Can Flavia Pennetta pull off the Indian Wells-Miami double?

Source: Reuters

In a surprising turn of events last week, Italian Flavia Pennetta achieved her biggest title to date when she won the BNP Paribas Open 2014 in Indian Wells, California. Pennetta outlasted injury-hampered Agnieszka Radwanska in straight sets to secure $1 million in prize money at this Premier Mandatory event plus a surge in rankings to number 12.

This week at the Sony Open in Miami, another Premier Mandatory tournament, Pennetta is seeded 20th (since seedings were based on last week’s rankings). It did not matter as she continued her strong form with a straight sets opening round victory over Belarusian qualifier Olga Govortsova 6-3, 6-3.

It was a tough match, but I think we played good tennis,” Pennetta said. “It was not easy to stay focused on the new tournament, but I did my best and everything was working pretty good.”

The Italian will clash with former world number one Ana Ivanovic in the third round. Tennis bookies will certainly be keeping an eye at this tantalizing match-up since Ivanovic holds a 4-0 head to head series lead over Pennetta. They’ve competed against each other twice in 2013 – in Toronto and Beijing where Ivanovic won in straight sets. However, Pennetta has been on fire since reaching the US Open semifinals last season. She would go on to reach the quarterfinals of the Australian Open earlier this year and win in Indian Wells last week. In fact, she’s currently ranked higher than Ivanovic [ranked 13th] this week.

Only two WTA stars have achieved the Indian Wells-Miami double. Steffi Graff did the feat twice back in 1994 and 1996. The last one who achieved this was former top-ranked Kim Clijsters back in 2005. Interestingly, Clijsters was ranked outside of the world’s top 100 when she stormed her way to these titles as she was coming back from injury. Would this be the same case for Pennetta?

The Italian is at the opposite side of the draw from defending champion and six-time titlist Serena Williams. This should be an interesting face-off should these two great players meet in the final next weekend.