2016 WTA Finals Day Five: Team Bucie Advances To Semifinals In Doubles; Madison Keys Ousted In Singles

Team Bucie (click to enlarge)

And so ends my 2016 tennis season as a fan. Ok, not really. But it feels like a lot of wind was let out of my balloon as Madison Keys, Simona Halep and Garbine Muguruza all failed to get out of the round robin stage at the 2016 WTA Finals. As a lifelong tennis fan, I’ll still watch the rest of the singles play, but my hardcore rooting interest now turns to doubles. Help me, Team Bucie. You’re my only hope. Oh my, they almost crashed out of Singapore, too. Lucie Safarova and Bethanie Mattek-Sands, aka Team Bucie, had to fight off 3 match points against them to finally eliminate Timea Babos and Yaroslava Shvedova in a super tiebreak 5-7 7-6 (6) [10-2]. I say they are my only fandom hope, but there is another. The Chan Sisters, Hao-Ching and Yung-Jan (Yongran), also play on Friday. But they have a tough task taking on the reunited Team Santina, Sania Mirza and Hall of Famer Martina Hingis. I hope the Chan sisters prevail. However, even if they don’t I still have Team Bucie at least making it to Saturday’s semifinal stage.

I usually focus on the winners in the picture and video section, but since this is the last I’ll see of Maddie and Simona in WTA sanctioned play until January, I’m just going to post their photos along with Team Bucie. I’ll get back to the singles semifinalists Saturday.