[bandabou]

Hasselt: Lucky Seven
Apparently you had to be one of the top seven seeds to survive at Hasselt. First #8 Nathalie Dechy withdrew. Jelena Kostanic took the #9 seed as a result -- and is out 3-6 7-6 6-4 to Virginia Ruano Pascual.

No such troubles for the top player in action on this day; #3 seed Elena Bovina, who has over 100 points to defend and ran a faint risk of falling out of the Top 20, took the first step toward defending as she beat wildcard Caroline Maes 6-1 6-1.

Only one other main draw match was played, with surfaces proving more important than rankings: Denisa Chladkova, who is happy indoors, upset Arantxa Parra Santonja 6-1 6-4 -- a loss which will probably cost Parra Santonja her Top 60 ranking.

This draw is strong enough that qualifiers aren't really likely to do much damage. But several of them will be thrilled just to made a main draw. The four who made it through are Lindsay Lee-Waters, Eva Birnerova, Angelika Bachmann, and Vanessa Henke. In addition, Emilie Loit and Anca Barna have withdrawn, so Capucine Rousseau and Michaela Pastikova make the main draw as Lucky Losers.

GuangZhou: Split Decision
You almost wonder if the players weren't afraid of SARS, or avian flu, or something. Why else would it be so hard to lure players here, when there were players lined up three deep to get into Seoul?

That was good news for the qualifying seeds, though; six of eight made the qualifying final. Which is good news for the hosts, too, since two of the four qualifiers are Chinese. Li Na, who has been very impressive in China this year (winning the Beijing Challenger, and qualifying for the Beijing Tier II, where she made the second round before losing to Svetlana Kuznetsova), made her second main draw in as many weeks with a 6-2 6-1 win over #2 qualifying seed Aiko Nakamura. And #4 seed Liu Nan-Nan, who lost to Li in the semifinal at Beijing earlier this year but did manage to qualify for the U. S. Open, made only her second main draw since Shanghai 2002 as she beat Zhang Yao 6-2 6-0. Also qualifying are Natalie Grandin, who will be playing only her second WTA main draw since 2001, and Nina Bratchikova, who will be playing her first WTA main draw.

Three first round matches were played, with interesting results for Olympic doubles champions Li Ting and Sun Tian Tian. Wildcard Li, the lower-ranked of the pair, had an easy time with slumping Aniko Kapros, winning 6-1 6-2 (a big blow for Kapros, last year's Japan Open finalist; it appears she'll end up below #90), but Li's partner Sun, who at least attempts to play singles most weeks (this was her ninth main draw of the year) and who earned direct entry, went out by the improbable score of 0-6 7-6 6-1 to #8 seed Klara Koukalova. Also advancing was Barbora Strycova, who snapped a four match losing streak with a 6-2 6-1 win over Sandra Kleinova.

Seoul: Memory Aids

If you were worried about remembering the names of all those Koreans who were stuffing the Seoul draw -- forget it. There isn't much to remember. There were sixteen Koreans in the qualifying draw. Not one made it through to the main draw -- not even Mi-Ra Jeon, who is Korea's more-or-less-#2 player, and who was the top qualifying seed. She had lost in the second round of qualifying to Ayami Takase, but Takase proceeded to fall 6-0 6-2 to #5 qualifying seed Chia-Jung Chuang of Taiwan, who will be playing her first WTA match since losing her opener at the Australian Open. Only one Korean, in fact, made the qualifying final: Jin-A Lee, who lost 6-1 6-3 to #7 Sunitha Rao -- who will be making her first main draw appearance in more than two years. Also qualifying were #8 seed Seiko Okamoto, who beat countrywoman Miho Saeki 7-5 6-2 to reach only her second main draw of the year (where she will face former doubles partner and #2 seed Shinobu Asagoe), and #6 Shahar Peer, who took out Rika Fujiwara 6-1 6-2 to reach her first main draw since Hyderabad.

The Koreans in main draw action fared no better. Wildcard Jin-Hee Kim lost 6-3 6-0 to Sanda Mamic, who had direct entry to a WTA draw for the first time in her career; Yoon Jeong Cho, Korea's one-time #1, had the bad luck to take on #8 seed Samantha Stosur, and lost 7-6 6-4.

Stosur turned out to be the only seed to advance. #3 Marlene Weingartner, who reached her first career final two weeks ago at Bali, did a typical Weingartner, losing her next match 6-1 6-3 to Marta Domachowska, who earned her first WTA win away from clay. And #4 Mashona Washington, who did so well on American hardcourts this summer, couldn't translate that to Korean hardcourts; Catalina Castano beat her 5-7 6-4 6-4.

Whatever is wrong with Adriana Serra Zanetti is not getting better. She is now down to 1-8 at the WTA level this year after falling 6-3 6-4 to Silvija Talaja. Milagros Sequera isn't doing much better; after doing fairly well in late spring and early summer, she now has a five match losing streak after falling to Galina Voskoboeva in a third set tiebreak. That's only the third WTA win for Voskoboeva, all this year. Which is still better than Abigail Spears had been doing; Spears came here with seven prior WTA events going back to 2001, and first round losses in all of them, but she beat Lioudmilla Skavronskaia 6-2 6-3.

Speaking of forgotten players, remember Su-Wei Hsieh? Earned a pile of Challenger wins in early 2001, made the semifinal at her first WTA event at Bali that year, then made the quarterfinal at Pattaya later in the year? And has played only one WTA match since, which she lost? Well, she didn't make the field here in singles -- not even in qualifying -- but she is in the doubles; she and countrywoman Chuang beat wildcards So-Jung Kim and Soo-Mi Yoo in three sets. That match involved the weakest team in the doubles draw; ironically, the other match played involved the strongest team. Shinobu Asagoe and Katarina Srebotnik, the top seeds, beat Saori Obata and Sunitha Rao 6-2 6-1. It's interesting to note that Asagoe had been playing with Rika Fujiwara, but played here with Srebotnik even though Fujiwara was in the qualifying draw. It's probably a smart move, though, the two Japanese hadn't had much luck together.

Bangkok: Half and Half

It was a day with two stories, and only one of them on the court.

The off-court story involved top seed Juan Carlos Ferrero, whose injury woes continue. He had developed a blister on his hand during Davis Cup, meaning that he would not have played the deciding match even had it been live; he has withdrawn from Bangkok.

The on-court story was the contest between Thomas Johansson and #6 seed Feliciano Lopez, won by Johansson in a third set tiebreak after saving two match points.

Only one other singles match was played: Flavio Saretta bounced wildcard Prakash Amritraj 6-3 6-3.

The doubles had its own mildly interesting story: Mahesh Bhupathi and Leander Paes are still playing together even though the Olympics are over. The #1 seeds beat Attila Savolt and Jiri Vanek 6-2 6-1.

Shanghai: Clandestine Dealings

Let's say it straight out: The ATP wants to get rid of doubles. They've cut the prize money, they've cut the fields, they've messed with the entry criteria. No luck.

Now, perhaps, they've found a more subtle way: Create qualifying draws so soft that it lures the doubles specialists into playing singles -- and let it kill them.

Robbie Koenig played one ATP singles match in 2001 (at Shanghai, even), one qualifying match in 2002, no singles at all in 2003. But he decided to try again here. He even made it to the qualifying final. Then -- he withdrew. Suddenly this singles business doesn't look so smart.

Nathan Healey at least managed to play to the end, but he too is out; Melle van Gemerden eliminated him 6-3 7-6. Ivo Klec was the beneficiary of Koenig's withdrawal; he's been ranked since 2001, but this will be his first ATP match in all that time. Also qualifying are Edouard Roger-Vasselin and Bjorn Phau.

The far east has always been good for Kenneth Carlsen; both his career titles (Hong Kong 1998, Tokyo 2002) have come here, and he also has two of his four other finals in the vicinity of the Pacific Ocean. Maybe heading east was a good omen; he beat Jan Hernych 7-5 6-1. There is no sign of a turnaround for Jean-Rene Lisnard, though; he fell to Gilles Muller 3-6 6-4 6-4. Bohdan Ulihrach also continues to struggle; he fell to Davide Sanguinetti 6-3 6-3.

The only seed in action was #3 Guillermo Canas, who took out namesake Guillermo Garcia-Lopez 7-6 6-3.

Palermo: Double Duty

However well Galo Blanco does at Palermo, he's earned it. He faced a very long day on Monday, and passed the test with flying colors.

They play short sessions in Palermo, and that meant that two second round qualifying matches went unfinished. Blanco and Frantisek Cermak had to finish off those matches before facing each other in the qualifying final. As befits a Spaniard known more for grinding than for offensive capability, Blanco made the main draw 7-5 6-4.

The other matches of the qualifying final round were noteworthy mostly for tiebreaks. Every match had one, and some of them were monsters. Mariano Puerta will be playing his first main draw match since his suspension for using an asthma medication; he won a 26-point second set tiebreak to beat Diego Gimeno-Traver 6-3 7-6. Alessio Di Mauro's tiebreak with Simone Bolelli was a little shorter -- "only" 24 points -- but in his case, it was to stay in the match; Di Mauro made the main draw 3-6 7-6 6-2. Next to that, Nicolas Almagro's 6-2 7-6 win over Leos Friedl looked downright routine; the score in the tiebreak was 7-3.

Only three main draw matches were played, with no particular surprises. #3 seed Fernando Verdasco, who had last week off, was the only seed in action. He had a surprisingly tough time, but finally beat wildcard Francesco Aldi 6-2 4-6 6-2. Jose Acasuso, who always has good success at this time of year and who made the final here in 2002, had the day's easiest match as he beat Alejandro Falla 6-3 6-1. And a battle of Oliviers was won by Olivier Mutis, who beat Olivier Patience 6-4 6-3.

Women's Match of the Day

Hasselt - First Round
Virginia Ruano Pascual def. Jelena Kostanic (9) 3-6 7-6(7-3) 6-4

Virginia Ruano Pascual is not exactly the player you expect to see winning indoors. She's Spanish. She has a one-handed backhand, and doesn't really get all that much weight on the ball. She's actually fairly good at the net, but she doesn't like to come there. All in all, she's a player you don't really expect to see doing damage on medium-to-fast courts.

But Jelena Kostanic seems to be one of those players who has built herself a glass ceiling. Most who have seen her think she has the potential to hit the Top 30. And yet, she seems to save a lot of her best for matches that don't mean much, and really has trouble when she's going for career highs.

We don't know that that's the explanation here, of course. Kostanic, in fact, was defending points from last year, so she needed at least a couple of wins just to break even. Which, obviously, she didn't get. #35 coming in, this costs her about 60 points, and that means she will fall at least one ranking spot. Given where she sits in the rankings, it looks more likely that it will be two or three. Which probably kills her chances of hitting the Top 30 this year; there just aren't enough events left, and most of the remaining tournaments are too strong.

Ruano Pascual came in ranked #61. This is only a Tier III, so the points aren't great, but it does appear she'll gain about half a dozen spots.

Men's Match of the Day

Bangkok - First Round
Thomas Johansson def. Feliciano Lopez (6) 6-1 2-6 7-6(7-5)

This was the match that had everything. For the drama buffs, we had the aging veteran trying to make a comeback. We had the brash young kid with all the power. We had the day's only upset. And we had a spectacular match in which Thomas Johansson saved two match points before finally coming through.

Now if only it meant something.

For Lopez, it literally made no difference at all. This wasn't a great time for him last year; he lost first round at Long Island, the U. S. Open, and Moscow. That last result comes off this week, but of course he replaces it with another first round loss. He isn't going to move more than a place or two.

For Johansson, the points may potentially count, since he isn't defending anything, but he's been back long enough now that second round results at optional events don't mean anything worth noticing. What slight significance it has is in the Race: Johansson came in at #37. This just might gain him a spot or two. He will certainly move up if he can win another round or two. And, of course, he's getting close to that magic #32 that will get him an Australian Open seed. Barring another injury, it looks like he'll make it.

Community Property
It's been an odd year for the WTA. (We suspect you've noticed.) Never have we had such a wide-open year, with four players competing for the #1 ranking at the U. S. Open, four different Slam winners (three of them first-timers, and none of them had a Slam at the start of 2003!), a half dozen players winning their first titles -- we could go on.

Well, we've got one more for you. It looks as if we might tie the record for the least successful most successful player.

We probably need to define what we mean. Every year, some player wins more titles than any other on the Tour. That's our "most successful player" (though she isn't always #1 -- e.g. last year Kim Clijsters had nine titles, but Justine Henin-Hardenne, with eight titles, was the year-end #1).

Let's look at the numbers here. The table below shows the winningest player of each year, and the #2, with the number of players won, going back to 1994:


Year..Winningest............#2 Winner
2003..Clijsters (9).........Henin-Hardenne (8)
2002..S. Williams (8).......V. Williams (7)
2001..Davenport (7).........V. Williams (6)
2000..Hingis (9)............V. Williams (5)
1999..TIE: Davenport, Hingis (7)
1998..Davenport (6).........Hingis (5)*
1997..Hingis (12)...........Davenport (6)
1996..Graf (7)..............Seles (5)
1995..Graf (9)..............Martinez (6)
1994..Sanchez-Vicario (8)...Graf (7)

* Patty Schnyder also had five titles in 1998. But Schnyder's titles were small and Hingis's large; there isn't much doubt about who was more successful.

We don't need to go back before 1994; before that, going back at least to 1983, the most successful player always had at least ten titles per year (Navratilova in 1984 had 15). It tells you something about the changes in the Tour that, since 1993, only one player (Hingis in 1997) has had as many as ten.

But now let's compare that with the numbers for this year. The contrast is striking. We'll ignore players with only one title:


Titles..Player............Title List
6.......Davenport.........Pan Pacific, Amelia Island,
..........................Stanford, Los Angeles,
..........................San Diego, Cincinnati
5.......Henin-Hardenne....Sydney, Australian Open,
..........................Dubai, Indian Wells,
..........................Olympics
3.......Kuznetsova........Eastbourne, U. S. Open,
..........................Bali
3.......Mauresmo..........Berlin, Rome,
..........................Canadian Open
2.......Clijsters.........Paris, Antwerp
2.......Myskina...........Doha, Roland Garros
2.......Loit..............Casablanca, Estoril
2.......Sharapova.........Birmingham, Wimbledon
2.......S. Williams.......Miami, Beijing
2.......V. Williams.......Charleston, Warsaw

And both our top two are a bit questionable right now. Davenport loves indoor surfaces, especially indoor hardcourt, but she's been hurt. Henin-Hardenne does not love indoor hardcourt; it's probably her worst surface. So it's possible that we will equal the 1998 record for least successful most successful player. Even if Davenport or Henin-Hardenne can take charge, it seems certain we'll be at the low end of the scale.

Not really surprising, is it?

[bandabou]

Hasselt: Who Was That Masked Woman?

Since when did Vanessa Henke turn into Superwoman?

This is, after all, a player who hadn't played a WTA match since Antwerp 2003. She hadn't won one since Strasbourg 2002. She has been losing in Challenger qualifying. But here she was, having qualified for Hasselt, playing Kirsten Flipkens, who is as close as Belgium comes to having a prospect to join Kim Clijsters and Justine Henin-Hardenne in the elite ranks of the sport. But Henke beat her 6-2 1-6 6-4.

Maybe there it's just that there is something special about this place for marginal players. Michaela Pastikova hadn't won a WTA match since 2000. And she lost in qualifying. But she made the main draw as a Lucky Loser, and justified it with a 7-6 6-4 win over Tathiana Garbin. And Els Callens, who had lost ten of her last eleven matches and has fallen out of the Top 100, beat qualifier Eva Birnerova 7-6 6-4.

On the other hand, Angelika Bachmann couldn't earn her first WTA win since Palermo 2002; she fell to Iveta Benesova 6-4 6-3. And Claudine Schaul couldn't shake the slump that's seen her lose ten of thirteen matches since 's-Hertogenbosch; Maria Sanchez Lorenzo eliminated her 6-3 6-0. Nor could anyone trouble the seeds: #5 Francesca Schiavone eliminated countrywoman Mara Santangelo 6-2 6-0, while #7 Magdalena Maleeva eliminated qualifier Linsday Lee-Waters 6-3 6-3. #6 Silvia Farina Elia had to work against Tatiana Perebiynis, but she too advanced, 5-7 6-3 6-1.

Capucine Rousseau's first WTA match was not exactly a happy experience; she lost to Maria Elena Camerin 6-2 6-0.

GuangZhou: Unsecret Message
If you're looking for a Word of the Day for this day, it might well have been "Better Luck Next Time." Many of the players in China were seeking some sort of milestone win. Few achieved it.

Take Russian qualifier Nina Bratchikova. This was her first WTA main draw, so naturally she was looking for her first WTA win. She didn't get it; countrywoman Tatiana Panova beat her 3-6 6-0 6-3. Qualifier Natalie Grandin was playing her first WTA event in almost exactly three years, but she couldn't pull off a win either, losing to China's Peng Shuai 6-0 6-3. (In fairness, Peng is looking like China's best prospect for the future, with two Challenger titles this year and a 4-3 WTA record since Wimbledon). Wildcard Yan Zi has eight WTA events in the past couple of years, but came in with a five match losing streak going back to last year's Japan Open. Nor is the end in sight; #3 seed Flavia Pennetta beat her 6-1 2-6 6-3.

On the other hand, China's Li Na seems to be on the fast track to recovery from injury. You'll notice that she's mentioned in the notes to today's rankings feature. She'll be moving again this week; she beat Vera Douchevina 6-4 6-1. And Tamarine Tanasugarn, after a dreadful year, has just about assured her year-end Top 100 ranking; she upset Jill Craybas 6-2 7-5. Also posting a small upset was Martina Sucha, who took out Alina Jidkova 6-4 1-6 6-3.

This is proving to be quite a nice tournament for seeds so far; all four who have played have advanced. In addition to #3 Pennetta and #8 Klara Koukalova (who played on Monday), #4 Marion Bartoli topped Jennifer Hopkins 6-0 6-4 and #7 Nicole Pratt disposed of Akiko Morigami 6-3 6-4.

Seoul: Spy Stuff
You can tell a lot about a tournament from its Lucky Losers. At Filderstadt, for instance, a Lucky Loser might be Top 20. Sydney might get a Lucky Loser in the Top 30.

At Seoul, we had a Lucky Loser ranked #258. What's more, she won. Miho Saeki, who hadn't played a WTA match since Quebec City and who hadn't won since Shanghai 2002, replaced oft-injured Henrieta Nagyova and broke her winless streak by beating qualifier Sunitha Rao (who hadn't played a WTA match in two years) in a third set tiebreak.

Nor was she the only Lucky Loser to play and win. Rika Fujiwara, ranked #177, replaced Melinda Czink and pounded wildcard So-Jung Kim 6-0 6-4.

In the end, Lucky Losers did better than seeds here. #1 Maria Sharapova, the only Top 40 player in the draw, had no trouble with Emmanuelle Gagliardi, advancing 6-1 6-3. #2 Shinobu Asagoe took out countrywoman Seiko Okamoto, a qualifier with whom she won a doubles title earlier this year, 6-0 6-2. And Asagoe's current partner, #5 Katarina Srebotnik, bounced Antonella Serra Zanetti 6-1 6-1. But that still means that only four seeds (those three plus Samantha Stosur) are in the second round. Anne Kremer ran #6 Lubomira Kurhajcova's WTA losing streak to four (though she does have Challenger wins in between) 4-6 6-1 6-3, and the heat was too much for #7 Saori Obata, who retired before countrywoman Yuka Yoshida trailing 5-7 6-3 2-0.

Two qualifiers hit milestones. Chia-Jung Chuang, whose only previous WTA match was as a wildcard at this year's Australian Open, picked up her first WTA win by upsetting Katerina Bohmova (who was playing her first WTA match after some nice Challenger results) 7-5 3-6 6-3. And Shahar Peer picked up her second WTA win with a 6-1 6-2 victory over Lenka Nemeckova, who also had been looking for her second win of the year (though she has more in her career).

The Serra Zanetti sisters decided not to play doubles together here, and it worked for Antonella; she and Marta Domachowska beat Abigail Spears and Galina Voskoboeva 6-2 6-3. But Adriana is having no more success in doubles than singles. In an ironic twist, she teamed with Silvija Talaja (the player who had beaten her in singles), but they lost 7-6 6-0 to the Korean pair of Yoon Jeong Cho and Mi-Ra Jeon.

Bangkok: I Won't Stand In Your Way
Roger Federer won't have to worry about facing countryman and role model Marc Rosset after all.

Had Rosset won two matches, he would have been in line to face his countryman and the world's #1. It won't happen now. Paul Baccanello beat Rosset by the very un-Rosset-like score of 7-6 1-6 7-6. That of course also kills Rosset's hopes of returning to the Top 100.

Federer showed no signs of similar problems. He took out Nicolas Thomann 6-4 7-6. And he even finds another Swiss player still in the draw, though it isn't Rosset: Ivo Heuberger took out Attila Savolt 6-4 6-1. And Heuberger and Marco Chiudinelli also gave Switzerland a pair of doubles quarterfinalists as they beat Coupe and Morrison in two tiebreaks.

Morrison's luck was better in singles; he beat Michael Kohlmann 6-4 6-3. But Justin Gimelstob's winning streak is over; having won a Challenger last week, he made it close against defending champion and #5 seed Taylor Dent, but finally lost 4-6 6-4 6-4. Though he did pick up a fairly nice doubles scalp: Gimelstob and Graydon Oliver took out Marat Safin and Robin Soderling in straight sets.

