surprise Anyone ... Wins Family Circle Championship 6-0, 6-1

        CHARLESTON SC (TENNIS E-News) -- No surprises here. You could see it coming. You watched it happen. The day after playing her "best match ever ... on clay" Serena Williams wasn't about to let a Lucifer bedevil her and didn't. Lucie Safarova had double-bageled her way into today's finale. No Cinderella story at this Family Circle Cup that was celebrating its 40th tournament year. The final was Williams' 40th Women's Tennis Association championship.

    Safarova had some chances on break points, but the 5th-seeded Williams pounded serves past the Czech lefty to save the games and won the first set at love. Not much different a story from Saturday when Samantha Stosur won a game deep into the second set. The roar went up from the crowd. Safanova sported a big grin. But, that was that. Smiles were all from Williams the rest of the way.

    Safarova recovered quickly from her singles loss. Receiving a wildcard in doubles, she and Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova won the championship in the thrilling 5-7, 6-4, 10-6 final over Anabel Medina Garrigues and Yaroslava Shvedova.

    No, Serena Williams' win wasn't the most lopsided final in FCC history, but the best in Charleston. Chris Evert defeated Billie Jean King 6-0, 6-1 in 1977 and Mary Pierce ran through Arantxa Sanchez-Vicaro by the same score in the last year FCC was played on Hilton Head Island -- 2000. Sam Stosur beat Vera Zvonareva in the shortest singles final -- 6-0, 6-3 in 52 minutes in 2010. Today's match went 58 minutes ... the same length as Williams' semifinal win over Stosur Saturday. A farther dig into the record books will turn up how Williams' four-match performances this year rank. Figure a run of 6-4, 6-3; 6-2, 6-2; 4-1 ret; 6-1, 6-1 and 6-0, 6-1.

    Bring on the rest of the clay-court season.

The following excerpts are from www.familycirclecup.com:

            On Saturday, the No.5-seeded Williams defeated a No.2-seeded Sam Stosur in just 58 minutes, 61 61, compiling an almost unheard of +14 differential on clay against one of the best clay courters out there (29 winners to 15 errors).
            Williams did even better against the No.9-seeded Safarova in the final, winning the first nine games of the match to build a 6-0, 3-0 lead; Safarova held at love to get on the board, but Williams won another three games to close it out, 6-0, 6-1. The final match time was the same as the American’s semifinal, 58 minutes, but her differential was an even better +19 (27 winners to just eight errors).
            When asked about playing so unbelievably well in the last two rounds, Williams declared she didn't want the momentum to end. "I hope I can make it three and four and five and six and more and more and more," she said. "I definitely want to continue this. I've never played consistently at such a high level with low errors like this, and the scary thing is I could have served so much better."
            Williams lost just 15 games all week - the fewest en route to a WTA title this year. But the biggest stat might be winning that 40th WTA title, just the third active player to get to 40 (Venus Williams has 43, Kim Clijsters has 41). It was only Williams' fourth WTA clay court title, but they've all been big ones - Rome and Roland Garros in 2002, and Charleston twice now, 2008 and 2012.
            Safarova still had a stellar week, reaching her third Premier final (she was also a finalist at Paris [Indoors] in 2007 and 2010) and recording some meaningful wins the last two rounds, over Vera Zvonareva in the quarterfinals (her 14th Top 10 win) and Polona Hercog in the semifinals (her first career double bagel).

    RESULTS - SUNDAY, APRIL 08, 2012
STADIUM start 1:00 pm
[5] S Williams (USA) def. [9] L Safarova (CZE) 6-0, 6-1

[WC] A Pavlyuchenkova (RUS) / L Safarova (CZE) def. A Medina Garrigues (ESP) / Y Shvedova (KAZ) 5-7, 6-4, 10-6

Myrtle Beach Wins Family Circle Club Championship -- a mixed doubles competition among teams from Hilton Head Island, Charleston, Columbia, Myrtle Beach, Rock Hill, Charlotte and Anderson ....

       Playing on combo mixed doubles levels, the teams were scheduled for three rounds of eight-game pro sets that started late Thursday afternoon, then got weathered out. Action continued Friday late afternoon, wrapping up with finals. Games won were accumulated to determine which two teams advanced to the final. A second team from Charleston subbed for the expected Atlanta entrant.

    Competing in its Group One, the HHI team had 11 games in Round One, while Charlotte had 19 and Columbia and Myrtle Beach each had 32. In Round Two, Group One is led by Myrtle Beach with 64 games, followed by Columbia with 58, Charleston Two with 37 and HHI with 23. In Group Two, Anderson leads with 64 games, then comes Charlotte with 52, Rock Hill with 60 and Charleston One with 30. Group One's final round ended with Myrtle Beach leading in overall total with 91 games, Columbia next with 84 , Charleston Two with 74 and HHI with 35.

    The teams were all treated to FCC tickets for the week and an after-finals Club Champ player party at the FC Tennis Center.  

    The HHI team consists of Ken and Linda Rose at 7.0, Robin and Tom Fulton at 8.0 and Bobby Tillison and Julie Taylor at 9.0. Stay tuned.

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Spring Lake Team Organizer

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