xan
Oct 21st, 2005, 12:07 AM
Well. It's official. Maria loses her no 1 ranking this coming Monday. The loss of her Zurich points meant that Kim Clijsters would have just pipped her for Number 1 anyway.
But with Daniela unfortunately failing to take advantage of her match points against Lindsay today, Lindsay leapfrogs both, to take the No 1 spot again on Monday, with Kim 2, and Maria 3!
Of course we knew it wasn't going to last, with Maria off injured for most of the Summer and Autumn, and with loads of points to defend. Lindsay is actually the player to have got No 1 by default with Maria injured - the very thing Lindsay fans were wrongly accusing Maria of a few weeks ago (since Maria was injured at the same time Lindsay was)!
So. What of the future? Maria has Philly and the YEC to come. But she's unlikely to get the No 1 back unless Lindsay and Kim perform very very badly for the rest of the year. What IS important is that Maria stays in the Top 4 so that she continues to get reasonable draws in the Slams and Tier 1 events.
Her competition is: Lindsay, Kim, Amelie and Mary Pierce. With venus, Justine and Elena coming up behind.
Maria still has around 700 points to defend this year, so she needs a reasonable YEC and Philly performance to stay in 3rd Position.
Mauresmo hasn't been playing well, and has a LOT of points to defend at Philly and the YEC. her chances of overtaking Maria are fairly poor.
Mary, Venus, Justine and Elena, however, have very little to defend until the end of the year. All of them will be over a thousand points behind Maria next monday, though so it would take a YEC win and a very bad performance from Maria for any of them to overtake. The chances of two of these gaining enough points to overtake Maria before next year are very small. So Maria should hopefully hang on to a Top 4 Ranking for the Australian season.
In the new Year. Maria has nothing to defend until the AO. But then she has her AO Semi, Tokyo Tier 1 win and Doha Tier 2 win to defend in the space of a month!
But with Daniela unfortunately failing to take advantage of her match points against Lindsay today, Lindsay leapfrogs both, to take the No 1 spot again on Monday, with Kim 2, and Maria 3!
Of course we knew it wasn't going to last, with Maria off injured for most of the Summer and Autumn, and with loads of points to defend. Lindsay is actually the player to have got No 1 by default with Maria injured - the very thing Lindsay fans were wrongly accusing Maria of a few weeks ago (since Maria was injured at the same time Lindsay was)!
So. What of the future? Maria has Philly and the YEC to come. But she's unlikely to get the No 1 back unless Lindsay and Kim perform very very badly for the rest of the year. What IS important is that Maria stays in the Top 4 so that she continues to get reasonable draws in the Slams and Tier 1 events.
Her competition is: Lindsay, Kim, Amelie and Mary Pierce. With venus, Justine and Elena coming up behind.
Maria still has around 700 points to defend this year, so she needs a reasonable YEC and Philly performance to stay in 3rd Position.
Mauresmo hasn't been playing well, and has a LOT of points to defend at Philly and the YEC. her chances of overtaking Maria are fairly poor.
Mary, Venus, Justine and Elena, however, have very little to defend until the end of the year. All of them will be over a thousand points behind Maria next monday, though so it would take a YEC win and a very bad performance from Maria for any of them to overtake. The chances of two of these gaining enough points to overtake Maria before next year are very small. So Maria should hopefully hang on to a Top 4 Ranking for the Australian season.
In the new Year. Maria has nothing to defend until the AO. But then she has her AO Semi, Tokyo Tier 1 win and Doha Tier 2 win to defend in the space of a month!