Issue link: http://itf.uberflip.com/i/441551
I talians SArA errANI AND roBerTA vINCI are ITF World Champions for the third time, and third successive year, having also received the honour in 2012 and 2013. They have matched Virginia Ruano Pascual and Paola Suarez as the women's team to be named World Champions the most often, the Spanish-Argentine duo also achieving this in consecutive years, 2002-04. Errani and Vinci won two more Grand Slam titles in 2014 to bring their career total since teaming up in 2010 to five majors. The pair started the year strongly, successfully defending their Australian Open crown by beating Ekaterina Makarova and Elena Vesnina 64 36 75. On clay they won 16 of 18 matches, capturing titles in Stuttgart and Madrid and finishing runners- up in Rome before advancing to the final at Roland Garros. They lost on the Parisian clay to Hsieh Su-Wei and Peng Shuai, their closest rivals during the season, 64 61. A month later, Errani and Vinci were into their first Wimbledon final, and collapsed to the ground with joy after beating Timea Babos and Kristina Mladenovic 61 63 to complete a career Grand Slam in doubles. They secured the Montreal title in August, but it was to be their last of 2014, and the duo were forced to retire in the first match of their attempt to win the WTA Finals for the first time due to an abdominal injury suffered by Errani. But with five titles on three different surfaces in 2014, and three more runner-up finishes, Errani and Vinci had done enough to finish the season co-ranked No. 1 in doubles, having lost the top spots to Hsieh and Peng in February but regained them after their Wimbledon triumph. Y uI kAmIjI is ITF World Champion for the first time. The 20-year-old lefthander is only the second non-Dutch woman to be named World Champion after Australia's Daniela di Toro in 1998-1999 and she has ensured a double success for Japan in the wheelchair category alongside countryman Shingo Kunieda. Having broken through at the end of 2013 by winning the season-ending NEC Masters, Kamiji followed up in grand style in 2014. She reached her first Grand Slam singles final at the Australian Open, losing to Germany's Sabine Ellerbrock in three sets, but at Roland Garros went one better and won her first Grand Slam singles title, defeating 2013 ITF World Champion Aniek van Koot 76 64. She backed that up with a second major title at the US Open, again defeating van Koot in the decider 63 63. Kamiji won eight singles titles during the season, adding the Melbourne Open, Kobe Open, Japan Open, Open de France, Swiss Open and British Open to her two Slam crowns. She also won eight doubles titles, which included sweeping all four Grand Slam doubles titles with Britain's Jordanne Whiley. Kamiji took over the No. 1 ranking in both singles and doubles after Roland Garros and stayed at the top for the rest of the season. W O M EN ' S D O U B LE S W O R L D C H A M P I O N S W OM E N ' S W H E E L C H A I R W O R L D C H A M P I O N ITFWORLD WINTER 2014 9 www.itftennis.com