It's starting to look as if Dennis van Scheppingen can only win after the U. S. Open. He's #115 in the Race, but #81 in the rankings, and that's because he earned so many points last fall. He didn't look too good on this day, but he won, beating wildcard Novak Djokovic 4-6 7-5 6-4. In the day's other match, Alex Bogomolov Jr. topped Jaymon Crabb 6-3 6-2.

Shanghai: Second Line of Defense
There can't be many things more irritating for a doubles specialist than watch the partner with whom you played for many years, without much success, pick another partner and suddenly turn into a top player. But that's what Nathan Healey has experienced lately. He had played with Paul Hanley literally from the start of Hanley's career (they reached the semifinal of Hanley's first Challenger at Perth in 1997). They struggled and struggled and went nowhere -- and then, after a few experiments in 2002, Hanley hooked up with Wayne Arthurs, and it carried Hanley into the Top Ten at the end of last year. Whereas Healey ended 2003 ranked #81. If he is, literally, hungry, who can blame him?

Is it coincidence that he's been trying to make a comeback in singles?

And he had about as much luck as anyone could expect. He lost in the final round of qualifying -- but, amazingly, was the top available loser, and made the main draw as a result. Not only that, but he became the de facto top seed, since he went in in place of Juan Carlos Ferrero. And he faced a qualifier.

It didn't help. He lost his second match in two days; qualifier Edouard Roger-Vasselin beat him 4-6 7-6 6-4.

Evidently facing Healey is a good luck charm. The guy who beat him on Monday advanced on Tuesday also; Melle van Gemerden took out Jan Vacek 6-4 6-2.

Or maybe it was just a crummy day to be Australian. Because Mark Philippoussis is also out; Glenn Weiner provided the day's one big upset as he beat the #4 seed 3-6 6-4 6-4.

Only one other seed was in action, and he was in almost as much of a slump as Philippoussis. But #8 Jan-Michael Gambill faced a much weaker opponent; Ivo Klec has no ATP experience at all despite years bouncing around Challengers. Gambill trounced him 6-4 6-3.

Also on the comeback trail is Kristian Pless, who finally seems to be getting his game back together; he beat Christophe Rochus 4-6 7-5 6-0.

Everyone agrees that Chinese tennis is making rapid gains. But it hasn't yet reached the point where one can keep track of the players without a scorecard. Especially when they all seem to have the same name. Let's say this as best we can: Zhu won, beating Zib, but Zeng (not Zheng, Zeng) lost. To spell it out: Wildcard Ben-Qiang Zhu beat Tomas Zib (who isn't Chinese, of course) 1-6 6-4 6-4, but wildcard Shao-Xuan Zeng is out 6-3 6-4 to Lars Burgsmuller. The two Chinese players then teamed up in doubles, losing 6-4 3-6 6-2 to Hernych and Sanguinetti.

Palermo: I Want an Armada Too!
It's not just Spaniards who can take over an event -- though there were plenty of Spaniards in action in Sicily on Tuesday. Nine of them, in fact, or about half the players in action. But Italy had its say, too.

And a successful one, for the most part. Filippo Volandri, the #5 seed and their top gun, easily disposed of Albert Montanes (Spaniard #1) 6-2 6-3. And Potito Starace, their other rising star, edged Richard Gasquet 7-6 4-6 6-1. In addition, wildcard Andreas Seppi eliminated Arnaud di Pasquale 6-7 6-2 6-4. Though qualifier Alessio di Mauro couldn't make it four .Italians through; he lost to marathon man Galo Blanco 2-6 6-2 6-2 (Spaniard #2). Even that is good news for Italy, though, since it clears the way for Volandri, who faces Blanco next.

Now let's deal with all those Spaniards. We had two instances of seeded Spaniards facing countrymen; both advanced. #6 Rafael Nadal, who took a wildcard into this tournament, beat qualifier Nicolas Almagro 6-1 7-5; #7 David Ferrer struggled past fellow speedster Alberto Martin 2-6 6-1 6-4. A third all-Spanish contest saw Marc Lopez pound Lucky Loser Daniel Gimeno-Traver 6-2 6-2. Which leaves one Spaniard unaccounted for: Alex Calatrava, who beat Daniel Elsner 6-1 6-0.

It proved to be a very good day for seeds who took the court: In addition to Volandri, Nadal, and Ferrer, #4 seed Nikolay Davydenko topped Victor Hanescu 6-2 7-5. But #2 seed Florian Mayer withdrew, and it looks like his spot was jinxed: Qualifier Mariano Puerta took it, and was bounced 6-1 6-2 by Kristof Vliegen.

Another German, Philipp Kohlschreiber, couldn't play through either. He retired with flu after splitting sets with Juan Monaco.

Women's Match of the Day

Hasselt - First Round
Iveta Benesova def. Angelika Bachmann (Q) 6-4 6-3

This is one of those matches that mostly matters for what didn't happen. As in, Iveta Benesova didn't get upset. Which is rather bad news for Kim Clijsters. Because, as a result of this match, Clijsters will have to open her comeback against Benesova, and a Benesova who had a nice easy warmup.

Ordinarily, that wouldn't be so bad for Clijsters; Benesova is not as good as her #37 ranking. We're talking, after all, about a player with ten first round losses in the past year, including one in a Challenger. She's ranked as high as she is in no small part because she can manage to stay healthy while playing around thirty events a year.

Still, she has a title this year, at Acapulco, and she also won the big Ortisei Challenger. And while clay is clearly her favorite surface, she doesn't mind playing indoors; her first career final came two years at Bratislava, and she beat Nathalie Dechy to earn that final.

In terms of rankings, this means nothing. Bachmann, #200 coming in, should gain a little just for qualifying. Benesova came in #37, and she can't move above that unless she beats Clijsters. But under the circumstances, she might indeed be able to beat Clijsters....

Men's Match of the Day

Shanghai - First Round
Glenn Weiner def. Mark Philippoussis (4) 3-6 6-4 6-4

At least Mark Philippoussis can take comfort in the fact that he's already suffered the hit for this.

Philippoussis was last year's Shanghai champion. But those points came off last week, which is why he dropped 28 places between last week and this. But that, of course, was back when he was playing pretty well. This year, he hasn't been having much luck, and he reportedly was too injured to play Davis Cup. (There is a little doubt about that, because Australia had been contemplating leaving him off the team even before he said he was injured, but in practice it probably doesn't matter much. Either he was hurt, or he was in lousy form, and either way, he suffered a nasty surprise.)

Weiner, in fact, has been inflicting a fair number of nasty surprises on opponents this year. At least compared to his historical results. He made the second round of the Australian Open as a qualifier. He made the second round at Indian Wells as a qualifier. He beat Hyung-Taik Lee at Los Angeles before losing to eventual finalist Nicolas Kiefer. It's shown in his ranking: He's up to #128, after finishing last year at #278.

In the short term, this doesn't do him any good, really. Weiner played only one ATP match last year, at Tokyo, where he qualified and then lost to Fernando Verdasco, so he'll lose about as much as he gains for this win. And he has a lot of Challenger results to defend in the next two months: A semifinal at Quito, and another at Austin, and a quarterfinal at Puebla. But if he keeps playing at his present level, he just might be able to defend that and then some.

Philippoussis, as noted, has already seen his points from winning Shanghai 2003 come off. Unfortunately, he made the quarterfinal at Tokyo the following week, so he still has a few more points to lose. It appears his Top 100 ranking is history. The only consolation is, all he has to defend after this is a pair of opening-round losses. And, with his ranking down where it is, he's out from under required and optional. Any wins he can scrape up will count.

Assuming he finds a way to actually earn some wins.

This Week's Movers -- Women
Biggest Upward Mover -- Most Places Moved (Top 100)
Leader: Emmanuelle Gagliardi -- Moved 13 places, from #106 to #93.
Gagliardi had quite a week at Shanghai, qualifying for the singles and beating Kristina Brandi before losing to Vera Zvonareva -- plus she won both the doubles and the mixed doubles!

Runner-Up: Tie
Marissa Irvin -- Moved 12 places, from #83 to #71
Tamarine Tanasugarn -- Moved 12 places, from #97 to #85
Irvin won the week's biggest Challenger, the $75K event at Albuquerque; Tanasugarn reached the second round at Shanghai with a win over Jelena Dokic.
Biggest Percentage Mover -- Cut Ranking By Highest Percent (Top 100)
Leader: Lindsay Davenport -- Moved 1 place, 33%, from #3 to #2
Anastasia Myskina's failure to defend her points from Leipzig let the American move up.

Runner-Up: Justine Henin-Hardenne -- Moved 1 place, 25%, from #4 to #3
Same story as the preceding: Myskina didn't defend, so the Belgian moved up.
Biggest Loser -- Most Places Lost (Top 100)
Loser: Sandra Kleinova -- Dropped 38 places, from #91 to #129
Last year, Kleinova qualified for Leipzig and made the quarterfinal with wins over Schiavone and Maleeva. This year, of course, she did nothing.
Biggest Percentage Loser -- Worst Percentage Increase in Ranking (Top 100)
Loser: Anastasia Myskina, ranking increased 2 places, 100%, from #2 to #4.
Here's Myskina again. Her loss of points from Leipzig is costing her, and her loss of points from Moscow is likely to cost her more in a few weeks.
Our Personal Picks for "Best Mover of the Week"

These are subjective picks!

We generally don't like to give awards to players who don't play, so Davenport and Henin-Hardenne are out. That leaves Marissa Irvin, who was second in absolute movement and third in relative movement. Let's also have an honorable mention for Li Na, who cut her ranking by 25% based on actually winning matches. But she's still only #145, so she isn't in line for the real award.

This Week's Movers -- Men
Biggest Upward Mover -- Most Places Moved (Top 100)
Leader: David Sanchez -- Moved 13 places, from #85 to #72.
Sanchez made the final of the $125K Szczecin Challenger, though he was blown out in the final by Edgardo Massa (who beat both Sanchez, the #2 seed, and top seed Alberto Martin, but is ranked too low to be on the Movers list).

Runner-Up: Alex Calatrava -- Moved 12 places, from #100 to #88
Calatrava was also at Szczecin, and also lost to Massa -- in this case, in the semifinal.
Biggest Percentage Mover -- Cut Ranking By Highest Percent (Top 100)
Leader: David Nalbandian -- Moved 2 places, 15%, from #13 to #11
This is mostly an artifact of the calendar shift. Nicolas Massu, last year's Palermo champion, couldn't defend a title that wasn't played until this week, and Juan Carlos Ferrero had his points from the Bangkok final come off. Since Nalbandian wasn't defending, he climbed.

Runner-Up: Sanchez, cut ranking 15%
Biggest Loser -- Most Places Lost (Top 100)
Loser: TIE
Mark Philippoussis -- Dropped 28 places, from #64 to #92
Paul-Henri Mathieu -- Dropped 28 places, from #77 to #105
Philippoussis was last year's Shanghai champion, and of course he couldn't defend it during Davis Cup week. Mathieu, last year at this time, was reaching the Palermo final -- his best result of the year -- and of course he was in Davis Cup this year. And it's going to get worse this week, because in 2003 he made the Moscow semifinal the week after Palermo.
Biggest Percentage Loser -- Worst Percentage Increase in Ranking (Top 100)
Loser: Philippoussis, ranking increased 44%.
Our Personal Picks for "Best Mover of the Week"
These are subjective picks!

This is rather difficult; if someone is going to be a Mover based on Challenger results, it would be nice if he'd at least win the Challenger! But that's not a possibility this week; our three Challenger winners (Massa, Paul Goldstein, and Justin Gimelstob) all remain below the Top 100. So we're going to give the award to Sanchez, with the note that, if we gave out an actual cash award (which we don't), we probably wouldn't give it this week.

[bandabou]

Hasselt: Is That All There Is?
Experienced tournament-goers learn a lot of tricks: "Sit at the end of the court; you'll see better." "Always learn where the bathrooms are before the match starts." "Bring a seat cushion." And, of course, "Go early in the week, when there are more matches to choose from."

The audience at Hasselt is probably wishing it had followed that advice, as there really wasn't much to watch on Thursday. Four matches played, sure, but of excitement very little. Top seed Elena Dementieva didn't look at all like the player who couldn't muster anything for the U. S. Open final; she took out Lucky Loser Michaela Pastikova 6-4 6-2. And that was one of the close matches! By comparison, #5 Francesca Schiavone blew through Nuria Llagostera Vives 6-1 6-0 (meaning that she has lost only three games in her first two matches!), while #7 Magdalena Maleeva eliminated Els Callens 6-0 6-1.

Even the one upset was fairly routine: Maria Elena Camerin eliminated #4 seed Karolina Sprem 6-4 6-4.

GuangZhou: SpaceShipNone

It's a good thing no one in tennis is going for the X Prize (the award given to the first "commercial" craft to reach the boundary of space successfully and repeatedly in a short time span). The requirements for the X Prize are pitiful compared to the requirements for allowing humans to do something actually useful in space, but they do require multiple flights in a short time (one of those flights happening earlier this week) -- and what are the odds of anyone in tennis staying healthy long enough to be able to compete in an equivalent contest?

This week's casualty is Gisela Dulko, the top seed who has been steadily moving toward the Top 30. She won't be making it this week; she suffered an abdominal strain in her match with Dinara Safina, and though she finished the match, she lost 6-1 6-4, and then she withdrew from her doubles match with Maria Vento-Kabchi -- which meant that Safina got past her twice; Dulko and Vento-Kabchi, the #4 seeds, were supposed to face Safina and Barbora Strycova.

That was almost routine on a day when four seeds lost; there is only one seed in the quarterfinal. That one is #6 Kristina Brandi, who beat Tatiana Panova 6-0 6-1. But Dulko wasn't the only one to get hurt; the next-highest seed remaining in the draw, #3 Flavia Pennetta, retired with a left wrist strain trailing Tamarine Tanasugarn 7-5 3-0. That means that all three of the top seeds here are out at least partly as a result of injuries (#2 Jelena Jankovic, who lost Wednesday, had a bad ankle).

The rest of the field seemed to be suffering from some sort of Ancient Chinese Curse; both seeds who faced Chinese players were bagelled. Peng Shuai took out #4 Marion Bartoli 6-1 6-0 to reach her second quarterfinal in her last three events (pretty good for someone who earned her first WTA win only two months ago!), while Li Ting posted her first quarterfinal of the millennium as she beat #7 Nicole Pratt 6-2 6-0. Pratt has had a thoroughly depressing two weeks; it's the second straight tournament at which she has lost to a Chinese player named Li and ranked below #190. Last week, it was #193 Li Na; this week, it's #222 Li Ting.

Unfortunately, whoever laid that curse forgot to protect China's Zheng Jie, who, although unseeded, was ranked higher than her opponent. She too was upset; Barbora Strycova bear her 6-2 7-5. Even so, there are three Chinese in the quarterfinal -- though they're all in the bottom half: Peng and Li Ting, who face each other next, and Li Na, who faces Brandi.

The upset bug didn't really extend to the doubles, since two of three seeded teams in action made the semifinal, but the run of Chinese luck did hold: #2 Li Ting and Sun Tian Tian beat Russians Jidkova and Panova 6-3 6-1, while #3 Yan and Zheng took out Jennifer Hopkins and Liu Nan-Nan 6-3 6-2.

Seoul: Endless Repeat
It's getting harder and harder to find new ways to say, "Maria Sharapova is going to win Seoul, whether we like it or not." She is, after all, one of only two seeds left: She beat Lucky Loser Miho Saeki 6-3 6-1, setting her up for a meeting with #8 Samantha Stosur.

Though the truly deep mystery about this draw is, who will be the bottom half finalist? Qualifier Shahar Peer took out #5 seed Katarina Srebotnik 6-3 6-3, so our four candidates for the final are Peer (#238 coming in, and playing her first WTA quarterfinal), Abigail Spears (#128), Silvija Talaja (#115), and Marta Domachowska (#100). Somebody is going to take a big rankings lift.

The top half is a little more interesting, since it features not just Sharapova and Stosur but former Top 25 player Anne Kremer; she beat Lucky Loser Rika Fujiwara 7-6 6-0 to set up a meeting with Sanda Mamic; the winner will face the Sharapova/Stosur winner. Maybe Kremer is starting to recover her old form. One may hope, if only for the sake of having a decent semifinal. If she is, it could be quite a match: Sharapova powerful but erratic, Kremer weaker but quick and steady.

The upsets were not confined to singles; both seeded teams involved in the doubles lost. #1 Asagoe and Srebotnik lost a third set tiebreak to Domachowska and Antonella Serra Zanetti; Taiwan's Chuang and Hsieh took out #3 Stewart and Stosur in straight sets.

Bangkok: Kick in the Teeth
If you've been keeping a collection of Weird Injury Excuses on the ATP lately, you can add another one: A tooth infection. That's the reason Ivo Heuberger gave for pulling out of the doubles.

Of course, he probably wasn't looking forward to facing Roger Federer twice in one day. Federer had already beaten his countryman in singles, 6-1 6-3, and he and Marco Chiudinelli were supposed to face Federer and Yves Allegro in a doubles quarterfinal, but Heuberger withdrew.

Federer was one of five seeds to advance, though his was among the easiest contests. The only seed to fall was the one with the most on the line: Defending champion Taylor Dent fell 6-0 6-4 to Dennis van Scheppingen. But #2 Andy Roddick edged countryman Jeff Morrison 6-2 6-7 6-4, #3 Marat Safin brushed by Jiri Vanek 6-3 6-4, #4 Paradorn Srichaphan thrilled the home crowd with a 6-0 7-6 victory over Alex Bogomolov, Jr., and Robin Soderling knocked off Paul Baccanello 6-1 6-3.

Thomas Johansson, meanwhile, is getting closer and closer to the Top 30; he continued his streak of strong second half results with a 6-3 6-3 win over Adrian Garcia. Our one surprise quarterfinalist, other than van Scheppingen, is Flavio Saretta, who beat qualifier Rogier Wassen (who earlier had beaten Igor Andreev) 3-6 6-1 6-2.

As a result of the Heuberger withdrawal, only one doubles match was played, but it produced easily the day's biggest upset of any kind: Justin Gimelstob and Graydon Oliver topped #1 seeds Mahesh Bhupathi and Leander Paes 6-7 6-4 6-4.

Shanghai: Bottom-Heavy
At this rate, Wayne Arthurs will set the record for most walkovers in a tournament. Going into Thursday's action, he already had a walkover in singles. On Thursday, he added one in doubles; he and Paul Hanley made the semifinal when Jan Hernych and Davide Sanguinetti pulled out.

It didn't save Arthurs in singles, though; he lost to Kenneth Carlsen in a third set tiebreak.

On the other hand, it worked out well enough for Sanguinetti, who made his first quarterfinal of the year with a 6-4 7-5 win over #6 Jarkko Nieminen. (Could Nieminen be another one of these players with a nagging virus of some kind? It seems as if he can't play back-to-back good matches.) That gives us a top half that's almost absurdly open: Two seeds (#1 Juan Carlos Ferrero and #5 Hyung-Taik Lee) withdrew, #4 Mark Philippoussis lost first round, and now Nieminen is out in the second, guaranteeing us an unseeded finalist. In addition to Carlsen and Sanguinetti, the possibilities are Gilles Muller, who beat Glenn Weiner 5-7 6-3 7-5, and Lars Burgsmuller, who beat qualifier Edouard Roger-Vasselin 6-3 6-2.

Just to show how unfair tennis life can be, there are no seeds left in the top half, but all the seeds survived in the bottom half -- though it took all but one of them three sets. The exception was #8 Jan-Michael Gambill, who has his first quarterfinal since posting three back-to-back at San Jose, Memphis, and Scottsdale by beating wildcard Ben-Qiang Zhu 6-0 7-6. His doubles partner Guillermo Canas, though, had a few bad moments against Kristian Pless, but finally advanced 6-2 4-6 6-4. #2 seed Jiri Novak also had a bad second set, but came back to beat qualifier Melle van Gemerden 6-4 6-7 6-1. And #7 Ricardo Mello continued his hot streak with a 1-6 7-6 6-4 victory over Janko Tipsarevic.

Palermo: One Out of Four Ain't Bad
There were four singles matches played. One -- only one! -- was unaffected by the physical state of the players. Ironically, it turned out to be perhaps the lousiest match of the bunch. #5 seed Filippo Volandri topped Galo Blanco 6-2 6-1.

You have to wonder how the match between Jose Acasuso and #8 seed Tomas Berdych would have turned out had Acasuso been 100%. He would eventually pull out of the doubles with a shoulder problem. But he still managed to push Berdych to the limit. The Czech finally advanced 4-6 7-5 6-4. It's a good thing he's young. After playing three sets in his first match, and a monster Davis Cup match, you have to wonder how much longer he can keep that up.

The two unseeded Italians, who were supposed to play doubles together, posted mixed results. Potito Starace withdrew with a stomach problem trailing top seed Nicolas Massu 4-1 (meaning that Massu's winning streak here is now up to seven), but Andreas Seppi got lucky when Kristof Vliegen hurt his ankle, allowing the Italian to advance 6-4 3-6 4-1, retired.

Only two of four scheduled doubles quarterfinals took place. Acasuso's withdrawal gave Etlis and Rodriguez a walkover; Cermak and Friedl benefited from Starace's problem. Advancing by means of actually beating opponents were Arnold/Hood and Fyrstenberg/Matkowski.

Women's Match of the Day

Hasselt - Second Round
Maria Elena Camerin def. Karolina Sprem (4) 6-4 6-4

There is no inherent reason why Karolina Sprem can't win on modern surfaces. Indeed, all that weight she puts on her shots seems brilliantly suited to indoor hardcourt. But there is theory, and there is practice, and practice says that Sprem is a traditional-surface player. Clay is great. Grass isn't bad, either. But give her a nice, high, regular bounce and it seems to confuse her. Her career record on clay, going back all the way to her first WTA match, long before she was ready for the Tour, is 17-11. On grass, she's 6-3. But indoors, she's only 5-4 in her career, and only once has made it past a second round.

