WTA Birmingham: Melanie Oudin wins first WTA title

Chanelle Scheepers

Birmingham has been a rollercoaster of a tournament this week, but things finally wrapped up on Monday when Melanie Oudin shocked Jelena Jankovic in the final with a 6-4 6-2 victory.  She must be given huge credit for how she has managed to turn her fortunes around having endured a miserable couple of years where she struggled to string any wins together.  She will now join a long list of dangerous floaters at Wimbledon that already includes Venus Williams, Kim Clijsters, Ekaterina Makarova, Mona Barthel and Tsvetana Pironkova.

I added Barthel and Pironkova to that list  above although recent form may suggest I am wrong! Barthel lost to Chanelle Scheepers in a 6-1 4-6 6-1 first round loss.  The big talking point was her serve as she threw the first set away within about 10 minutes after surrendering her serve twice early on with four double faults.  In the final set, she won just 3 out of 13 first serve points, which is extremely surprising for someone who has such a great serve.  Scheepers joined Daniela Hantuchova, Tamira Paszek and Aleksandra Wozniak into the second round.  Wozniak squeaked past Galina Voskoboeva who had two chances to serve out the match and then wasted a 4-1 lead in the third set tiebreak.

You can now view my predictions for the WTA and ATP tournament at Eastbourne.  I will be going tomorrow and am delighted with the line-up, which includes Petra Kvitova, Caroline Wozniacki and the match between Andy Roddick and Sam Querrey :-)))