And this, obviously, wasn't the one event where she did better. The last player she needed to face was Maria Elena Camerin, who since Wimbledon has gone 9-5 and has wins over Myskina and Dulko and has, with no warning at all, worked her way into the Top 50. There isn't really any doubt about who is the better player of these two -- but throw in Sprem's problems on indoor surfaces and it spells upset.

Though it probably won't hurt Sprem in the rankings. She came in ranked #18, but the player ahead of her, Elena Bovina, had big points to defend; the Russian will need a final to pass Sprem.

Camerin, surprisingly, doesn't benefit very much; she came in at #45, and will move up to probably #43. On the other hand, she faces Virginia Ruano Pascual next, so she isn't necessarily done moving.

Men's Match of the Day

Bangkok - Second Round
Dennis van Scheppingen def. Taylor Dent (5) 6-0 6-4

It really does seem to be a rule: Every time Taylor Dent starts to climb the rankings, something goes wrong with him. Usually it's his back. But it hardly matters what the details are. What matters is, it happens.

And that's quite a blow, because Dent was having the best stretch of his career at this time last year. He won Bangkok, which was small (at least in terms of points), and backed it up by winning Moscow, which wasn't small at all.

His drop in the rankings isn't going to be small, either. Just a month ago, he was #22; just last week, he was still #29. But then Bangkok 2003 came off, and he fell to #34. Now he sees a 50 Race point event come off -- more than a quarter of his total points, though the blow is buffered a little by the fact that it's an optional event. Still, he appears bound out of the Top 50. And there isn't much reason to think it will get better; he came in at #48 in the Race, and it looks as if he'll be falling. Of course, he loves fast courts, so he still has a chance to gain some ground this fall (after winning Moscow, he won only one more match for the rest of 2003). But his chances of earning a seed at the Australian Open look close to dead.

Dennis van Scheppingen continues his mysterious habit of winning only in the fall. Unfortunately for him, he reached the third round at Tokyo at this time last year, so even though he earns a very nice win, it isn't going to affect his ranking very much.

The Price You Pay....

Tennis is a contentious sport. Not just in the sense that players compete. Even more contentious, perhaps, is tennis commentary. It's a rare statement that everyone agrees upon.

One of the few that gains universal consent is "Serena Williams was the dominant player of 2002."

And yet, she's paid something of a price over the two years since. Yes, she won two Slams and a few smaller titles in 2003, but that's a significant decline, and in 2004, she has no Slams and only two lesser titles, one of them in a very weak field. She spent half a year injured, hasn't won a clay title in more than two years, and fell out of the Top Ten for a while. 2003 was been a great year for her by most players' standards -- but by the standard she set in 2002, it's been a slump. And the less said of 2004, the better.

What's interesting is that the last player to have a year like Serena in 2002 was Martina Hingis in 1997, and her pattern was similar: Three Slams and a bunch of titles in 1997, then her results fell off in 1998 (one slam and five titles -- the latter being her lowest total between 1997 and 2000), and she eventually lost the #1 ranking, and was hurt for much of the fall. As with Serena, it wasn't a slump pure and simple -- Hingis, after all, did something in 1998 that no other player has done in the Open Era: She won the doubles Grand Slam with two different partners. Still, it's interesting to note that Hingis's next-best year in terms of titles, 2000, was followed by a similar outcome: a sharp decline in wins, a loss of the #1 ranking, and yet another foot injury, this one finally fatal to her career.

In other words, recently, the cost of a Great Year has been a bad year.

Does this pattern project backward? It's interesting to at least look.

We're going to define a Great Year as one which meets either of two standards: Three Slams, or eight singles titles (the latter picked because, until recently, it almost guaranteed that a player won half the events she played). We'll list all such years, then look briefly at what happened after. We'll examine the last 20 years, partly because that's about when WTA records become reliable and partly because that's all the work we feel like doing. In that period, we have 21 "great years" (11 in which the player qualified based on 8+ titles, 2 in which she qualified based on 3+ Slams, and 8 in which the player earned both):

Kim Clijsters 2003. Results: 9 titles, #1 ranking (briefly), 2 doubles Slams
2004 results: 2 titles to date, just returning to action after missing three Slams; unlikely to finish year in Top Ten

Justine Henin-Hardenne 2003. Results: 2 Slams, 8 titles, #1 ranking
2004 results: 1 Slam, 5 titles to date, missed Wimbledon and should not have played Roland Garros; unlikely to finish above #4

Serena Williams 2002. Results: 3 Slams, 8 titles, #1 ranking, 1 doubles Slam
2003 results: 2 Slams, 4 titles, 1 doubles Slam, year-end #3 ranking; missed U. S. Open

Martina Hingis 2000. Results: 9 titles, 1 doubles Slam, #1 ranking
2001 results: 3 titles, 0 doubles Slams (only year between 1996 and 2002 with no doubles Slams), year-end #4; missed most of indoor season, retired the year after

Martina Hingis 1997. Results: 3 Slams, 12 titles, #1 ranking, 1 doubles Slam
1998 results: 1 Slam, 5 titles, doubles Grand Slam, year-end #2

Steffi Graf 1996. Results: 3 Slams, 7 titles, #1 ranking
1997 results: 1 title (and it a Tier III); missed Wimbledon, U. S. Open

Steffi Graf 1995. Results: 3 Slams, 9 titles, #1 ranking
1996 results: See above: 3 Slams, 7 titles, #1 ranking

Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario 1994. Results: 2 Slams, 8 titles, 1 doubles Slam, year-end #2 but achieved #1 ranking in 1995
1995 results: 0 Slams, 2 titles, 2 doubles Slams, year-end #3

Steffi Graf 1993. Results: 3 Slams, 10 titles, #1 ranking
1994 results: 1 Slam, 7 titles, year-end #1 but barely

Monica Seles 1992. Results: 3 Slams, 10 titles, #1 ranking
1993 results: Not applicable, really

Steffi Graf 1992. Results: 1 Slam, 8 titles, year-end #2
1993 results: See above: 3 Slams, 10 titles, #1 ranking

Monica Seles 1991. Results: 3 Slams, 10 titles, #1 ranking
1992 results: See above: 3 Slams, 10 titles, #1 ranking

Steffi Graf 1990. Results: 1 Slam, 10 titles, #1 ranking
1991 results: 1 Slam, 7 titles, year-end #2

Monica Seles 1990. Results: 1 Slam, 9 titles, year-end #2
1991 results: See above: 3 Slams, 10 titles, #1 ranking

Steffi Graf 1989. Results: 3 Slams, 14 titles, #1 ranking
1990 results: See above: 1 Slam, 10 titles, #1 ranking

Martina Navratilova 1989. Results: 0 Slams, 8 titles, 2 doubles Slams, year-end #2
1990 results: 1 Slam, 5 titles, 1 doubles Slam, year-end #3.

Steffi Graf 1988. Results: 4 Slams, 10 titles, 1 doubles Slam, #1 ranking
1989 results: See above: 3 Slams, 14 titles, #1 ranking

Martina Navratilova 1988. Results: 0 Slams, 9 titles, 2 doubles Slams, year-end #2
1989 results: See above: 0 Slams, 8 titles, 2 doubles Slams, year-end #2

Steffi Graf 1987. Results: 1 Slam, 11 titles, #1 ranking
1988 results: See above: 4 Slams, 10 titles, 1 doubles Slam, #1 ranking

Martina Navratilova 1986. 2 Slams (of 3 played), 14 titles, 3 doubles Slams (of 3 played), #1 ranking
1987 results: See above: 2 Slams, 4 titles, 3 doubles Slams, year-end #2

Martina Navratilova 1985. 2 Slams, 13 titles, 2 doubles Slams, #1 ranking
1986 results: See above: 2 Slams, 14 titles, 3 doubles Slams, #1 ranking

Chris Evert 1985. 1 Slam, 11 titles, year-end #2
1986 results: 1 Slam (of 3 played), 3 titles, year-end #2

Martina Navratilova 1984. 3 Slams, 15 titles, doubles Grand Slam, #1 ranking
1985 results: See above: 2 Slams, 13 titles, 2 doubles Slams, #1 ranking

What is perhaps most fascinating is the decline of Great Years. In the 10-year span from 1984-1993, we had 15 Great Years, meaning that as often as not, two players had great years in the same year. In the 5-year span 1994-1999, we had only four Great Years, and never more than one in a year. Since 1997, we've had only four Great Years, two of them last year and both of those at the low end of the scale.

But wait, there's more: In the early years of our study, having a Great Year was no real bar to having a Great Year the next year; 10 of our 15 Great Year-ers managed it, and Monica Seles probably would have made it 11 had she not been stabbed. Since then, we've had only one back-to-back: Graf in 1995-1996. The last six Great Year-ers have all been significantly injured the next year (Graf 1997, Hingis 1998, Hingis 2001, Serena 2003, Clijsters 2004, Henin-Hardenne 2004 -- though her injury was actually illness, and she has a faint chance to achieve a Great Year in 2004 if she can win three more titles. But Henin-Hardenne has just withdrawn from Filderstadt).

Another point: Players used to produce many Great Years in their careers. Graf had eight. Seles had three and should have had more. Navratilova had five just in the portion of her career covered by this survey. Compare the results since 1996. Hingis has had two, one of them at the low end of the scale; no one else has had more than one, though of course Serena, Henin-Hardenne, and Clijsters are all young. Still, what are they odds that any of them will manage half a dozen great years?

Given the data, we can't prove that Great Years cause injury; the lack of repeats may just be that everything is getting harder these days. But there is no question: It's a lot more unusual to maintain a high level than it used to be.

[bandabou]

Hasselt: Getting to the Good Stuff
It was all well and good for Kim Clijsters to beat Iveta Benesova in her first match back. Certainly it was promising. But it didn't really mean much. The gap between Clijsters and Benesova is big enough that Clijsters could hope to win even if operating well below peak efficiency.

Playing against Magdalena Maleeva on an indoor court is another matter. This is the one surface where Maleeva can threaten anyone -- and Clijsters took her out 6-3 6-4 in Friday's quarterfinal. Obviously the time off hadn't cost her too much.

Even though she lost, Maleeva finds herself back in the Top 20, at #19. That's because Francesca Schiavone lost her quarterfinal with Elena Bovina 7-6 6-1. Last year, Schiavone had reached the Moscow quarterfinal, which obviously was worth more than a quarterfinal at a Tier III. The loss dropped her to #22 -- one spot behind Silvia Farina Elia, who once again becomes the top Italian woman.

The other high seed in action also advanced in straight sets; #1 Elena Dementieva eliminated Denisa Chladkova 7-5 6-4. That put her in the semifinal against Maria Elena Camerin, who continued her surprising assault on the top rankings with a 5-7 7-5 6-4 win over Virginia Ruano Pascual. Reaching the semifinal put her at a career-high #42. A win over Dementieva would have made her Top 40.

Of course, she didn't get it. Dementieva made her second straight final 6-3 6-3. And that meant, for the second time in her last three tournaments, that she would face countrywoman Elena Bovina. And Bovina had won their last meeting, at New Haven.

The reason was rather a sad one. Clijsters, for all that she had looked good in her first two matches, evidently still wasn't right. Her wrist forced her to retire trailing Bovina 6-4 2-2. The worst of it is, since she played, she reset her injury clock. Had she stopped playing when she first hurt herself, she would have had an injury ranking of #2 whenever she actually came back ready to play. As it is, unless she skips the next six months, she'll get no injury protection at all, and will be ranked #10 or below when she finally comes back. (In fact, since she will not make the year-end championships, she will be below #10 -- probably below #15 -- at the start of next year.)

The final didn't feature any actual retirements, but it did seem as if the two Russians took turns leaving the court. Dementieva won her first title of the year 0-6 6-0 6-4.

You don't often see players come onto the Tour as doubles specialists, but it seems to be Jennifer Russell's approach. She has only four singles events, and a ranking of #1069 -- but in doubles, she came here with 24 events and a Top 100 ranking. Now she can boast her first title, as can partner Mara Santangelo: They beat Nuria Llagostera Vives and Marta Marrero 6-3 7-5. #88 Russell will gain more than 20 places; #113 Santangelo will move up around 30 spots.

GuangZhou: Give Someone Else a Turn!
It's a good thing Chinese tennis is getting stronger. If they keep this up, no one who isn't Chinese will ever come back to GuangZhou.

According to the reports we've heard, GuangZhou province is the part of China that's gone most thoroughly capitalist. Maybe so, but it's pretty good at protecting its own people. On Friday, every match -- singles or doubles -- involving a Chinese player was won by a Chinese player. Qualifier Li Na, in fact, eliminated the last seeded player in the draw, Kristina Brandi, 6-4 6-0. And Li Ting, who until recently seemed to be turning into a doubles specialist, found herself in the semifinal after beating promising countrywoman Peng Shuai 6-2 6-2.

That left Barbora Strycova as the top player in the semifinal; Strycova, #64, took out doubles partner Dinara Safina 6-4 6-1. Our only other Top 100 semifinalist was Martina Sucha, who eliminated Tamarine Tanasugarn 7-6 7-5. It was a tough day for Tanasugarn; in addition to the loss in singles, she and Nicole Pratt, the top doubles seeds, lost 6-3 2-6 6-4 to the Chinese team of Yang and Yu.

Saturday continued the tradition of upsets; Strycova, who was playing her first WTA semifinal (she had only one previous quarterfinal, at Strasbourg this year) lost to #91 Sucha 6-2 7-5, putting Sucha in her second final of the year (her first being Budapest). It's been a strange year for Sucha, who had fallen enough that she played a couple of Challengers early in the year, and played and lost in qualifying as recently as last week; her overall record going into the final was 15-17 (meaning that she would have a losing record even with a title), but that record consisted of two finals, a quarterfinal at Estoril, a third round at Indian Wells, three second rounds -- and 11 first round losses.

And her opponent of course was Chinese: Li Na beat Li Ting 6-3 6-3 (Li Ting at least made the doubles final as she and Sun Tian Tian beat #3 seeds Yan and Zheng in straight sets; their opponents were also Chinese; Yang and Yu made the final when Dinara Safina pulled out with knee tendonitis. And Li and Sun naturally won the title -- only their second title of 2004, after the Olympics. The final score was 6-4 6-1, but that's not really indicative; Yang and Yu won the first four games, after which Li and Sun took over).

Li Na apparently was aware going into the final that no Chinese woman had ever won a singles title anywhere; it had been almost six years since one reached a final, and that player, Li Fang, is no longer active. Until this week, the best showing by an active player was Zheng Jie's semifinal at last year's Japan Open.

It wasn't a problem after the first few games. Qualifier Li beat Sucha 6-3 6-4; by doing so, she improved her record to 44-3 on the season in eight events; she has six WTA level wins, and twice made it through WTA qualifying; the rest is in Challengers, where she lost only one match, in the Bronx semifinal; her best Challenger title was the $50K at Beijing.

Li, who two weeks ago was ranked #193, and was #145 this week, said afterward that her immediate goal is to hit the Top 100. It appears that she has made it; she'll be moving up to around #95. Sucha, #93 coming in, should move above #70.

Seoul: Too Rich or Too Thin
From what we've heard about Maria Sharapova's endorsements lately, it sounds as if she could buy the whole tournament at Seoul, with quite a bit left over for other sporting events. And if that wasn't enough to have going for her, by Friday, there was only one other player ranked above #100 in draw (which had been thin from the start): #8 seed Samantha Stosur.

Sharapova took care of that situation in very short order, eliminating the Australian 6-2 6-1. Meanwhile, Anne Kremer was reaching her first semifinal since Amelia Island 2002 with a 2-6 6-4 6-1 win over Sanda Mamic (who had herself been going for her first semifinal), Abigail Spears made her first semifinal with a 6-3 6-2 victory over Shahar Peer, and Marta Domachowska eliminated Silvija Talaja 7-6 2-6 6-0.

The semifinal was guaranteed to give us a first time finalist, either Domachowska (whose best previous result had been a semifinal at Sopot) or Spears. It proved to be Domachowska, who took care of Spears 7-6 6-1. As for Sharapova, she cruised again, beating Kremer 6-0 6-2 to reach her first final since Wimbledon.

The final was all you'd expect when a Top Ten player faced an opponent ranked #100. I.e. not much. Sharapova proved that she can still win, at least in fields weaker than some Challengers; she took home her first post-Wimbledon title in less than an hour, beating Domachowska 6-1 6-1. (To be fair, she has been learning from her recent troubles; even in victory, she conceded, "To compete with the Top 10 players, there are a lot of things I have to improve on." On the other hand, she now has the record for weakest win of the year: The top opponent she faced was #81 Stosur. In the next-weakest win, Nicole Vaidisova's title at Vancouver, her top opponent was #74 Sequera.) Sharapova, because she was defending points, actually falls from #8 to #10 in the rankings; Domachowska moves up to around #80.

The doubles final was much more exciting, and really gave the locals something to cheer about. Yoon Jeong Cho and Mi-Ra Jeon needed six match points to beat Taiwan's Chia-Jung Chuang and Su-Weih Hsieh 6-3 1-6 7-5. It's the first doubles title for either Korean player.

Bangkok: Space Race

This Monday marks 47 years since the Russians launched Sputnik 1. Lately, it has seemed as if Roger Federer has been flying almost as high.

Friday was a day of routine. Federer actually had the toughest match, and even he came through in straight sets: He took out #8 seed Robin Soderling 7-6 6-4. Meanwhile, #2 Andy Roddick turned back Thomas Johansson 6-3 6-4, #3 Marat Safin bounced Flavio Saretta 6-2 6-1, and #4 Paradorn Srichaphan eliminated Dennis van Scheppingen 6-2 7-5.

Saturday was altogether a different matter. Federer definitely had one of his little lapses in the second set against Srichaphan, and of course the crowd was going nuts for the local favorite. But Federer managed to settle down to win 7-5 2-6 6-3.

And that meant that we had another Federer versus Roddick contest on our hands, because Roddick managed to win an even closer match against Safin: Tiebreaks in all three sets. Safin won the second tiebreak without losing a point. But Roddick was almost as unbeatable in tiebreaks one and three, and advanced 7-6 6-7 7-6.

Despite that long match, Roddick did have one advantage in the final: He wasn't playing in the doubles. Federer and Yves Allegro beat Aspelin and Landsberg in Saturday's semifinal to set up a meeting with Justin Gimelstob and Graydon Oliver.

You'd never know Federer had been working hard. Roddick had a sore elbow, and Federer trounced him 6-4 6-0 -- the first time in his pro career that Roddick had been bageled. Even in the first set, Federer was in charge, and obviously he dominated in the second.

Even before the doubles final, the ATP press machine was working hard, noting that Federer has won his last twelve straight finals, and has ten titles this year -- the former tying the all-time record, and the latter working toward it.

Ironically, as the ATP was announcing that, Federer was losing a final: He and Allegro lost 5-7 6-4 6-4 to Gimelstob and Oliver. Even Jove nods, or something like that.

Shanghai: Unlucky Seven
Argentine players are by no means all alike. David Nalbandian has a Wimbledon final; Guillermo Coria struggled for years just to win a grass match.

And you could make a case that Guillermo Canas comes closest of any of them to a true all-court game. Canas, after all, won his biggest-ever title at the Canadian Open, and has career finals on grass and indoor hardcourt. He showed his love for clay with two titles this summer -- but he doesn't let the lack of dirt bother him elsewhere.

Certainly not at Shanghai, where he had the chance to clinch his year-end Top 30 ranking (after this week, Canas has nothing except some qualifying points to defend). On Friday, when he faced the hottest player in the draw, he also had just about the day's easiest match; he eliminated Ricardo Mello 6-3 6-4 to stop the #7 seed's winning streak at seven.

Which gave us a semifinal with a curiously clay-like appearance, as the other guy involved would be Jiri Novak; the #3 seed eliminated #8 Jan-Michael 6-3 6-3. And that let Canas show once again his strength on hardcourts: He reached the final -- his third in his last four events! -- 6-1 6-2.

His opponent was to be a guy who had earned fewer Race points in the whole year than Canas had earned in either of his two titles. Lars Burgsmuller came in at #123 in the Race, #133 in the Rankings, with a whole 32 Race points; he had twelve first round losses and nothing better than a second round. But on Friday, he beat Davide Sanguinetti in a third set tiebreak to set up a meeting with Kenneth Carlsen, a 7-6 6-1 winner over Gilles Muller. Carlsen was more rested in the semifinal, and loves playing in the Far East, but Burgsmuller eliminated him 7-5 6-3.

The final looked more like the Real Burgsmuller. He kept making errors, and Canas didn't. The German tried a little of everything -- serving and volleying, staying back. It didn't affect much except the length of the points; Canas took home his third title of the year -- and first on hardcourts -- 6-1 6-0. Afterward, he said that he felt he played like a Top Ten player, and hopes to return to that level next year. It will be a while before we know if he's really up to it; he didn't really return to form until after Wimbledon, and hasn't had much chance to play strong events since then. When he does start again, he'll be stuck playing the indoor Masters, which don't reward his game as much. Still, it's hard to bet against him; he came here at #31 in the rankings, and #24 in the Race; he's now in the Top 20 in the latter, and only a few spots lower in the rankings.

If the singles final wasn't much to watch, the doubles was more than exciting enough for anyone who stayed around to watch, ending in a 24-point tiebreak. #2 seeds Jared Palmer and Pavel Vizner outlasted veterans Rick Leach and Brian MacPhie 4-6 7-6 7-6.

Palermo: Half and Half
Nicolas Massu really does seem to have something limits his movement in the rankings: When he threatens to fall, he turns hot; when he threatens to rise, he cools off.

Last week, Massu saw his title from Palermo come off. So, this week, he quickly made the quarterfinal. But that meant that he was threatening to actually move up -- so he lost. On Friday, he went down to #5 seed Filippo Volandri 6-3 3-6 6-4.

That same Friday cost the only other high seed left, also in three sets: #7 David Ferrer eliminated #4 Nikolay Davydenko 6-2 2-6 6-4. Which left us with two semifinals featuring a lot of young talent: Volandri would face Juan Monaco, who had beaten Olivier Mutis 6-3 6-2; Ferrer's opponent was to be Tomas Berdych, who eliminated Italian wildcard Andreas Seppi 6-2 6-4.

The semifinals proved uneventful. Berdych, after all his marathons earlier in the week, seems to have settled down nicely; he made his first ATP final 7-5 6-4. Volandri had an even easier time, beating Monaco 6-1 6-4 to become the first Italian to reach a final in Italy since Davide Sanguinetti won Milan in 2002.

Volandri couldn't match Sanguinetti's feat, though. In a match that lasted only 56 minutes, Berdych took home his first title 6-3 6-3.

The doubles final, played on Saturday, was an all-Argentine affair, with Lucas Arnold and Mariano Hood upsetting Gaston Etlis and Martin Rodriguez 7-5 6-2. This is turning into an amazing time of the year for Arnold and Hood; last year, they won Palermo; turning to 2004, two weeks ago, they won Bucharest, then last week won the Szczecin Challenger; now they have the title at Shanghai. It's their third title of the year, following Buernos Aires and Bucharest; even though it's an optional event, and small, it should put Hood in the Top 25 and Arnold in the Top 30.

Women's Match of the Day

Hasselt - Final
Elena Dementieva (1) def. Elena Bovina (3) 0-6 6-0 6-4

The truly astonishing thing about this match is, it was even stranger than the score. The two finalists didn't just trade bagel sets. After they split the first two, Bovina went up 4-1 in the third, and had triple break point for 5-1. But she lost that game, and the four that followed -- and then had break points on Dementieva again, but couldn't convert.

Talk about a match where Russian Blonde Disease was the biggest single factor!

Or put it another way: This match went 6-4 in the third, and lasted only one hour and 32 minutes.

Nonetheless, after three blown finals this year (the two Slams and Miami, and nothing smaller than Miami), Dementieva wins her first title in just over a year, since Shanghai 2003. Her record since the Olympics is an impressive 12-2.

In terms of points, though, this didn't mean much for Dementieva. It's only a Tier III, and the top player she beat was #17 Bovina. #6 she was, and #6 she remains, and she'll need another title, somewhere, if she is to move above that. The good news is, she's #6 in the Race also, and with more than a 400 point lead over the #9 player. We don't know when the WTA's oh-so-conservative calculations will qualify Dementieva, but as of now, we say she has qualified -- assuming the WTA doesn't plug in a wildcard. (Which, as of right now, would mean pulling Maria Sharapova out of the Championships to replace her with Jennifer Capriati or Venus Williams. Hm.)

Bovina, too, finds herself right where she started, at #17. But it's more important in terms of her year-end standing. Bovina has a lot to defend in the next few weeks (207 points at Filderstadt, 102 at Zurich, 48 at Linz). In the Race, she still stands below #20. This dramatically improves her chances of ending the year on the good side of that number.

In the strange footnotes department, Dementieva has been bageled four times this year (Sydney vs. Cargill, Roland Garros vs. Smashnova, Olympics vs. Molik, and here). In every case except the Olympics, she won the match.

Men's Match of the Day

Palermo - Final
Tomas Berdych (8) def. Filippo Volandri (5) 6-3 6-3

Roger Federer won again. Ho-hum. Guillermo Canas is dominating small events. What else is new?

Tomas Berdych, now, he's news. We've already seen people wondering if the just-barely-19-year-old from Prostejov might not be the major competition for Roger Federer in two or three years. He did, after all, have that win over Federer at the Olympics.

That seems, dare we say, a little too optimistic. Still, Berdych does look like a genuine candidate for Next Big Thing. This is a guy who, two years ago, was below #500 and had never played an ATP match. At this time last year, he had three Tour matches, and only one win. He ended the year below #100.

And this year? The odd thing is, until the Olympics, he hadn't beaten anyone in particular. Then in Athens he beat Florian Mayer in the first round, Federer in the second, Tommy Robredo in the third. Obviously that turned things around: entering this week, he had pushed his ranking to #55 (lower in the Race, but that's because he was still playing Challengers to start the year). And now he adds his first title. It wasn't even much of a contest; he never faced a break point, and wrapped up the title in less than an hour.

As a result, Berdych will be reaching a career high; this puts him in the Top 40. (For that matter, Volandri hits the Top 40 also.) Nor does he have much left to defend this year; his biggest result in the final part of 2003 was a semifinal at the Bratislava Challenger. At the rate he's going, it looks as if he just might earn an Australian Open seed.

Pretty good for a guy who, until this week, had never been past the quarterfinal of an ATP-level event.

Women's Look Forward: Filderstadt, Japan Open

You have to give the WTA credit. The schedule shift resulting from the Olympics caused a lot of events, including even the Canadian Open, to be shuffled around the schedule a little. But they arranged it so that the really big event of the fall indoor season -- Filderstadt -- hasn't been moved.

There is nothing left on the WTA Tour like Filderstadt -- a Tier II which is stronger than many Slams. San Diego used to be in the same league, but it's moved up to Tier I status. Philadelphia has never been quite the same since the Tour Championships moved to Munich and temporarily eliminated it (and we suspect it will never be the same again, because the eight-draw championships format means that fewer players are in the Race to the end). And Sydney has suffered a little because fewer players seem to want an Australian Open warmup. Filderstadt, though, is still Filderstadt.

As in, The event where Top 20 players often end up in qualifying -- and, as often as not, lose. The tournament that can reasonably expect 18 of the top 20 to be in the field. It is, in all seriousness, the toughest event on the WTA schedule, bar none; the handful of events with stronger fields are also played out over a longer time, so players get more rest.

At least, it's the toughest in most years. Injuries being what they are, it's suffering a little in 2004. Justine Henin-Hardenne is worn out again, and was forced to withdraw. Serena Williams cited her knee as a reason for withdrawing. Defending champion Kim Clijsters is still struggling with her wrist. And Jennifer Capriati also pulled out. Venus Williams isn't playing, either; it may be that this was expected to be a Serena tournament, but it's noteworthy that neither Venus nor Serena has really had much luck indoors (relatively speaking, of course); after Venus Williams had her stunning second half of 2000, in which she won Wimbledon, Stanford, San Diego, New Haven, the U. S. Open, and the Olympics, she lost her only indoor tournament, at Linz; for Serena, in her brilliant 2002, she won only one of her two indoor events in the fall. Neither sister has ever won this crown jewel of the indoor season -- the past five winners have all been #1 at some time in the two months following the event; the roster of career winners includes Martina Hingis (four times), Kim Clijsters (twice), Lindsay Davenport, Anke Huber (twice), Iva Majoli, Mary Pierce, Martina Navratilova (five times since 1984), Gabriela Sabatini, Mary Joe Fernandez, and Pam Shriver; probably the weakest winner in the past twenty years is 1998 champion Sandrine Testud, and she had to beat Davenport to earn it. Frankly, the lack of a Filderstadt title is the biggest single lack in Serena's glittering resume; you'd think she'd do everything she could to play here.

Still, it's an impressive field. Even the qualifying was stronger than last week's tournament in GuangZhou; the top qualifying seed was Fabiola Zuluaga, #25 last week; Eleni Daniilidou, #30 when the seeds were announced, was #2, Lisa Raymond #3, and Jelena Kostanic #4. Jelena Jankovic, who was seeded #3 at GuangZhou, managed to be only the #5 seed in Filderstadt qualifying. Iveta Benesova and Emilie Loit took the #6 and #7 seeds, meaning that we had seven Top 40 players in Filderstadt qualifying.

As for the main draw, it has four of the world's top five; only Henin-Hardenne is missing. Amelie Mauresmo is the #1 seed, and #2 Lindsay Davenport is here to compete for the top ranking. Anastasia Myskina is seeded #3, and Svetlana Kuznetsova #4. Elena Dementieva is #6 in the world, but she ends up seeded a mere #5. Then comes the big hole, where all those players pulled out. As a result, Vera Zvonareva is #6, Nadia Petrova #7, and Ai Sugiyama #8. Patty Schnyder is Top 15, but she is unseeded. So are Karolina Sprem, Silvia Farina Elia, Elena Bovina, Paola Suarez, Magdalena Maleeva, Nathalie Dechy, Alicia Molik, and Francesca Schiavone -- Top 25 players all. In fact, apart from German wildcards Anna-Lena Groenefeld and Marlene Weingartner, the only players in the field who are not Top 25 are Anna Smashnova-Pistolesi (who was Top 25 when entries closed), former champion Mary Pierce, Daniela Hantuchova, and Elena Likhovtseva. Even with all the players absent, this is one tough, tough tournament.

The doubles is a rather different story. Paola Suarez is in the singles draw, and partner Virginia Ruano Pascual is in qualifying (and won her opening match), but they're skipping the doubles. (This is, after all, an indoor event, and this team, so dominant on other slower surfaces, still have only one indoor title!) So Cara Black and Rennae Stubbs took the #1 seed. Svetlana Kuznetsova is reportedly re-thinking her doubles schedule, so Elena Likhovtseva is playing this week with Janette Husarova; they're #2. The #3 seeds are a new team, Alicia Molik and Ai Sugiyama, who reportedly will be together next year also. Anastasia Myskina and Vera Zvonareva remain together for the moment; they're #4.

Martina Navratilova is coming back next year, but she's taking a break for the moment, so Lisa Raymond is here with Mary Pierce; they're unseeded. Lindsay Davenport is playing doubles for the first time since Amelia Island; she's back with Corina Morariu. And it seems clear that Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario plans to stay un-retired; she is playing with Daniela Hantuchova -- good news for Hantuchova, who had very good results with the Spaniard three years ago, and has never even threatened that level since.

This year, rather unusually, Filderstadt has competition. This week also hosts the Japan Open -- though that's not really much of a threat to the Filderstadt field. In fact, only one player at Tokyo would have gotten direct entry into Filderstadt! That one player is defending champion Maria Sharapova, who will be playing her third straight event (the first time she has ever done that). And even Sharapova's presence may have been dictated by the WTA rules: A player who wins her first title is required to go back and defend it. Sharapova in fact won two titles last year (the other was Quebec City), so she could have defended in Canada instead, but this strategy improves her chances of making the year-end championships.

At least the field isn't lacking in young stars who don't wear much in the way of clothes; after Sharapova, the #2 seed is Tathiana Golovin. Ai Sugiyama chose to play Filderstadt (and that tells you how much players love Filderstadt, that even Sugiyama played there rather than here), but Japan does get one high seed in #3 Shinobu Asagoe. Kristina Brandi is #4, Meghann Shaughnessy, after struggling with her shoulder for the last several months, returns to action as the #5 seed, Nicole Pratt is #6 (and is the last Top 50 player in the draw), Klara Koukalova #7, and Arantxa Parra Santonja #8. There is one interesting wildcard in the draw in Vancouver winner Nicole Vaidisova. And Vaidisova will be teaming with that other noteworthy youngster, Sesil Karatancheva in the doubles. Karatancheva also won her opening qualifying match, and was to face Anne Kremer in the second round. Other than that, there isn't much to note in the doubles except that Shinobu Asagoe and Katarina Srebotnik are together again this week; they're the top seeds.

It appears several players pulled out at the last moment. Jelena Dokic's withdrawal is probably no surprise. It's more surprising to see that Amy Frazier is out, given her historic success here.

Noteworthy First Round Matches

We're tempted to give you noteworthy qualifying matches from Filderstadt, but we don't have the final schedule yet. In any case, there are plenty of fine matches in the first round. In fact, let's just list every first round match except the ones involving qualifiers and wildcards:

Sprem vs. Farina Elia. Neither likes indoor courts much. Sprem has a big edge in power, Farina Elia in guile. Hard to predict a winner, but it should be fun to watch.

Sugiyama vs. Smashnova. The Israeli hates indoors, and Sugiyama is happy enough on fast courts. But the two courts at Filderstadt are very different, and under the right circumstances, Smashnova might have a chance; Sugiyama is one of the few top players who can't absolutely overwhelm her.

Zvonareva vs. Likhovtseva. They're both Russian, and they've played doubles together. Zvonareva is the better player, but anything can happen when two Russians face off.

Pierce vs. Suarez. Odd to say that Suarez is the higher-ranked. But Pierce hates facing her anyway -- Suarez has won all four of their meetings starting from the 2001 Australian Open.

Maleeva vs. Dechy. Two fairly good indoor players. Edge to Maleeva, but a lot depends on how well Dechy has recovered from her latest injury.

Molik vs. Schiavone. Both ranked right around #20. On paper, the surface would seem better for Molik -- but historically indoor surfaces have been Molik's worst; she's done well on grass, and has clay finals and hardcourt titles, but she has almost no record indoors; last year, she lost in Moscow and Filderstadt qualifying, qualified for but lost first round at Zurich, and made the quarterfinal at Luxembourg; this year, she lost her only indoor match at the Pan Pacific; she didn't play a single indoor main draw in 2001 or 2002. Definitely trickier than it sounds.

In the doubles, we have an interesting first rounder between Black/Stubbs and Pierce/Raymond; also Molik and Sugiyama will make their debut against the fairly tough team of Farina Elia and Schiavone; it will also be interesting to see how Hantuchova/Sanchez-Vicario do against Myskina/Zvonareva.

The Japan Open doesn't offer as much, especially since the top two seeds, Sharapova and Golovin, have byes (of course, the top four at Filderstadt have byes, but that still leaves plenty of other names!). Vaidisova will open against Yoon Jeong Cho, who at last is showing signs of life again; in addition, #3 seed Asagoe will face Tamarine Tanasugarn, who two years ago would have been one of the top seeds here.

There is one funny item in the Tokyo doubles draw: Jill Craybas is supposed to be playing doubles with Marlene Weingartner (they're the #3 seeds, in fact), opening against Karatancheva and Vaidisova. But Weingartner is playing singles at Filderstadt. Presumably there will be some changes there....

The Rankings

The time has come. Over the next several weeks, Lindsay Davenport (assuming she doesn't get hurt again) will be making a run for the #1 ranking. Her last event of 2003 was Filderstadt, where she made the quarterfinal. Amelie Mauresmo also made the quarterfinal, and with slightly better quality points. After that, the Frenchwoman has nothing to defend until her title at Philadelphia comes off -- but Davenport has historically played more, and done better, indoors.

And that means that there is a real chance that Davenport can take #1 this week. She came in about 200 points behind Mauresmo. If we subtract off points to be defended, here are how the top six stand in safe points:
1..Mauresmo........4141
2..Davenport.......3967
3..Henin-Hardenne..3598
4..Myskina.........3396
5..Kuznetsova......3313.25
6..Dementieva......2977

Very roughly speaking, that means that if Mauresmo loses her opener and Davenport makes the final, Davenport is #1; if Davenport wins, she will certainly be #1 if Mauresmo loses by the quarterfinal, and probably even if Mauresmo reaches the semifinal. We also see that Myskina could overtake Henin-Hardenne with a title (maybe even a final), and Kuznetsova can overtake Henin-Hardenne with a title. Kuznetsova can pass Myskina by lasting a couple of rounds longer. Even Dementieva has a chance for the #4 ranking if she wins the title. Things have been pretty stable in the rankings since Bali. Not any more.

In the long term, the genuine question is whether anyone else can make an impression in the contest for year-end #1. Davenport's lead over Mauresmo in the Race is nearly 600 points, and she has fewer events. That's a very big gap at this time of year. It appears Justine Henin-Hardenne is out of it; she's far off the pace and still not healthy, and as last year's Filderstadt finalist, she'll be losing some ground. Based on her Race score, Anastasia Myskina could still do some damage, but only if she gets her game together -- fast. That leaves Kuznetsova. She is #3 in the Race. The next few weeks should tell us if she has a chance to end the year higher than that.

Since Kim Clijsters isn't playing, she will take yet another rankings hit. Last year, she earned 292 points at Filderstadt. The loss of those will drop her to no better than #10. And Vera Zvonareva could boot her out of the Top Ten if she can win Filderstadt.

Further down the rankings, Filderstadt semifinalists Mary Pierce and Elena Bovina (who beat Davenport last year) have a lot on the line. So does Virginia Ruano Pascual, who at this time last year was winning Tashkent. The Spaniard's results at Hasselt brought her close to the Top 50 again, but she could well lose all that ground and more. Tashkent finalist Saori Obata is also likely to slip.

Key Matches

One odd effect of the strength of Filderstadt is that the value of matches varies greatly. If, say, Vera Zvonareva wins the event, she could pick up close to 500 points; the tournament is that strong. But if the upsets break just the right way, and Davenport or Mauresmo wins it, she might earn as little as 350 points or so. A big haul, but not that big. Besides, there are so many tough players in the draw that if we predict two players to meet in a particular round, odds are fairly high that it won't happen.

But the closest thing to a sure bet for a key match is the Filderstadt semifinal, Mauresmo vs. Kuznetsova or somebody. If Mauresmo wins this, odds are that she stays #1 (though even in that case, it could depend on quality points).

Elena Bovina could fall out of the Top 20 with an early enough loss. She faces Kuznetsova in the second round. Win that and she should be safe.

At the Japan Open, watch for the quarterfinal, Sharapova vs. Shaughnessy (or someone). If Sharapova wins that, she's back up to #7 in the world, though that's as high as she can hope to rise at this time.

Men's Look Forward: Tokyo, Lyon
When the qualifying draw for Lyon came out, headed as it was by Thomas Enqvist, the natural thought was, "This is going to be quite a tournament." When the main draw came out, that turned into "What are all those clay-courters doing on carpet?"

That's not to imply that Lyon is a weak event; it's not, though it isn't as strong as that qualifying field would lead you to think. But there are a lot of Spaniards (Juan Carlos Ferrero, David Ferrer, Albert Costa, Tommy Robredo, Feliciano Lopez, Rafael Nadal), and quite a few other players you'd think more likely to want to play on something slower (Agustin Calleri, trying once again to come back, plus Luis Horna, Juan Monaco, Hicham Arazi, and others).

The flip side of that is, it's a nicely balanced draw, with no clear and overwhelming favorite. The #1 seed is Nicolas Massu, who of course likes his courts slower. Defending champion Rainer Schuettler is #2 (this week's schedule gave Schuettler the choice of defending his title here or defending his title in Tokyo, and he picked here). Juan Carlos Ferrero, who actually had pretty good indoor results before he started getting injured all the time, is #3. Joachim Johansson is #4, and you know he loves fast courts. Tommy Robredo is #5, and Dominik Hrbaty #6 -- more guys who like things slower. #7 seed Vincent Spadea is probably happy enough with the surface, and of course Mario Ancic is another guy who had the serve to do well here. Others who look like they might have good chances of success are Paul-Henri Mathieu (who is French and who won both his career titles indoors), Jonas Bjorkman, and Robin Soderling, plus the other two French wildcards, Arnaud Clement (who won his first title here five years ago) and Michael Llodra.

Tokyo was more of an enduring mystery. The ATP apparently couldn't get through the Japanese of the web site to figure out the draw; as of this writing, it still isn't on their web site. (We found it by accident: Click on everything until something works. It wasn't filed under draws.) It turned out that, despite having twice the prize money and a third more points than Lyon, it has only a mid-level field. Lleyton Hewitt is the only Top Ten player, but #2 seed David Nalbandian, #3 Andrei Pavel, and #4 Paradorn Srichaphan are all Top 20. Nicolas Kiefer withdrew, leaving Jiri Novak as the #5 seed. Guillermo Canas brings in his five match winning streak as the #6 seed. Slumping Taylor Dent is #7, Thomas Johansson is #8, and that's about it for Top 50 players.

Lower seeds are #9 Cyril Saulnier, #10 Hyung-Taik Lee, #11 Ricardo Mello, #12 Jarkko Nieminen, #13 Jan-Michael Gambill, #14 Dennis van Scheppingen, #15 Jan Hernych, and #16 Gilles Muller.

It will tell you how far Mark Philippoussis has fallen this year that he didn't even get a seed or a first round bye in this field. He heads a strong contingent of unseeded Australians (Todd Reid, Wayne Arthurs). Other than that, there aren't many big names floaters.

Noteworthy First Round Matches

Lyon, being as strong as it is, has quite a few of these:

(1) Massu vs. Calleri. Coming back on carpet can hardly be what Calleri was hoping for, but then, it's not a great surface for Massu either.

Horna vs. Youzhny. Horna is having his best year ever, and Youzhny is a bit below his form, but the Russian likes the surface better.

(3) Ferrero vs. Sargsian. Ferrero is the better player, of course, but can he actually stay out there long enough to beat Sargsian?

(5) Robredo vs. Soderling. The Spaniard is ranked higher, but it's Soderling's surface, and he's been improving all year.

F. Lopez vs. Davydenko. No other Spaniard likes fast surfaces as well as Lopez, but if he gets into a long rally, can he win against Davydenko?

(7) Spadea vs. Ginepri. The only two Americans in the main draw face each other in the first round. At least the surface should be OK for both.

Ljubicic vs. Clement. Clement likes the surface better, but he's having a poor year, and of course Ljubicic has that serve....

Melzer vs. Llodra. Both players have been making big strides this year. On the whole, Llodra probably likes faster courts better. But Melzer may be the better player.

Arazi vs. (2) Schuettler. Can either of these guys actually come to life?

At Tokyo, by contrast, the fact that the 16 seeds all have byes eliminates most of the early drama. The best matches might be Philippoussis vs. Zib and Gimelstob vs. Christophe Rochus. But, really, there ought to be a rule against giving byes to players ranked below #50....

The Rankings

Right now, the story of Rainer Schuettler's life seems to be, "How low can you go?" With Tokyo already off and Lyon about to drop, we can emphatically say, "Out of the Top 20." The news is nearly as bad for Arnaud Clement, last year's Lyon finalist (we told you he liked this place); if he doesn't have as much to defend, he doesn't have as many points on his record, either.

The other tournament that comes off this week, Vienna, is much less significant to those involved. Roger Federer won it last year, but his ranking is under no threat; even though Andy Roddick will close the gap a little, Federer's lead will remain nearly two to one. Lleyton Hewitt is safe at #3, but can't move up for a few more weeks yet, though he has the chance to gain some ground on Roddick here. It's hard, though; he has too many optional titles for another to do him much good, even though he's the obvious favorite to win Tokyo; he really needs more required results.

Carlos Moya was last year's Vienna finalist, but his lead over Andre Agassi is too big to surmount. Tim Henman, with semifinalist points from Vienna, has enough optional events that the loss of those shouldn't matter much. The one change we could see in the Top Ten is that David Nalbandian has a real chance to move up here.

Max Mirnyi, who ended up playing qualifying at Lyon this year, after struggling all summer, will be taking a hit; he was a semifinalist at Vienna last year. Lyon semifinalist Mikhail Youzhny could also suffer a little.

Key Matches

We got the Tokyo draw too late to do much with it (hence the shortness of the rankings analysis, too). At Lyon, though, the key match is surely the potential quarterfinal between Schuettler and Clement -- assuming Schuettler can beat first Arazi and then Melzer or Llodra, and that Clement can beat Ljubicic and then Ginepri or Spadea. Since those two both have big points on the line, their meeting guarantees that at least one of them will fall.

We'd also watch how Paul-Henri Mathieu does here. He won his second career title here two years ago, and seems finally to be getting back to that level again; this could be his chance to really put things together. He opens against a qualifier, then Dominik Hrbaty (who likes his courts slower), then Nicolas Massu (ditto, though perhaps to a lesser extent).

At Tokyo, the Player to Watch may be Nalbandian. Can he get his game together? His first strong opponent would be Dent in the quarterfinal, and it only gets worse in the semifinal, where he would face Pavel or Canas.

The most interesting match of the Round of Sixteen is probably #5 Novak vs. #11 Mello; just how much progress has Mello made? At Shanghai, he did better against Canas than Novak did.

The Hewitt/Thomas Johansson quarterfinal could also be fun.

[bandabou]

Filderstadt: Higher League
One of the difficulties of tennis journalism is that there is no official and recognized system for determining how tough a tournament is. (If there were, we could probably use it to make the ranking system better.) But we at Daily Tennis have several systems of our own. And, to give a little perspective, under one of these systems, Filderstadt qualifying is stronger than nine tournaments played on the WTA so far this year; another system says that there have been fully twelve tournaments weaker than the qualifying at this toughest of tough events.

Witness the fact that world #32 Eleni Daniilidou lost in the second round of qualifying (to Tatiana Panova), and #37 Iveta Benesova and #39 Emilie Loit had lost in the first round (to Stephanie Gehrlein and Lilia Osterloh, respectively). And that still left us with four Top 40 players in the qualifying final round.

And they didn't make it all through, either. It would seem Jelena Jankovic is finally over her foot injury; she edged #30 Lisa Raymond 6-4 1-6 7-6. Raymond will still make the main draw as a Lucky Loser -- but how often do you see a Lucky Loser ranked #30?

The top qualifying seed did make it through: #25 Fabiola Zuluaga eliminated Els Callens 6-0 7-5. That means that Filderstadt features 18 of the Top 25 in the main draw; the only Top 25 players not present are Justine Henin-Hardenne (sick), Kim Clijsters (injured), Jennifer Capriati, Serena Williams (bad knee?), Maria Sharapova (defending the Japan Open), Venus Williams (this is a Serena tournament), and Amy Frazier (hurt?). Pretty good for a Tier II!

Our other qualifiers are Lilia Osterloh, who kept up her hot streak by beating Tatiana Panova 6-7 6-2 6-2, and Jelena Kostanic, who blew away Denisa Chladkova 6-0 6-1. Chladkova would be next in if someone else withdraws.

Only three main draw singles matches were played, and two of them resulted in upsets, at least on paper. Karolina Sprem continues to struggle on indoor surfaces; Silvia Farina Elia has a real chance to return to the Top 20 after beating the Croat 3-6 6-3 6-3. Even more amazing, Anna Smashnova took out #8 seed Ai Sugiyama 6-3 7-6. Alicia Molik, meanwhile, scored the biggest indoor win of her career, beating Francesca Schiavone 6-2 6-3. That just about guarantees that Molik will stay Top 20; she might move as high as #18. She will also get the chance to influence the contest for #1, since she faces Lindsay Davenport next.

In the doubles, Daniela Hantuchova's reunion with Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario was not a success; #4 seeds Anastasia Myskina and Vera Zvonareva took them out 6-3 7-5. Lindsay Davenport's return to doubles was probably less successful than she had hoped, but she and Corina Morariu finally advanced, beating Iveta Benesova and Claudine Schaul 7-6 6-4.

Japan Open: Double Trouble
It was a long day, Monday. The whole schedule had been set back a day, so that both the second and third rounds of qualifying had to be played on Monday. We'll try to sum it up fast. We have, of course, four qualifiers. Top qualifying seed Samantha Stosur beat first Akiko Yonemura in straight sets, then eliminated #8 seed Catalina Castano 6-1 6-2. Emmanuelle Gagliardi, the #2 seed, needed three sets to beat Yuka Yoshida in the second round, and that didn't leave much energy to take on Sesil Karatancheva, who had easily handled #7 seed Anne Kremer 6-2 6-1. Karatancheva made her fourth WTA main draw by upsetting Gagliardi 6-4 6-2. Shahar Peer made her third main draw, and second in a row, with a 4-6 6-2 6-1 win over Bryanne Stewart (who, given her recent results, has to feel good about just winning two qualifying matches; we were thinking she had retired from singles, and she got into the qualifying draw as an alternate). And Youlia Fedossova (who, despite her name, is listed as being French) will be making her WTA debut after beating first Lioudmila Skavronskaia in three sets and then Adriana Serra Zanetti (who had upset #5 seed Jennifer Hopkins) in straights.

Only one main draw match was played; wildcard Rika Fujiwara, playing only her second WTA event of the year, earned only her second win since last year's Japan Open; she upset countrywoman Saori Obata 6-4 6-4. We also had one doubles match; Shinobu Asagoe and Katarina Srebotnik, the top seeds, beat Hisamatsu and Takase 6-2 6-3.

Lyon: More Speed, Less Haste
One of the Roman Emperor Augustus's favorite maxims was, "More haste, less speed." It's certainly true in a lot of areas of endeavor, including tennis journalism, as articles full of hurried errors attest.

For a clay-loving player, though, it's the other way around: If the court is faster, he has less chance of getting ahead. It was quite a surprise, therefore, to see Dominik Hrbaty sign up for the fast indoor courts of Lyon when he could have played in Tokyo.

The result may have taught him his lesson. Xavier Malisse eliminated him 6-4 7-6. Not that it will hurt him; Hrbaty did reach the second round last year, but he has plenty of spare optional events!

If you want to talk about guys who hate the fall indoor season, though, Hrbaty is nothing to Nikolay Davydenko, who didn't win a match after the U. S. Open last year and posting first round indoor losses at Moscow, Vienna, Madrid, St. Petersburg, and Paris. You can add another carpet loss this year; big-serving Feliciano Lopez eliminated him 6-3 6-7 6-3.

The most painful loss of all, though, was suffered by Arnaud Clement. Last year's finalist needed a wildcard to get in here, and failed to justify it; Ivan Ljubicic beat him 6-4 7-6.

The day's final match also went against the slowcourt player, though he made it amazingly close. Jonas Bjorkman barely edged Albert Costa 6-7 7-6 6-4, saving two match points along the way.

Qualifiers in this strong draw are Julien Benneteau, Max Mirnyi, Raemon Sluiter, and Radek Stepanek. But top qualifying seed Thomas Enqvist is out; he lost the qualifying final to Sluiter in a third set tiebreak.

The doubles draw here is exceptionally strong, which meant that Martin Damm and Cyril Suk went unseeded. Which was bad luck for them; they lost in three sets to #2 seeds Wayne Black and Kevin Ullyett. But #3 seeds Julian Knowle and Michael Llodra were first time unlucky; they fell in a third set tiebreak to Cermak and Friedl.

Tokyo: An Object In Motion Tends To Remain In Motion
We knew Mark Philippoussis was unseeded at Tokyo. What we hadn't expected was that he would play like it.

The ugly story continues. Philippoussis last won a match (three of them, in fact) at Wimbledon -- and before that he had a five match losing streak. Since then, he's equalled that bad stretch. He lost first round at Los Angeles to Benneteau. Olympics to Olivier Rochus. U. S. Open to Davydenko. Shanghai to Weiner. And, on Monday, he made it six in a row. Tomas Zib beat him 6-3 6-4.

Given how many matches they have to play here, it was not a very busy day -- only four main draw matches played. (That was mostly a case of catch-up; there was a big backlog from Sunday.) Though the others were all much closer than the Philippoussis/Zib non-contest. Janko Tipsarevic is up to #107 in the world; a good result here would have made him Top 100. But Alex Bogomolov took him out in a third set tiebreak. And the other two matches both ended in two tiebreaks: Wildcard Takao Suzuki eliminated Adrian Garcia and Harel Levy took out Yen-Hsun Lu.

Qualifiers are Marco Chiudinelli, Satoshi Iwabuchi (who makes only his second main draw appearance of the year), Michael Kohlmann, Bjorn Phau, Kristian Pless, and Yeu-Tzuoo Wang.

Women's Match of the Day

Filderstadt - First Round
Anna Smashnova def. Ai Sugiyama (8) 6-3 7-6(7-3)

If you've been following the soap opera that is Anna Smashnova's name, the official history is this. First she was Anna Smashnova. Then Anna Pistolesi. Then Anna Smashnova-Pistolesi. Two weeks ago, she reverted to just plain Smashnova.

It seems to have worked. Because this is very nearly the best indoor result of her life. Smashnova, of course, is short and speedy and doesn't have much in the way of offensive weaponry; fast courts don't suit her at all. Over the past four years, she has played only 17 indoor events, with only ten wins in those 17 events; in 2001, she had no indoor wins at all, and this is her first of 2004. And yet, when she does win, she tends to win big. At Filderstadt 2002, she beat then-#17 Schnyder. At Zurich 2002, she beat then-#13 Rubin. At Linz 2002, she beat #28 Shaughnessy and #18 Dementieva. She then lost four indoor matches in a row, through Moscow 2003, where she beat #13 Petrova, #35 Kuznetsova, and #32 Bovina. In Russia. Her last indoor win came at Zurich last year, where she beat #21 Farina Elia.

And now she can add another Top 15 win. It's certainly good timing. When that big Moscow result came off last week, Smashnova fell out of the Top 30. This will certainly put her back -- and, by an incredible stroke of luck, she's at the only place in the draw where there was no possibility of facing a Top 20 player in the next round. So she just might have a chance to go even a little higher.

Sugiyama came in at #14, and even though this costs her a few points, she still has more than a 200 point lead over #15 Patty Schnyder, so she will probably stay there. But she has Linz to defend in a few weeks. This was one of her few chances for what should have been easy indoor points, and it's wasted.

Men's Match of the Day

Lyon - First Round
Ivan Ljubicic def. Arnaud Clement (WC) 6-4 7-6(7-1)

Earlier this year, Arnaud Clement was talking about raising his sights for the year. He wanted to do better than just end up in the Top Fifty.

Maybe he should have been happy as he was. Since the grass season, he's been a wreck. He lost first round at Wimbledon, first round at Cincinnati, second round at the Olympics, first round at the U. S. Open, first round at Bucharest, and was blown out in Davis Cup.

And it was already a lousy month. Last week, his title at Metz came off, causing him to drop from #62 to #82. Now he loses finalist points from Lyon last year. And that means -- he can bid the Top 100 goodbye.

If there is any good news at all, it's that he came in at #91 in the Race. He has only one more win to defend from last year, and that was an optional one, at Basel. His ranking is low enough that he can count more optional events. So if he can actually win some matches, he has a chance to climb. But there isn't much indication that he can start winning....

Last year, Ljubicic reached the second round of Lyon also. Not that second round points would matter anyway. There is one interesting point: Last year, he lost to Rainer Schuettler. This year, they could meet in the quarterfinal -- if Schuettler lasts that long. Not a great bet, these days. .

This Week's Movers -- Women
Biggest Upward Mover -- Most Places Moved (Top 100)
Leader: Li Na -- Moved 53 places, from #145 to #92.
Li, who had already been a rather spectacular mover in September, topped it all off by winning her first title at GuangZhou -- as a qualifier!

Runner-Up: Martina Sucha -- Moved 26 places, from #91 to #65
Sucha lost the GuangZhou final to Li, but it was still a final....
Biggest Percentage Mover -- Cut Ranking By Highest Percent (Top 100)
Leader: Li -- cut ranking 37%

Runner-Up: Sucha, 28%
Biggest Loser -- Most Places Lost (Top 100)
Loser: Aniko Kapros -- Dropped 30 places, from #65 to #95
Last year, Kapros made the Japan Open final with a win over Sugiyama. This year, she has hardly been able to play (only one win since Budapest), and lost in the GuangZhou first round to run her losing streak to five.
Biggest Percentage Loser -- Worst Percentage Increase in Ranking (Top 100)
Loser: Kapros, ranking increased 46%.
Our Personal Picks for "Best Mover of the Week"
These are subjective picks!

You could make a case that Li (and Sucha) shouldn't have moved as much as they did; that GuangZhou had a Tier IV field. But Li would have been the biggest absolute and percentage mover even had the points been adjusted downward. So: Li.

Rankings Notes

In light of the ongoing question of "Who should be #1," we thought we would list the Top Ten under the divisor this week. Note that Justine Henin-Hardenne is still tops. She will lose the top spot this week, though, to Davenport or just possibly Mauresmo, depending on the results at Filderstadt.
1 Henin-Hardenne......274.6
2 Davenport...........270.5
3 Mauresmo............249.5
4 Clijsters...........198.4
5 Capriati............185.5
6 SWilliams...........185.4
7 Myskina.............181.2
8 Kuznetsova..........161.0
9 VWilliams...........153.2
10 Dementieva..........147.3

This Week's Movers -- Men
Biggest Upward Mover -- Most Places Moved (Top 100)
Leader: Lars Burgsmuller -- Moved 34 places, from #133 to #99.
After being demolished in the Shanghai final by Guillermo Canas, Burgsmuller said he needed to forget the whole day -- but it still put him back in the Top 100.

Runner-Up: Tomas Berdych -- Moved 31 places, from #55 to #34
Berdych, who had never made an ATP quarterfinal before, won his first title at Palermo and reaches a career high.
Biggest Percentage Mover -- Cut Ranking By Highest Percent (Top 100)
Leader: Berdych -- cut ranking 38%

Runner-Up: Burgsmuller, 26%
Biggest Loser -- Most Places Lost (Top 100)
Loser: Taylor Dent -- Dropped 21 places, from #34 to #55
This time last year had been the best few weeks of Dent's career as he won Bangkok and Moscow. Now all that is coming off.
Biggest Percentage Loser -- Worst Percentage Increase in Ranking (Top 100)
Loser: Dent, ranking increased 62%.
Our Personal Picks for "Best Mover of the Week"
These are subjective picks!

Not much doubt about this one. Berdych had the best percentage move, and he won his first career title, and he's at a career high.

[bandabou]

Filderstadt: Not This Time
Filderstadt, because it's so strong, always gives "good statistic." You'll see examples below of the odd footnotes it yields. It also tends to produce rankings oddities. Consider, for example, the fact that we already know with near certainty who will be Top Ten -- but we don't know who will be Top Five.

That's because Vera Zvonareva is once again out of the Top Ten sweepstakes. She took on Elena Likhovtseva in an all-Russian contest, and Likhovtseva -- the veteran and forerunner of this entire generation -- knows Zvonareva too well. Add to that the fact that Zvonareva was not playing at all well (apart from one brief stretch in the second set) and you have a big upset: Likhovtseva eliminated the #6 seed 6-3 7-5. That means that the best Zvonareva, who suffers only her fifth loss this year to a non-Top-20 player, can hope for is to retain her current #11 ranking. But Likhovtseva, who came in at #27, may well hit the Top 25 if she can win her next match.

If she does, she'll have to do it against Mary Pierce. Pierce finally had a chance to face Paola Suarez on an indoor court, and ended a half a decade of frustration against the Argentine by winning 6-2 6-3. Pierce, we note with interest, had no Top 20 wins in her first 11 events this year, but has had at least one in all three events since.

We came surprisingly close to another upset as Daniela Hantuchova took on Lilia Osterloh. In the first set, Hantuchova -- despite going up a break early -- was having a horrible time on her serve, sending balls all over the court. Osterloh, with much less power, managed to win six of the last seven games of the set. But that seemed to settle Hantuchova down. She finally advanced 3-6 6-2 6-1.

There was no upset as qualifier Fabiola Zuluaga took on wildcard Marlene Weingartner, though. Weingartner fell into one of her bad moods, and was double bageled.

In the day's last singles match, Nathalie Dechy eliminated 2003 quarterfinalist Magdalena Maleeva 4-6 6-3 6-3.

Current plans are for Alicia Molik and Ai Sugiyama to play doubles together next year. They got off to a nice start; the #3 seeds beat the tough Italian team of Farina Elia and Schiavone 6-2 7-5. The day's other doubles match produced a big surprise: wildcards Anna-Lena Groenefeld and Julia Schruff (the latter in particular not noted for doubles) eliminated U. S. Open semifinalists Barbara Schett and Patty Schnyder 6-2 6-2.

Japan Open: Weather Permitting

Once again, the weather made a mess of things in Tokyo; they weren't able to complete even one doubles match. But the organizers did manage to complete the first round singles. All 13 matches.

Most of the seeds probably wish they hadn't. Four of the six in action lost. It appears that #5 Meghann Shaughnessy really wasn't ready to come back; French qualifier Youlia Fedossova, ranked #448, handed her her seventh straight loss 7-5 7-6. It was Fedossova's first WTA win, in her eighth event, and she's nearly doubled her point total; she should gain more than 100 places. But Shaughnessy sets a record of sorts: She suffers the worst loss experienced by any Top 50 player this year, apart from the special cases of Magui Serna's loss to Sandrine Testud and Tina Pisnik's loss to Ruxandra Dragomir Ilie; the next worst losses were Krasnoroutskaya's and Smashnova's defeat at the hands of #354 Golovin at the Australian Open, and there were only three other instances of Top 50 players losing to non-Top-300 opponents this year.

Evgenia Linetskaya has a few more tournaments than Fedossova under her belt, but hardly more WTA experience; this was her second main draw (the U. S. Open being her first), and she has only one win. She made it two with a 6-0 1-6 6-4 victory over #6 seed Nicole Pratt.

By that standard, qualifier Sesil Karatancheva is experienced: She had three prior WTA events, and four wins. She can increase those totals to four and five, respectively; she beat #8 Arantxa Parra Santonja 6-2 6-4 -- a loss which will knock the Spaniard out of the Top 60.

Not everyone who posted an upset was a babe in tennis racquets. Tamarine Tanasugarn, after a dreadful year, seems at last to be showing life this fall; she upset #3 seed Shinobu Asagoe 6-0 6-4.

Two seeds did survive: #4 Kristina Brandi edged Sandra Kleinova 4-6 6-3 6-4, while #7 Klara Koukalova handed Milagros Sequera her sixth straight loss 6-2 6-2.

The other whiz kid in the draw, Nicole Vaidisova, wasn't in position to upset a seed, because she didn't face one. But the Vancouver winner did pick up her eighth WTA win, beating Yoon Jeong Cho 6-3 6-4.

Aniko Kapros had a five match losing streak going back to Wimbledon. She snapped it with a 2-6 6-0 6-2 victory over qualifier Shahar Peer.

It was a mixed day for the Japanese hosts. Akiko Morigami broke a three match losing streak with a 7-5 6-0 win over Katarina Srebotnik. But of course Asagoe lost, costing them their top player in the draw; in addition, qualifier Samantha Stosur beat Aiko Nakamura 6-3 7-5. That means that Stosur, for the second straight week, will be facing top seed Maria Sharapova.

After a great summer, Mashona Washington had struggled a bit, losing first round at the U. S. Open and Seoul. She finally snapped out of it with a 6-2 6-4 victory over Maria Sanchez Lorenzo; that will put her in the Top 60.

The day's other two matches featured players ranked one place apart, and both were won by the lower-ranked. #73 Lubomira Kurhajcova beat #72 Alina Jidkova 7-6 6-2; #59 Jill Craybas eliminated #58 Barbora Strycova 7-5 4-6 6-4.

Lyon: Rug Burns
They don't call it "carpet" for nothing. The big story of Tuesday was how many clay-courters got swept under the rug.

Perhaps the most disturbing was Mario Ancic. He's your standard Croat: Big serve, but otherwise he acts a lot like a clay-courter. But because he serves so big, people expect him to do well indoors.

There were two problems. One was his shoulder; the other was Max Mirnyi, who qualified here and seems at last to be showing faint signs of life. He was crawling all over Ancic when the #8 seed decided to retire with a shoulder problem -- right shoulder, worse luck. The score was 6-3 6-1. Mirnyi would also return to life in doubles; he and Mahesh Bhupathi would eliminate Malisse and Spadea 6-3 6-4. It wasn't all good news for doubles seeds, though, as #4 Etlis and Rodriguez lost to unseeded Erlich and Ram (a team that would have been seeded at most events, but not here).

Meanwhile, Robin Soderling was serving his way past #5 seed Tommy Robredo 6-1 6-4. And Agustin Calleri made it three seeds down as he eliminated top seed Nicolas Massu 6-3 6-4.

That meant that, of the first four seeds in action, only one came through. The non-clay-courter, naturally: #7 seed Vince Spadea eliminated countryman Robby Ginepri 6-4 6-3.

One clay-courter did manage to go against form: David Ferrer eliminated qualifier Raemon Sluiter, who definitely has had better fastcourt results than the young Spaniard, 6-3 6-4. But Mikhail Youzhny, who is an all-surface type, won the other early match between unseeded players, eliminating clay-bred Luis Horna 6-4 7-6.

The French aren't having much luck at this event; in a late match, qualifier Radek Stepanek edged wildcard Paul-Henri Mathieu 4-6 7-5 6-2.

That left one seed to play in the evening: Juan Carlos Ferrero was to take on Sargis Sargsian. The result was at least vaguely promising for Ferrero after his struggles this year: He advanced 6-4 7-6.

Tokyo: Extra Help
Expect to see a lot of seeds advance on Wednesday and Thursday in Tokyo.

That's not because there is something special about the seeds here; in fact, they're a rather weak lot. But they'll be rested, and their opponents will generally be exhausted.

Rain once again messed up play in Tokyo; only five men's singles matches were completed, meaning that nearly half the first round matches remain to be played on a day when they were supposed to be completing the second round. And even one of the completed matches ended in a retirement: Justin Gimelstob and Christophe Rochus were going into a first set tiebreak when Rochus abandoned the match.

Tiebreaks were also the mark of the match between Nicolas Thomann and Kristian Pless; Thomann won in two of them -- his first win of the year after three losses.

Jean-Rene Lisnard has quietly started to improve his results slightly after a very bad start to the year; he's back up to #123 after falling to the #160 range. But it was only a slight recovery; he lost to Wayne Arthurs 6-4 7-5.

At least Thomann and Lisnard have been able to play ATP events in 2004. Gouichi Motomura had none, and of course needed a wildcard to get into the draw. But he did take advantage, beating Glenn Weiner 6-4 6-3.

As a matter of fact, every match involving a player who lived in a time zone close to Tokyo's was won by the relative local: In the day's other match, Taiwanese qualifier Yeu-Tzuoo Wang beat Jeff Morrison 6-3 7-6.

Women's Match of the Day

Filderstadt - First Round
Nathalie Dechy (WC) def. Magdalena Maleeva 4-6 6-3 6-3

So is it an upset if the winner of the match came in ranked lower than her opponent, but comes out ranked higher?

On any surface except indoors, Nathalie Dechy would probably be the favorite here, despite being ranked #24 to Maleeva's #19. But this is Maleeva's best surface by far. Here, she was the clear favorite. Particularly since Dechy is physically fragile, and has been struggling with her body since reaching the New Haven final; she withdrew from the U. S. Open third round and hadn't played since.

Certainly it was a match Maleeva wanted to win. Last year, she made the Filderstadt quarterfinal, beating #25 Jelena Dokic and #10 Chanda Rubin before losing to Mary Pierce. That earned her 121 points -- and, with the players from #19 to #30 all within 300 points of each other, that's a lot. Maleeva came in at #19. The loss means that she will fall to no better than #25 -- and it will be #26 if Elena Likhovtseva wins her next match.

Because there are so many players clumped together, we can't yet tell how much good this will do Dechy. It's certain that she will stay Top 25, and ahead of Maleeva, but we can't tell how much, or whether, she will move up.

Even if she doesn't climb in the rankings, Dechy has nothing to defend for the rest of the year. This, by itself, is a relatively small result, and Dechy has to face Anastasia Myskina next. But it could well be a step toward a year-end Top 20 ranking.

Men's Match of the Day

Lyon - First Round
Agustin Calleri def. Nicolas Massu (1) 6-3 6-4

Injuries being what they are this year, every time a player comes back, we have a sort of bet with ourselves: "Is he ready?"

Agustin Calleri started the year pretty well. A semifinal at Doha. A final at Costa do Sauipe. Fourth round at Indian Wells. Quarterfinal at Miami. Quarterfinal at Barcelona. But then he pulled out of Rome, skipped Hamburg, and retired from his opening round match at Roland Garros. He tried to come back at Bastad, and lost first round (though it was a close contest against Tommy Robredo). He won a match at the Olympics, but withdrew from the second round. And hasn't played since.

By the looks of things, he's finally right. This is his first convincing win over a top player since Barcelona. Which, of course, he needed; with all those false comeback attempts, he wasn't going to be getting any sort of injury protection.

Unfortunately for him, this does him no good, points-wise. Last year at this time, he reached the second round at Vienna -- a bigger tournament, so his point total slips again. But the flip side of the coin is, he didn't win another match after that one last year. Assuming he can play at all, he has nowhere to go but up. Which would be nice, considering that his ranking more than twice what it was at this time last year.

Massu, for the moment, isn't hurt by the loss; he went down first round at Vienna last year. But the week after Vienna was Madrid -- and he made the final there. Madrid won't be played for another week this year -- but Massu now guaranteed to fall dramatically next week, even if he does something solid in his next tournament.

The Test of Time
A few weeks ago, the ATP made it official: Roger Federer was the year-end #1. Of course, everyone was convinced he would be #1 well before that. But we pointed out, at the time, that Federer's clinching was an artifact of the ranking system: It's easier to clinch under Required and Optional than most other ranking systems.

But how much easier?

Let's take a look, comparing Federer and Andy Roddick. (In fact, in some systems, we should include Lleyton Hewitt too; depending on the system, he might be more of a threat to Federer than is Roddick. But you probably don't want us to go into that; we'll be slinging enough numbers as it is.) For starters, here are Federer's and Roddick's results this year (through the U. S. Open, since that's when Federer clinched; the rest we will analyze later). We'll show the Race points earned after each event.

FEDERER:
Australian Open Win (200)
Rotterdam QF (12)
Dubai Win (60)
Indian Wells Win (100)
Miami 3R (7)
Rome 2R (7)
Hamburg W (100)
Roland Garros 3R (15)
Halle Win (45)
Wimbledon Win (200)
Gstaad Win (35)
Canadian Open Win (100)
Cincinnati 1R (1)
Olympics 2R (5)
U. S. Open Win (200)

RODDICK:
Doha 2R (5)
Australian Open QF (50)
San Jose Win (35)
Memphis QF (5)
Scottsdale SF (15)
Indian Wells QF (25)
Miami Win (100)
Houston F (24)
Rome 1R (1)
Roland Garros 2R (7)
Queen's Win (45)
Wimbledon F (140)
Indianapolis Win (40)
Canadian Open F (70)
Cincinnati SF (45)
Olympics 3R (10)
U. S. Open QF (50)

That's a total of 1087 points for Federer, in 15 events; Roddick had 667 points in 16 events, but 20 of those points (Olympics, Doha, Memphis) were outside his Optional Five; hence his Race total of 647 after the Olympics.

Now after the U. S. Open, there are three required events:
Madrid (100)
Paris (100)
Masters Cup (150 if undefeated in Round Robin)

The biggest optional events of the remainder of the year, week by week, are
Beijing (35)
Bangkok (35)
Tokyo (50)
Moscow (50)
St. Petersburg (50)

But Roddick already has optional events with points of 45 40 35 24 15 (total of 159). The best he could come up with, were he to play and win Tokyo, Moscow, and St. Petersburg, would be 50 50 50 45 40, a total of 235. That's 76 more optional points than he had after the U. S. Open. So, following the Open, the most points he could gain on Federer, assuming Federer didn't play another match, were 100 (Madrid) + 100 (Paris) + 150 (Masters Cup, undefeated) + 76 (optional events). Grand total: 426 points. Federer's lead was "only" 420 points, so actually, there was a chance still (eliminated at Bangkok). But it wasn't possible in practice.

But that's Required and Optional. There is no particular magic about that ranking system; apart from the fact that it is discontinuous (not all players are ranked in the same way, which is not mathematically elegant to say the least), it lacks bonus points for beating good players, meaning that it's possible for some players to fatten their rankings by playing very weak events. Suppose we looked at the situation under, say, the old Best 14 ranking system.

We aren't going to go all-out and recalculate the bonus points. It's just too much work, and overall, Federer and Roddick played roughly equal schedules in terms of difficulties. So we'll just treat Race points as points. It's close enough for a rough cut. In that case, Federer's Best 14 were:

Australian Open Win (200)
Wimbledon Win (200)
U. S. Open Win (200)
Indian Wells Win (100)
Hamburg W (100)
Canadian Open Win (100)
Dubai Win (60)
Halle Win (45)
Gstaad Win (35)
Roland Garros 3R (15)
Rotterdam QF (12)
Miami 3R (7)
Rome 2R (7)
Olympics 2R (5)

Total: 1086 points (the only event he's played that doesn't count is his first round loss at Cincinnati).

For Roddick, the list is

Wimbledon F (140)
Miami Win (100)
Canadian Open F (70)
Australian Open QF (50)
U. S. Open QF (50)
Queen's Win (45)
Cincinnati SF (45)
Indianapolis Win (40)
San Jose Win (35)
Indian Wells QF (25)
Houston F (24)
Scottsdale SF (15)
Olympics 3R (10)
Roland Garros 2R (7)

Total: 656. In other words, Roddick gained a handful of points under Best 14, while Federer lost one.

But there is more. Under Best 14, Roddick could substitute any result for any other. So if he were to win, say, Moscow (50 points), it wouldn't replace one of his optional five, it would replace his 7 points from Roland Garros. Under this situation, we could add back points wherever we wish until we reach the point of diminishing returns. So in that case, Roddick's Best 14 could become:
Wimbledon F (140)
Miami Win (100)
Canadian Open F (70)
Australian Open QF (50)
U. S. Open QF (50)
Queen's Win (45)
Cincinnati SF (45)
Indianapolis Win (40)
Tokyo (50) REPLACES San Jose Win (35)
St. Petersburg (50) REPLACES Indian Wells QF (25)
Moscow (50) REPLACES Houston F (24)
Madrid (100) REPLACES Scottsdale SF (15)
Paris (100) REPLACES Olympics 3R (10)
Masters Cup (150) REPLACES Roland Garros 2R (7)

Which, ironically, adds up to only 1040. So if we ignore the bonus points, Federer in fact clinched at the U. S. Open under Best 14 also.

However, ignoring bonus points is a somewhat unfair assumption. The old cliche that it's easier to get to #1 than to stay #1 was probably based on people's opinions of the psychology of the matter. But there is a grain of mathematical truth to it under ranking systems with bonus points. The #1 player cannot earn bonus points for beating #1, can only beat #2 in a final, can only beat #3 or #4 in a semifinal, etc. In other words, the higher you are ranked, the fewer bonus points you have available. It's not a big difference, but it does exist. Under Best 14, bonus points represented between 15% and 20% of most players' totals, and the points available to the top guy were about 10% less than lower-ranked guys. So Federer, as the #1 all year, might lose about 2% of his points. It might be enough to make a difference -- enough to have let Roddick stay alive for another week or two. With Roddick not playing at Tokyo, though, that's certainly over.

On the other hand, if the ATP were to suddenly realize that the purpose of the ranking system is to rank, and not enforce player behavior, things might really get interesting. Suppose they went back to the old (pre-1990) divisor, where a player's total points were divided by the number of events he played. Through the Open, Roddick had 667 Race points in 17 events -- an average of 39.2 Race points per event. It turns out that, if he were to play and win the three remaining required events, he would end up with 1017 points in 20 events -- a divisor score of 50.85.

Federer after the Open had 1087 points in 15 events, a divisor score of 72.5. If we were actually using the divisor, he could have clinch the year-end #1 by stopping right then and going home; Roddick couldn't pass him. But, of course, Federer would like to build up some points for next year, as well as staying in training and picking up some cash.

And the divisor penalizes you for first round losses. For example, had Federer lost first round at Bangkok, instead of winning, he would have added one point, to 1088, and one event, to 16; his divisor would have fallen to 68.0.

And if Federer were to suffer six more first round losses, he would end up with a total of 1094 points, and 22 events, and a divisor score of 49.7. Barely behind Roddick, if Roddick had played and won everything as outlined above.

Of course, that meant that Federer needed seven post-Open first round losses. And there were only eight weeks of events after the Open (assuming he didn't play Challengers): Weeks of Beijing, Bangkok, Tokyo, Moscow, Madrid, St. Petersburg, Paris, and the Masters Cup. He skipped Beijing. That meant that he needed first round losses every week for the rest of the year.

And he didn't lose Bangkok, and Roddick played Bangkok, which put a weaker event on his schedule. Which means that, under the divisor, Federer clinched at Bangkok.

It's still amazingly early. In fact, it's still the earliest clinch we can remember on the men's side -- the earliest for either men or women since another Swiss player, Martina Hingis in 1997. But different ranking systems do affect when a player can clinch. And, in general, Required and Optional will allow players to clinch sooner than other systems.

[Mr_Molik]

do u do all this bandabou??

[Ryan]

Originally Posted by Mr_Molik

do u do all this bandabou??

No. He posts it from a website.

[New]

Well!! Thanks for sharing... it's great reading!!!

[crazillo]

Maggie

[bandabou]

Originally Posted by Mr_Molik

do u do all this bandabou??

Not really.....tennisone.com

[TheBoiledEgg]

its a good look back as they always change that site everyday and these get lost forever otherwise.

[bandabou]

Filderstadt: Universe of Discourse
Some mathematical possibilities boggle even us. For example, a fan of Elena Dementieva pointed out, following Hasselt, that Dementieva could, under the right circumstances, take the #1 ranking after the Australian Open without winning a single title between then and now.

It's true, too. If Dementieva can make the Australian Open semifinal, and say the final at the year-end Championships, and the final at Moscow, she would be right around the 4000 point mark, which -- assuming Lindsay Davenport gets hurt again or retires, and no one else takes charge -- could well make her #1.

But there are at least two requirements beyond the above. First, she can't ever know that she's playing for #1, or she'll fold up and die. And second, she has to stop playing matches like the one she played against Lisa Raymond on Wednesday.

Raymond wasn't even supposed to be in the draw; she made it in as a Lucky Loser after Justine Henin-Hardenne (and Kim Clijsters, and Serena Williams, and Jennifer Capriati) pulled out. It's the second straight year she's had to play Filderstadt qualifying -- last year, she beat Svetlana Kuznetsova to make the main draw, only to lose to Daniela Hantuchova. This year, she reversed the process: She lost to a slumping player (Jelena Jankovic) in qualifying, then beat a significant Russian in the first round. It was, even by Dementieva's standards, a terrible serving day. She managed one point on serve in the first set. She was doing better at threatening the Raymond serve -- lots of big returns, and good results passing Raymond at the net. But she couldn't take advantage of her chances. Raymond, in fact, won the first eight games before Dementieva managed a break. And then, finally, held. She even worked her way to 5-4 and serving for the set. And was broken. After Raymond held, Dementieva had to serve to stay in the set -- and went down 0-40, saved all three match points, then lost two more points. 6-0 7-5.

Which means that Dementieva -- chances for #1 and all -- will for the moment remain at #6. Raymond, though, clinches her Top 30 spot, and is on the edges of the contest for a place in the Top 25.

In an interesting bit of symmetry, the player who beat Raymond in qualifying, Jelena Jankovic, also eliminated a seeded Russian, edging #7 Nadia Petrova 6-4 3-6 7-6. That meant that only one Russian advanced on this day in Filderstadt: Elena Bovina trounced German wildcard Anna-Lena Groenefeld 6-2 6-2.

It's odd to note that every first round match played Wednesday involved a player named (J)elena (and they all pronounce the name in about the same way, despite the diverse spellings). Jelena #4, Kostanic, turned up a loser; Patty Schnyder strengthened her hold on the #15 ranking by beating the qualifier 6-3 5-7 6-1.

Only one second round match was played, but it was potentially highly significant. Lindsay Davenport cranked up the pressure on Amelie Mauresmo a little more by beating Alicia Molik 6-1 6-0. Molik, #20 coming in, should stay there, or even move up -- but Davenport is now less than 100 points behind Mauresmo in the contest for #1. And her draw is opening up, too: Petrova is already out, meaning that she will face Jankovic or Daniela Hantuchova next. Indeed, the only seed left in her half is Anastasia Myskina, who hasn't played yet but who has been playing far below her best lately.

And she certainly didn't have much luck in doubles. In the first quarterfinal, Myskina and Vera Zvonareva, the #4 seeds, went out to Groenefeld and Schruff 6-4 6-4. That is likely to go down as the upset of the tournament.

The other three doubles matches were all first round contests. Rennae Stubbs and Lisa Raymond ended up facing one another yet again, but Stubbs was playing with regular partner Cara Black while Raymond had formed a temporary alliance with Mary Pierce. Experience together proved just sufficient: Black and Stubbs, the top seeds, advanced 2-6 6-4 7-5.

Janette Husarova has been having a dreadful year in singles, but she's done fairly well in doubles with Conchita Martinez. Martinez, though, doesn't play indoors any more than she has to, so Husarova had to go hunting for a partner. With Svetlana Kuznetsova thinking over her (very many) doubles options, Elena Likhovtseva was available. They hooked up to earn the #2 seeds, and beat Callens and Svensson in three sets.

In a minor upset, qualifiers Eva Birnerova and Lilia Osterloh edged Jelena Kostanic and Lisa McShea in a third set tiebreak.

Japan Open: Grand Conspiracy
Once again, the fates are conspiring to help Maria Sharapova to a title. There are only two seeds left in the quarterfinal of the Japan Open -- and #2 seed Tatiana Golovin isn't one of them. Wildcard Nicole Vaidisova, ironically, came to this tournament with a WTA Tour title but no wins over Top 30 players. She solved that by beating #29 Golovin 6-4 3-6 6-4. Golovin wasn't defending anything, so she'll probably keep her Top 30 ranking -- but this event was a big chance wasted; this does not look like the Golovin we saw last spring.

Top seed Sharapova had her own troubles, though she managed to advance. For the second straight week, she had to play Samantha Stosur, and this time, Sharapova, was tired. Fortunately, Stosur was too. Sharapova won her sixth straight match, but the score was 6-4 1-6 6-3. So she remains the only seed in the top half of the draw.

The only seed left in the bottom half is #7 Klara Koukalova, who beat Lubomira Kurhajcova 6-2 6-4 to clinch her Top 50 spot. But #4 Kristina Brandi lost to Mashona Washington 6-2 6-2; Washington is sure to exceed her current career high of #61.

We made a rather unclear statement about qualifier Sesil Karatancheva yesterday. The clear way of saying it was that Karatancheva now has four WTA events and five WTA wins. That was yesterday. It's also true today. Karatancheva failed to increase her totals, losing 6-4 6-0 to Aniko Kapros. But the other surprises of the tournament are still on track: Youlia Fedosova, who stunned Meghann Shaughnessy in the first round to earn her first WTA win, picked up her second with a 6-3 7-6 win over Akiko Morigami. The other remaining Japanese player, wildcard Rika Fujiwara, went down to Evgenia Linetskaya 6-4 6-3. Linetskaya, #114 coming in, is up to around #106, and will hit the Top 100 if she makes the final -- and, given her record in Challengers and the fact that she's in the bottom half, a final seems a real possibility.

In one of the day's few all-veteran matches, Tamarine Tanasugarn continued her fall resurgence with a 6-3 7-6 victory over Jill Craybas.

Injuries are the rule on the WTA this year, but you don't often see "concussion" listed as a cause of withdrawal. Sadly, Emmanuelle Gagliardi has one; she and Catalina Castano had to retire from their doubles match against a pair of Lucky Losers, ending Gagliardi's winning streak at four. We also lost #2 seeds Sequera/Spears, who lost in straight sets to Jidkova and Kurhajcova; obviously Sequera is still struggling. But #4 Stewart and Stosur advanced in straight sets, and #5 Hopkins/Washington, who replaced #3 seeds Craybas/Weingartner after Weingartner withdrew to get double bageled at Filderstadt, beat the Wildcard Kids, Karatancheva and Vaidisova, 7-5 6-2.

Lyon: Mixed Feelings
We have the funny feeling that, if you asked the clay-courters how the court at Lyon is playing, they'd say "Very fast." But the big servers would say, "Way too slow."

We say that based solely on results: Two Spaniards lost, but so did three of five big servers.

The day's ugliest loss, in fact, was suffered by a Spaniard; Rafael Nadal was blown out by qualifier Julien Benneteau 6-3 6-0. Who had the advantage of being French, of course, but that hasn't helped the other Frenchmen here. It didn't help Michael Llodra, either; Jurgen Melzer beat him 7-6 6-4.

Two seeds were left to play first round matches. One was defending champion Rainer Schuettler, who put on another Schuettler-like performance and lost to Hicham Arazi 6-4 1-6 6-3. But #4 Joachim Johansson made his way past Juan Monaco 6-4 6-3.

That was the only pure success for a big server. In second round action, three out of four lost, and the one who survived was facing another bomber. That one survivor was Robin Soderling, who beat Feliciano Lopez 4-6 6-3 6-3. But Jonas Bjorkman edged Max Mirnyi 6-7 7-6 6-4, and #7 seed Vincent Spadea became the first seed in the quarterfinal with a 6-4 7-6 win over Ivan Ljubicic.

In the other second round match, Xavier Malisse survived Radek Stepanek 4-6 7-6 6-0.

In doubles, the young team of Mathieu and Monfils probably expected to have the home field advantage from being French. Just their luck to face another French team, Benneteau and Mahut. Who may have needed a wildcard to get in, but they've had some decent doubles results. They beat the Young Guard 6-3 6-3.

Todd Woodbridge isn't playing this week, so Jonas Bjorkman ended up unseeded with Radek Stepanek. They did advance, but it took them three sets. The day's only quarterfinal also went three; top seeds Bhupathi and Mirnyi beat Hrbaty and Johansson 4-6 6-4 6-3.

Tokyo: Half Way Home

They aren't actually caught up at Tokyo yet. But they're getting there. For starters, they finished the first round. The biggest surprise probably came as qualifier Michael Kohlmann beat Kenneth Carlsen -- who usually does so well in the Far East -- 7-5 6-2. In addition, Lars Burgsmuller, after reaching the Shanghai final, now has two straight losses; Guillermo Garcia-Lopez beat him 6-4 2-6 6-3. In other matches, qualifier Marco Chiudinelli edged Alexander Peya 4-6 6-3 6-4, Flavio Saretta eliminated Jan Vacek 6-3 6-4, Bohdan Ulihrach won his first match since Bastad (where he beat a sick opponent) by eliminating Noam Okun 6-4 6-3, Bjorn Phau took out Tasuku Iwami 6-4 6-1, and wildcard Takahiro Terachi knocked off qualifier Satoshi Iwabuchi 6-1 6-3.

We told you the second round would be good for seeds. It was, though the organizers did a good job of balancing players' workloads. They finished eight second round matches on Wednesday, completing two quarters (the top and bottom quarters). No one had to play two matches on this day, and while eight players will have to play two matches Thursday, there will be no instances of one player having to play more matches than his opponent.

In any case, we had eleven seeds advance Wednesday, counting doubles as well as singles. All four seeded doubles teams came through, with #1 Arthurs/Hanley, #3 Allegro/Kohlmann, and #4 Novak/Pala advancing in straight sets. #3 Palmer/Vizner needed a third set tiebreak, but they're through too.

The singles was almost as clean a sweep. Only one seed fell: Takao Suzuki edged #15 Jan Hernych 7-6 3-6 7-5.

Surprisingly, it was the top seeds who had the most trouble. Admittedly a win here won't bring Lleyton Hewitt much in the way of points, since it's an optional event. But a win here might be handy next year if he decides to change his schedule. But he seemed to forget that for about a set; he eliminated wildcard Gouichi Motomura 6-0 3-6 6-1.

#2 David Nalbandian's problems are easier to explain; he's been injured and rusty. He edged qualifier Yeu-Tzuoo Wang 3-6 7-6 6-2.

The only other seed stretched to three sets was #9 Cyril Saulnier, who overcame a slow start to beat countryman Nicolas Thomann 2-6 6-1 6-4. Also advancing were #7 Taylor Dent, a 6-3 6-4 winner over Tomas Zib; #8 Thomas Johansson, who eliminated Justin Gimelstob 6-4 6-4; #10 Hyung-Taik Lee, a 6-2 7-6 winner over Wayne Arthurs; and #16 Gilles Muller, who took out Alex Bogomolov Jr. 6-3 6-1.

Women's Match of the Day

Filderstadt - First Round
Jelena Jankovic (Q) def. Nadia Petrova (7) 6-4 3-6 7-6(7-3)

If you were to sit down and count the handicaps faced by each player in this match, Jelena Jankovic's list is much longer. She has been playing on a bad ankle. She is jet lagged, having just flown in from China. She is tired; she played three qualifying matches, and the last of them, against Lisa Raymond, went to a third set tiebreak. And she hasn't Nadia Petrova's power.

Petrova has only one handicap, but it's the kind that is often decisive: She is Nadia Petrova. If she had all the advantages from the next down, Jankovic had the advantage between the ears: She works hard and she doesn't get down on herself and she isn't in competition for "Worst Head Case." Whereas Petrova seems to be wacko even for a Russian.

Which means, in simplest terms, that this is a surprise but not a big surprise. Particularly since we every seed who played a first round match lost. And Jankovic had beaten Petrova before, at 's-Hertogenbosch, on an even faster court.

It does, however, mean that we know who will be in the Top Ten next week -- and Petrova, of course, won't be one of them; she came in at #13, and there she will stay (unless Patty Schnyder wins this tournament and beats both Mauresmo and Davenport, anyway). But the Top Ten will certainly be Davenport and Mauresmo (#1 and #2, order unknown); Henin-Hardenne, Myskina, and Kuznetsova (order unknown, though Henin-Hardenne will be no worse than #4); Dementieva; Capriati, Serena Williams, and Sharapova (Sharapova is #7 if she wins her next match, #9 otherwise), and Clijsters. Vera Zvonareva will be #11, Venus Williams #12, and below that things are still at least slightly in flux.

For Jankovic, who has been climbing almost without pause for the past year, this spells another career high. She came in at #35. She'll move up to at least #33, and she'll next play Daniela Hantuchova for the #32 ranking.

Men's Match of the Day

Lyon - First Round
Hicham Arazi def. Rainer Schuettler (2) 6-4 1-6 6-3

It never ends for Rainer Schuettler. Not just another loss, but a loss on carpet to Hicham Arazi. That's somewhere between embarrassing and mortifying, tending toward the latter.

It's also singularly ill-timed. Because Schuettler was last year's Lyon champion. In fact, he was defending champion of both this week's events. But Tokyo was already off. Lyon comes off now. And that means -- yet another fall in the rankings. Schuettler, who last year was within a few strokes of reaching #5 in the world, came to Lyon ranked #15. It's a little too early to say that this will drop him out of the Top 20; he might be able to stay at #20. But no higher, and it could be lower.

And he's only #30 in the Race, and almost certainly will go lower, since players below him are still in action. And his poor Race numbers will soon be reflected in his ranking. He does, after all, still have his Masters Cup points. And those are surely history, since he won't be gong back. Schuettler had raised his ranking every year since he turned pro. That is functionally no longer possible. Schuettler has 171 Race points. The current #5, Guillermo Coria, has 480. So to pass Coria, Schuettler would have to win both fall Masters and at least two other titles -- and that assumes that no one else overtakes Coria. Schuettler would need three titles to get to the Masters Cup. And he hasn't won a title all year; were it not for his one big result at Monte Carlo, he would be below #50 in the Race. By the looks of his recent results, things may well get worse before they get better.

For Arazi, of course, second round points at a low-level event don't mean anything. But to win a tough match on carpet has to feel good at least.

October 6: Vienna - First Round
Jurgen Melzer (WC) def. Tommy Robredo (6) 6-2 6-7(4-7) 7-6(7-3)
At the time, we said, "There are a lot of reasons why we'd like bonus points back. To reward players who beat tough opponents. To assure that wins at strong tournaments were worth more than wins at crummy tournaments which just happen to have big prize money. To provide a 'tiebreak' between players with roughly equal numbers of wins. But, most of all, to give us more to write about on Mondays. Points-wise, this was neither a big win for Melzer (who earns no bonus points) nor a big loss for Robredo (who made the second round here last year, but that doesn't even count toward his ranking). And Robredo doesn't expect much indoors anyway. He's a pretty good all-surface player, but he still likes clay best.... But at least it was a great match, with Melzer almost winning in straight sets but then facing a break point -- match point! -- at 4-5 in the third set. By saving it, and the match, he avenged a loss suffered the week before at Metz. And if the points weren't great for Melzer, it has to be helpful mentally. He came in with a three match losing streak. This not only gives him a win, but a win in his home country. The crowd will surely be rooting for him all the more from now on." Indeed, it's been quite a year for Melzer, who has spent time hovering around the #40 range. If he could have one more turning point like this, he might be able to truly join the elite of the game.

October 7: Lyon - First Round
Fabrice Santoro def. Marat Safin (7) 6-1 6-4
At the time, we said, "And so the magic continues. There aren't many people around who could claim a 6-1 record against Marat Safin, but Fabrice Santoro was one of them. In fact, he won their first five meetings before finally losing at Stuttgart 2000 -- and then he beat Safin again at Roland Garros 2001. In a way, it's not hard to see why. Safin plays a very elemental game: Taking clean balls and hitting them cleanly but much harder. And the one thing that Santoro doesn't give you is a clean ball. And yet, there was a real question how much all that meant. Sure, Santoro had the big head-to-head lead, but look at when all the wins came: The latest was over two years ago. Since then, Safin has been injured a lot -- but Santoro has seen his game fade dramatically.... But, of course, Safin wasn't in his 2000 form; he was playing only his second match back after a long injury. And he was playing a Frenchman in France on one of Santoro's favorite surfaces. Last week as Metz, Santoro finally came to life. He had all the same advantages here. It's another tough loss for Safin, too. Last year, he made the quarterfinal here -- not a big result for him, usually, but he doesn't have many optional events left. It looks as if this will drop him below #35 -- and Paris is approaching fast." For Santoro, this two week span was probably what revived his career; this was a very important win. For Safin, it was painful -- but he did get over it come 2004....

October 8: Lyon - First Round
Rainer Schuettler (1) def. Paul-Henri Mathieu 6-2 6-2
At the time, we said, "If tennis ever gets around to adopting a better set of injury rules, maybe they should add another one: No defending champion should have to face a #1 seed in the first round. Especially if the #1 seed is Rainer Schuettler. If you were going to name the three opponents an injured player least wants to meet, Andre Agassi and Lleyton Hewitt are the two most obvious choices -- but Schuettler is a good candidate for the third. You can't get balls by him, he never makes mistakes, and he'll hustle as long as it takes. Not that it took long this time! Matheiu has now been back for more than half a year; he made his comeback at Miami. But it's been a very tough comeback (possibly because he'd never really faced injury before); he's a mere #68 in the Race, and even that is due mostly to optional points. He'd shown signs of finally getting things together in recent weeks -- but he wasn't facing Schuettler, either. He commented that his footwork wasn't very good -- and that's big trouble against the speedy German. Mathieu came in with an entry ranking of #55, and with his title at Lyon 2002 representing about a third of his remaining points. He'll be falling more than 30 places. As for Schuettler: It's the usual story. A first round win. He needs a lot more than this for it to count toward his ranking. In any case, his chances for a year-end Top Five spot all depend on the remaining required events. It's hard to understand why he's even playing; he really should be saving his energy for Madrid." A year later, we all know how Schuettler has fallen apart. Mathieu's ranking has been falling, too; his brief success in the fall of 2003 was temporary. But he really does seem to be getting things together now, even if he lost early at Lyon this year.

October 4: Lyon - Second Round
Rainer Schuettler (1) def. Ivan Ljubicic 4-6 7-6(7-2) 7-5
At the time, we said, "On a day when few matches inspired us, this match at least has two advantages: It was very close, and it gives us a chance to review the Race standings. The match itself was well worth watching, with Schuettler facing break points in the second set.... That didn't end the drama, either; Schuettler went up a break in the third, then lost it, then earned another to finally make the quarterfinal.... The irony is that the Race standings haven't changed at all this week. Not just the standings; we haven't even seen anyone in the top twelve nudge his point total; all the men in action have big fifth tournament scores. But... [though] the ATP still hasn't admitted it, we have six players qualified: Andy Roddick, Juan Carlos Ferrero, Roger Federer, Andre Agassi, Guillermo Coria, and Schuettler; with a 214 point Race lead, it is not possible for three players to pass [Schuettler]. That leaves two spots. The current #7 is Carlos Moya, at 398 points; #8 is David Nalbandian, with 358 points. Nalbandian is not in action this week, and leads #9 Mark Philippoussis (also not in action) by 37 points -- a substantial lead, but not insurmountable, especially since Nalbandian is out of Madrid with his wrist problem. #10 is Lleyton Hewitt, and he's pulling out of everything. So he won't be defending his Masters Cup title -- and is likely to end the year around #14. Sebastien Grosjean is out of Lyon (and hurting), and more than 60 points behind Nalbandian. Sjeng Schalken is also out, and a few points further back. #13 Paradorn Srichaphan is the next player active, still about a dozen points back, but with the chance to move as high as #10 this week. One of those six (Moya to Srichaphan) is effectively sure to get the #7 spot in Houston. The #8 spot is theoretically wide open still (just about anyone in the Top 50 could earn it by winning both Masters Series events and one of the optional events), but the odds are pretty good that it will be one of these six also." As we said, Schuettler made it, with Moya and Nalbandian the other two.

October 12: Vienna - Final
Roger Federer (1) def. Carlos Moya (2) 6-3 6-3 6-3
At the time, we said, "If you want to beat Roger Federer, we have two pieces of advice for you: First, don't try it indoors, and second, don't try it at an optional event. The place to get Federer is at required events. Federer has played 20 tournaments this year, and has won only one of the eleven required events (Wimbledon), but in nine optional events has only four losses, and only one of those in the past half year: Doha quarterfinal, Sydney first round, Rotterdam semifinal, and most recently the Gstaad final. Really, there isn't much to say about this except that Federer becomes only the third player this year to defend a title at an optional event (following Moya at Umag and Paradorn Srichaphan a Long Island). The irony is, it doesn't change anything. Federer was #3, in Race and Rankings, no matter what (he was defending champion, after all, and couldn't move up), and with Rainer Schuettler a victor at Lyon, Carlos Moya wasn't going to move up either. But Moya at least improves his Masters Cup chances, which are pretty good already.... In the Interesting Footnotes department: Federer had already completed the surface sweep this year (title on all four basic surfaces: clay, grass, hard, indoors). Oddly, though he has two grass titles and two indoor [hardcourt] titles, he doesn't have a carpet title -- and even if he has that, he'll be missing the most common surface on the ATP: DecoTurf. Federer in fact has never won a DecoTurf title, though he did have the near miss at Miami last year. A curious outcome for so versatile a player. Presumably it will come, though. Federer find himself in a somewhat ironic position: Having won his fifth optional event of the year, he will go to Basel -- his hometown tournament! -- with little chance for it to do him any good; even if he wins, he merely replaces a smaller title with a larger. An interesting motivational challenge. But this win, while it helps him only slightly, does keep alive his faint hopes of being the year-end #1. He'll need big results at at least two of the three remaining required events -- but he really does like playing indoors." The irony in that statement is that most people would say, now, that his worst results are on indoor surfaces. But then, the opportunities there are fewer. If nothing else, he certainly solved his problem with DecoTurf at the U. S. Open....

Five Years Ago: It's rather sad, looking back: Arnaud di Pasquale, at the age of 20, won his first career title at Palermo -- and look what he's done since. At the same time, Magnus Norman won Shanghai, and he hasn't won anything since, either. By that standard, Karol Kucera was a success story -- he won Basel for his fifth career title, and he did eventually win another, though it took more than three years.

Ten Years Ago: Speaking of guys who went a long time between titles -- Magnus Larsson won Toulouse. He wouldn't win another title until Memphis 2000. (He did win the Grand Slam Cup at the end of 1994.)

[bandabou]

Filderstadt: Battered but Unbowed
Round one in the duel for #1 went to Amelie Mauresmo on points.

Chances are that the contest between Mauresmo and Lindsay Davenport will end in a knockout: One of them will lose before the other, and the survivor will be #1. But if both go out in the same round, Mauresmo will survive, and if Davenport doesn't win Filderstadt outright, then quality points could settle it.

And Mauresmo has the edge in quality points so far. Davenport on Wednesday beat Alicia Molik in her opening (second round) match. Molik, #20, was worth 23 quality points. Mauresmo, on Thursday, was up against Patty Schnyder -- who, at #15, was worth 35 quality points.

It looked for a time as if Mauresmo would be the one knocked out; she was down against Patty Schnyder and struggling. But she raised her game in the first set, and managed to keep the momentum on the way to a 7-5 6-4 win.

That set the tone for a day in which all the remaining seeds advanced, after a first round in which every seed in action lost. Those second round wins weren't always easy, though. #3 seed Anastasia Myskina, who came here threatened with losing the #4 ranking if she did badly, started out very poorly against Nathalie Dechy. Her first serve wasn't going in, and Dechy was all over her second. Of course, Myskina was all over the Dechy serve, too, breaking at love in her first chance. But Dechy managed to make it to 5-3, and served for the set, only to be broken. But she broke back. And then Myskina finally woke up and closed out a 4-6 6-2 6-1 win, meaning that Dechy won't be hitting the Top 20 quite yet.

Kuznetsova remains on Myskina's heels, though, and could still pass Justine Henin-Hardenne, too. She took out countrywoman Elena Bovina 7-5 6-4; it appears that Bovina will be able to retain her Top 20 ranking even so.

It may be a near thing, though, because a lot of surprising players are doing well here and pushing toward the Top 20 themselves. Fabiola Zuluaga, who had to qualify and who is no fan of indoor courts anyway, had the good fortune to face Anna Smashnova, who hates indoor courts even more. Besides, the Israeli -- who, we should note, has 76 events and 180 matches since the start of 2002 -- strained a muscle. Zuluaga advanced 6-4, retired; if she can beat Kuznetsova in the next round, she's Top 20. And only 30 points behind her is Elena Likhovtseva, who beat Mary Pierce 0-6 6-4 6-3 and faces Myskina next. And Likhovtseva has won her last two meetings with the #3 seed (Rome and the Canadian Open).

Lisa Raymond probably won't contend for the Top 20 this week, but she's certainly proves a solid Lucky Loser; she beat Silvia Farina Elia 6-7 7-6 6-0, giving her a quarterfinal and a semifinal in her last three events after going ten straight tournaments without a quarterfinal.

The biggest surprise, though, is probably Jelena Jankovic, who trounced Daniela Hantuchova 6-1 6-4. That drops Hantuchova from #34 to #35 -- but Jankovic is at a career high #31 and will be Top 30 if she can beat Lindsay Davenport in her next match.

You're probably tired of Filderstadt statistics by now, but we've had 18 Top 35 players eliminated so far, and there are still eight left in the field. And this is a 28-draw, with two wildcards below #50.

We weren't really surprised when Lindsay Davenport beat Alicia Molik on Wednesday, but we were surprised at how easy it was. Thursday, we found out why. Molik had a thigh strain. She and Ai Sugiyama, the #3 seeds, withdrew from the doubles quarterfinal, putting Caroline Dhenin and Marlene Weingartner in the semifinal. Also making the semifinal, more deservedly, were #2 seeds Janette Husarova and Elena Likhovtseva, who beat Birnerova and Osterloh in straight sets.

Japan Open: Immigration Quotas

It came close to being an all-expatriate battle. Maria Sharapova is still listed as Russian, but she's been living in the United States for years. Youlia Fedossova is one of those young women whose Russian parents went elsewhere (in this case, France) looking for better opportunities. Until this week, it hadn't paid off particularly well for Fedossova; she's young, of course, but at #448 after eight events, there was no particular reason to call her a strong prospect.

That was before she qualified for Tokyo and beat Meghann Shaughnessy and Akiko Morigami. Of course, she lost her quarterfinal to Maria Sharapova 6-3 6-4, but that's still a pretty nice WTA debut.

On the other hand, she isn't #448 any more. She has nearly tripled her point total, and will be moving up to around #270.

We said yesterday that Sharapova would move up to #7 if she won this. We forgot that she had a seventeenth tournament score -- after all, she's supposed to be under age restrictions, so she shouldn't be in position to have nineteen events. But since she's the WTA's latest glamour girl, no one is paying attention. The effect of that is that she does not yet move up; she's still at #9. If she wins her next match, she will rise all the way to #7, passing both Jennifer Capriati and Serena Williams. And she has a seven match winning streak, though she has yet to face anyone stronger than Samantha Stosur along the way.

Both bottom half quarterfinals also ended with relatively established players eliminating upstarts. Evgenia Linetskaya won't be making the Top 100 just yet; Mashona Washington eliminated her 6-2 6-1. Washington is now up to around #53 in the world. #7 seed Klara Koukalova, #50 coming in, is also looking at a career high, probably #46; she eliminated Nicole Vaidisova 6-3 6-0.

The last thing Aniko Kapros needed was another injury, but she suffered one, hurting her thigh and having to retire trailing Tamarine Tanasugarn 6-1 3-0, continuing Tanasugarn's autumn resurgence. The Thai isn't anywhere near a career high, of course -- from #76, she has risen to about #60 -- but she's a genuine veteran who can at least hope to threaten Sharapova.

We note that every singles match went to the higher-ranked player in straight sets. The doubles was just as routine. The three remaining seeded doubles teams, #1 Asagoe/Srebotnik, #4 Stewart/Stosur, and #5 Hopkins/Washington, all advanced to the semifinal. The other pair of semifinalists is Rika Fujiwara and Saori Obata, who beat Jidkova and Kurhajcova 6-3 6-1.

Lyon: Lyon in Wait
All right, that title is a terrible pun. We admit it, so don't bother sending up the e-mail groans. And it's doubtless been used before anyway. But it really does fit. This place has ambushed seeds right and left. Five were already out by the time Thursday's action rolled around, and only one -- Vincent Spadea -- had won his second round match.

Spadea did eventually get a little company; Joachim Johansson, the #4 seed, made the quarterfinal with a 6-3 6-4 win over Julien Benneteau. But that was it. The highest seed remaining, #3 Juan Carlos Ferrer, lost to near-namesake David Ferrer 3-6 7-5 6-3, meaning that we had only two seeds in the quarterfinal.

If Ferrero is disappointed, Agustin Calleri can take away at least a little hope. He lost to Mikhail Youzhny -- but it was 7-6 in the third, and Youzhny is a good indoor player, and besides, he has no more points to defend for the rest of the year, so he has nowhere to go but up.

Hicham Arazi apparently had only one surprise in his bag of tricks. Having beaten Rainer Schuettler, he couldn't manage another win against form, though he made it close. Jurgen Melzer set up a meeting with Spadea 4-6 7-6 6-1. Johansson is also in that bottom half, and faces Robin Soderling next. The top half has four unseeded players: Youzhny, Malisse, Ferrer, and Bjorkman.

The doubles is almost as strange as the singles. Only one seeded pair was in action in the quarterfinal: #2 Wayne Black and Kevin Ullyett. But they had to deal with Jonas Bjorkman and Radek Stepanek after the latter pair had had a match to learn how to play together. They upset the #2 seeds 7-6 6-4. But Nicolas Massu couldn't seem to win in doubles without Fernando Gonzalez; he and Lucas Arnold fell 6-4 7-6 to Cermak and Friedl. And Jonathan Erlich and Andy Ram made the semifinal when Nicolas Mahut had to withdraw with a shoulder problem.

Tokyo: Software Inverter
Andrei Pavel seems to have developed a peculiar rule this year: During times when he was unable to play in 2003, he's been highly impressive. During times when he was in action last year, he has struggled.

Or maybe it's just the mystic effects of the number three. With the exception of #9 seed Cyril Saulnier, every seed whose number is divisible by three is out.

It all added up to a double whammy for Pavel, the #3 seed who was just starting to play at this time last year. He suffered the day's biggest upset, and the biggest blowout of the second round; qualifier Bjorn Phau -- who came in with three ATP main draws this year, one of them as a Lucky Loser, and a mere two wins -- reached the third round for the first time in 2004 by beating Pavel 6-2 6-1.

Three other seeds lost in the first round, and two of them had seed numbers divisible by three, and both were in Pavel's quarter. Shanghai finalist Guillermo Canas, the #6 seed, saw his winning streak chopped off at five; qualifier Michael Kohlmann eliminated him 4-6 7-6 6-3. And Bohdan Ulihrach, who like Phau hadn't reached a third round all year and who came in with a four match ATP-level losing streak going back to Stuttgart, took out Jarkko Nieminen 6-3 7-6.

The only other seed upset was #14 Dennis Van Scheppingen; qualifier Marco Chiudinelli knocked him out 6-4 7-6. But #4 Paradorn Srichaphan edged Harel Levy 2-6 7-6 6-4, #5 Jiri Novak eliminated Guillermo Garcia Lopez 7-5 6-2, #11 Ricardo Mello made it past Flavio Saretta 5-7 6-2 7-6, and #13 Jan-Michael Gambill topped Takahiro Terachi 7-6 6-1.

That should have spelled good news for Gambill, who was the last seed left in the Pavel/Canas/Nieminen quarter. He was the top player in the section, he was playing on hardcourt, he was rested compared to his opponent. Fat lot of good it did him. Phau -- who hasn't made a quarterfinal in this millennium -- finally earned one with a 7-6 2-6 6-2 win over Gambill. And he'll get to go for the semifinal against Ulihrach, who has more Race points mostly because his protected ranking gets him into more events; the Czech eliminated qualifier Kohlmann 6-4 6-2.

Gambill's loss was by no means the biggest of the third round; #16 Gilles Muller took out #2 seed David Nalbandian 7-6 3-6 6-4. That means that Nalbandian still won't return to the Top Ten in the Race; his chances for the year-end Top Ten look pretty bad. The other high seed to fall was #8 Thomas Johansson, who went down to #9 Cyril Saulnier 6-7 7-6 7-6.

Top seed Lleyton Hewitt, for the second straight match, was pushed to three sets by a Japanese near-nobody. He beat Takao Suzuki, but the score was 6-7 6-2 6-4. Also pushed to the limit was #7 Taylor Dent, who edged Hyung-Taik Lee 7-6 5-7 6-3. But Jiri Novak had no trouble in his second match of the day, beating Ricardo Mello (who of course had had a much tougher time in his first match of the day) 6-1 6-2, and #4 Paradorn Srichaphan didn't even have to play to the end; he advanced when Marco Chiudinelli retired trailing 6-3 4-1.

After all that, there wasn't much court space left for doubles, but what there was produced a fairly big upset: Jarkko Nieminen and Graydon Oliver took out top seeds Wayne Arthurs and Paul Hanley 7-6 6-4. The only other quarterfinal played followed form; #2 Palmer/Vizner took out Garcia/Prieto in three sets.

Women's Match of the Day

Filderstadt - Second Round
Elena Likhovtseva def. Mary Pierce 0-6 6-4 6-3

It's starting to look like a natural law: Every time Mary Pierce seems ready to get back to the top reaches of the game, something happens. Indeed, this match shows that in miniature: Pierce was in charge, and then the stubborn Likhovtseva (who had already beaten Pierce once this year, at Rome_ got into the match, and managed to stay in the match till Pierce stumbled.

And Pierce had big points to defend; last year, she made the Filderstadt semifinal, with wins over Capriati and Maleeva. 180 points total -- over a seventh of her total. Fortunately, she did win her first round, and beat Paola Suarez to do it. That means that Pierce, #26 coming in, will stay Top 30. But she will fall to no better than #28, and it might be lower.

For Likhovtseva, this continues an astonishing summer run. After showing signs of being washed up as a singles player, she reached the final at the Canadian Open, won Forest Hills, and now has this. A quarterfinal at a Tier II may not seem like much -- but this is Filderstadt. The Russian, #27 coming in, will certainly rise to #26, and she'll be #25 unless Lisa Raymond beats Amelie Mauresmo.

Men's Match of the Day

Lyon - Second Round
David Ferrer def. Juan Carlos Ferrero (3) 3-6 7-5 6-3

This is definitely one of those days when the fates aren't being kind to the tennis press. After all of Juan Carlos Ferrero's success last year, it became so natural to type "Ferrero" that sometimes "Ferrer" gets that extra "o" on the end even when the two Spaniards are on different continents. And here we have to talk about them playing the same match.

By itself, this isn't that bad a loss for Juan Carlos Ferrero. David Ferrer, after all, is a very patient, quick-moving sort of guy; he'll get everybody once in a while on a bad day. It's the pattern we're seeing for Ferrero. He started the year well, with a semifinal at the Australian Open and a final at Rotterdam (though even that followed a first round loss to Guccione at Sydney). But then came the sickness and the nagging injuries and all the losses: First round to Carraz at Marseille, in three sets. First round at Monte Carlo to Corretja, in straights. Second round at Roland Garros, to Andreev, in straights. First round at Gstaad to Koubek. Retired before Santoro at the Canadian Open. Koubek again at the U. S. Open. Hurt at Davis Cup. Pulled out of Shanghai.

A year ago, Ferrero was #1 in the world. Now, he isn't even Top Ten. And here, on an indoor court -- a surface where he should be much better than Ferrer; he does after all have a Masters Cup final indoors -- he's out again. When does it end?

For the moment, this doesn't hurt Ferrero; he didn't play at this time last year. But Madrid is only a week away. If he doesn't get better soon, he'll end up below #20. And start the year with all those points to defend.

Somebody get the guy some help!

If the loss is tough for Ferrero, the win isn't worth much for Ferrer; despite being very strong, Lyon is at the bottom of the ATP point scale. If he can win another round, it will help. But this wasn't worth much.

From Each According to Ability
The WTA has a problem.

No, we don't mean all the problems you know about very well, and which they so carefully ignore. This is a pure and simple mathematical problem, the fact of which they can't deny, though they can deny it matters.

The problem is, there aren't enough players. Or, more specifically, enough Top Ten players.

This year, the WTA schedule includes four Slams, one year-end Championships, 10 Tier I events, 15 Tier II events (originally expected to be 16), and (as of the time of writing) 16 Tier III events. Ideally, the WTA would like to have all ten of the Top Ten at each of the Slams, eight Top Ten players at the Championships, about eight at each Tier I, about six at the Tier IIs, and at least one at each Tier III. Multiplying all that out, and you get 234 "appearances" required for the Top Ten. In other words, to give every tournament all the players it needs, you have to have the players in the Top Ten average more than 23 events per year.

As of this writing, only one Top Ten player -- Svetlana Kuznetsova -- is close (22 events). Last year, only Elena Dementieva briefly met the total.

The WTA can, of course, mandate more appearances. Currently, the Gold Exempt rules mandate the Gold Exempts to play 18 events (sort of. They're supposed to play 13 events plus the Championships if they qualify, and that doesn't count Slams. If a Top Ten player wants to skip the Slams, it's all right with the WTA -- except that it's pretty close to impossible to become Top Ten while skipping all the Slams). The WTA could crank the total up to 24 events, assuming the players would agree (and, who knows, maybe the lower-ranked players would vote for that) -- but the result would surely be a higher rate of injury. And you might well see players cease even to try, because they know they couldn't play 24 events per year, so why not play a comfortable schedule and phooey with the Gold Exempt rules.

The ATP came up with an interesting solution to this: Instead of trying to guarantee fields for all events, they actually strengthened the Slams and Masters Series (Tier I events) and told the rest of the tournaments to go hang. The result is that the optional events are even more dependent upon appearance fees than before the ATP change. As someone who does not live in one of the twelve cities gifted with required events (recall that Paris has two required events), the author finds that somewhat irritating. The Tier II is a wonderful thing, both for players (who get occasional events at medium strength) and for fans (since more cities see top players visit them), and the ATP killed it.

But just having the Tier II level doesn't tell us how many players should play there. What is it reasonable for the WTA to expect? Maybe we can help them figure it out.

What we can do is assume that each Top Ten player should play a certain "mix" of events, and a certain number of events, and see how that works out for schedules.

For example, let's semi-arbitrarily say that we expect to have eight Top Ten players at every Slam and at the Championships. Also, we'll say that we want to have half again as many Top Ten players at a Tier I as at a Tier II, and we want the number Top Ten players at a Tier III to be one-sixth that at a Tier II. Tier IV and Tier V events are on their own (it doesn't cost that much to upgrade to a Tier III, so this is fair. It's not like the ATP, where you have to come up with two million dollars to go from the bottom tier to a Masters; on the WTA, the difference between Tier V and Tier III is $60,000 -- and they're eliminating the Tier V anyway).

This lets us define an arbitrary variable x, the "tournament turnout rate." We'll set it equal to the number of Tier II events a player is expected to play in a year, on the understanding that she plays half again that many Tier I events and one-sixth that number of Tier III events. We'll also let n be the number of tournaments she schedules. Then, for any value of n, we want to find x such that


n = .8*4 (Slams per year)
+ .8.(1 Championships per year)
+ 1.5x (Tier I per year)
+ x (Tier II per year)
+ x/6 (Tier III per year)

Which simplifies down to

n = 4 + 8x/3

Or x = .375*n - 1.5

Again, n is the number of tournaments we want our players to play, and x is the number of Tier II events she plays.

So taking n=20 (a rather high number, but one of the few that gives us mostly round numbers), we get

x = 6, meaning that we want the "typical" Top Ten player to play

3.2 Slams
.8 Championships
9 Tier I events
6 Tier II events
1 Tier III event

Of course, we have ten Top Ten players. So what this really means is that we have Top Ten players making:

32 appearances at Slams
8 appearances at the Championships
90 appearances at the Tier I events
60 appearances at the Tier II events
10 appearances at the Tier III events.

Which gives us a rather odd result. Let's look at how many players would appear at each of the various events:

Top Ten players at each Slam: 8
Top Ten players at Championships: 8
Top Ten players at each Tier I: 9
Top Ten players at each Tier II: 3.75
Top Ten players at each Tier III: .667

Obviously we need to re-adjust -- we don't want the Tier I tournaments stronger than the Slams! Instead of asking each player to make half again as many appearances at Tier I as Tier II events, lets's make it even. We won't put you through the whole calculation this time; that's what our scratch pad is for. If we again assume 20 events, we get

Top Ten players at each Slam: 8
Top Ten players at Championships: 8
Top Ten players at each Tier I: 7.4
Top Ten players at each Tier II: 4.6
Top Ten players at each Tier III: .8

Which are pretty good fields. But can we really assume that the Top Ten can play 20 events per year? Looking at the numbers, we'd say 16 events per year is a lot safer. (After Beijing, in fact, the Top Ten had 159 appearances, or almost exactly 16 per player). In that case, we'd have (rounding off very slightly):

Top Ten players at each Slam: 8
Top Ten players at Championships: 8
Top Ten players at each Tier I: 5.5
Top Ten players at each Tier II: 3.5
Top Ten players at each Tier III: .6

Writing this into the rules would perhaps take some negotiation between WTA and players. Those half-players, for instance, are a bit of a problem (which would probably be solved based on the actual tier-within-a-tier of the events; there are, e.g., several grades of Tier II). But this gives us a good guideline for what we could reasonably expect while not overworking the players.

The author can't speak for you, but would be thrilled to have three Top Ten players come to town for a local event. Of course, there's the matter of bringing a Tier II to town first....

[bandabou]

Filderstadt: Something to Prove
If Filderstadt were a living creature, it would be an insect: Three distinct body parts. First was the qualifying, which was stronger than many WTA main draws but which managed to be relatively predictable. Then the first two rounds, which saw half the seeds upset. Then -- could it be? -- sanity, as the tournament came to a head.

Surprisingly, it proved so. On Friday, all four remaining seeds made it through to the semifinal. Three of the four routinely. Only #3 Anastasia Myskina had trouble, and even she snapped out of it after one bad set, topping Elena Likhovtseva 4-6 6-0 6-2 -- which still meant that Likhovtseva was back in the Top 25. Meanwhile, #1 seed Amelie Mauresmo finally ended Luckly Loser Lisa Raymond's run 6-4 6-1, #4 Svetlana Kuznetsova took out Fabiola Zuluaga 6-4 6-1, and #2 Lindsay Davenport had a little more trouble with Jelena Jankovic than anyone expected but still advanced 6-4 6-3; Jankovic falls just short of the Top 30.

The semifinals were the Really Big Deal. Mauresmo had been explaining that she has been working on her serve, to try to take pressure off her back; her success goes far toward explain her #1 ranking. But it's clear that the criticisms about her Slam results bother her; she looked like she had something to prove against Svetlana Kuznetsova. The match started out looking as if the Russian would dominate; she had break points in Mauresmo's first three service games -- but couldn't convert. And Mauresmo took the first set 7-5. Then Kuznetsova went up 3-0 in the second -- and still lost the match 7-5 6-4.

Which meant, first and foremost, that Mauresmo would stay #1 for at least another week; no matter what the outcome of the final, she would be ahead of Lindsay Davenport. It also meant that Kuznetsova would remain at #5. And that meant that, if Anastasia Myskina could beat Lindsay Davenport, then she would move back up to #3, with Justine Henin-Hardenne falling to #4.

Didn't happen. Davenport didn't look at her best, but she was really picking on the Myskina serve in the first set. Myskina broke to open the match, but then Davenport started to punish her. In the second, Myskina started well, breaking in the second game and building a 3-0 lead -- but Davenport suddenly came back. And reached the final 6-2 6-4, winning the last five games to do it.

Mauresmo may have been working on sparing her back. Unfortunately, that didn't do anything for her leg. She had to retired after losing the first set 6-2, meaning that Davenport earns her seventh title of the year.

Davenport's singles success didn't translate into doubles; this was her first tournament since Amelia Island, and in Friday's only doubles match, she and Corina Morariu lost 6-2 6-4 to #1 seeds Cara Black and Rennae Stubbs.

It's becoming pretty clear what Anna-Lena Groenefeld's problem is: Speed. This perhaps explains why her best results have been on clay. But, of course, that matters less in doubles. She's had a very impressive set of results in the last couple of months: Final at Stockholm with Gagliardi. Final at Vancouver with Callens. Final at Cincinnati with Gagliardi. Title at the Denain Challenger with Fedak. But, of course, those were all pretty weak events. Filderstadt, now, that's a serious tournament. And she and Julia Schruff made the final with an amazing 6-1 6-2 win over #2 seeds Janette Husarova and Elena Likhovtseva. Their opponents were Black and Stubbs, 6-0 6-4 winners over Dhenin and Weingartner.

Experience clearly prevailed in the final; Stubbs, after all, played her first Slam when Groenefeld was three years old and won her first doubles title about the time the German celebrated her seventh birthday. Black and Stubbs won their fifth title of the year together (and Black has a sixth title with Callens) 6-3 6-2, once again clearly marking them as the #2 team of the year behind Ruano Pascual and Suarez (the Race still says it's Kuznetsova/Likhovtseva, but Black/Stubbs win events, which the Russian pair hasn't managed for months). And Black/Stubbs are 18-3 since Wimbledon, with three titles; Ruano Pascual and Suarez are 14-3 in that time, with only one title.

Japan Open: The Road Less Traveled
Maria Sharapova is either going to turn into the next Venus Williams -- or the next Henrieta Nagyova.

The resemblances to Venus are obvious: Very tall, slender for her height, big power, lots of errors, imperfect footwork, first Slam title came at Wimbledon. The resemblance to Nagyova lies in all these dinky little titles she keeps winning. Sharapova now has six titles in the past thirteen months -- and five of them are Tier III or lower. Not even Patty Schnyder in 1998 put up numbers like that.

Still, it was a pretty impressive showing. In Friday's semifinal, she took on her one-time doubles partner Tamarine Tanasugarn, whose results in recent weeks have moved her from a low of #97 just three weeks ago to #76 last week; the Thai is now closing in on #60. But she won't be going higher just yet; Sharapova beat her 6-2 6-3. Which meant that she would take on Mashona Washington in the final; Washington took out the next-to-last seed in the draw, and reached her first-ever final, by beating Klara Koukalova 3-6 7-5 6-2.

Had Washington won, she would have been Top 50 for the first time. As it is, she falls just short in the rankings (and far short in the match); Sharapova blasted her 6-0 6-1.

That gives Sharapova nine straight wins. It also gives her nine straight wins against players ranked #61 or lower. But if the quality points are dreadful, the round points count -- and they make Sharapova #7 in the world.

Shinobu Asagoe had been the top Japanese hope at this tournament, man or women, but she lost first round in singles. She still gave the crowd something to cheer about; on Saturday, she and Katarina Srebotnik made the final by beating #4 seeds Bryanne Stewart and Samantha Stosur 7-5 in the third. Meanwhile, Washington was putting herself in both finals. She and Jennifer Hopkins were supposed to play their semifinal on Friday, but rain intervened. They will won 6-3 6-2 on Saturday over Fujiwara and Obata. She didn't have much left for the doubles final, though; Asagoe and Srebotnik won their first title together 6-1 6-4. It's Asagoe's third title of the year, with three different partners (the big one being the Canadian Open); for Srebotnik, it was her first title since Bogota 2003 (and her last one before that was Big Island 2001), though she did have two finals this year.

Lyon: Motive, Means, and Opportunity
By the time the quarterfinal had rolled around, you would think it was the Swedish Open. Three of eight quarterfinalists -- Jonas Bjorkman, Joachim Johansson, and Robin Soderling -- were from the far north.

It didn't last. Two of the three went down, and went down quietly. David Ferrer, who seems to have a very un-Spanish liking for indoor events, eliminated Bjorkman 6-2 6-4. And in the Battle of Young Big Servers, Soderling eliminated U. S. Open semifinalist Johansson 6-3 6-4.

The one really interesting battle of the quarterfinal came as #7 Vincent Spadea took on Jurgen Melzer. It took Spadea a third set tiebreak, but he became the only seed to make the semifinal as he advanced to a meeting with Soderling 1-6 6-1 7-6. Ferrer's opponent would be Xavier Malisse, a 6-3 6-4 winner over Mikhail Youzhny.

The semifinal cost us our last seed. Soderling eliminated Spadea 6-2 6-4, while Malisse trounced Ferrer 6-4 6-2. But that, of course, meant Malisse was in a final. Which meant that he lost. Soderling took home his first title 6-2 3-6 6-4.

Jonathan Erlich and Andy Ram, meanwhile, were dealing successfully with some very tough doubles teams. In a Friday semifinal, they eliminated top seeds Bhupathi and Mirnyi in three sets. Their opponents in the final were Bjorkman and Radek Stepanek, who on Saturday beat Cermak and Friedl in three sets. Sunday, the Israelis earned their first title of the year 7-6 6-2. It won't quite put them in the Top 25, but they're getting close.

Tokyo: Double Duty
The ATP rarely pays much attention to doubles. But usually they at least list the scores. Something happened at Tokyo this week, though, and they kept forgetting.

Jiri Novak has reason to be less than happy about that. There aren't many guys left who are genuine forces in both singles and doubles, but Novak is one, and he showed it in full in Tokyo.

It started on Friday. There was only one quarterfinal which featured both seeds who "should" have been there: #5 Novak's contest with #4 Paradorn Srichaphan. Both the surface and the rankings seemed clearly to favor Srichaphan. Particularly since Novak was not having a very good year: Semifinals at Auckland and Halle, a bunch of quarterfinals including Rome, a win over Henman at the Olympics. Nothing you wouldn't expect of the average Top 40 player. But Novak reached his third semifinal of the year with a 6-4 6-4 win over Srichaphan.

Which meant that he had to face Lleyton Hewitt, who had beaten #9 Cyril Saulnier 7-5 6-1. And Hewitt had handled Novak easily at the Canadian Open this year. But Novak scored his first final, and best win, of 2004, taking out the top seed 6-4 4-6 6-2. Tough news for Hewitt, who could have closed much of the gap between him and Andy Roddick with a win here.

The bottom half was a much more wide-open affair: Only two seeds left instead of four, and mostly low seeds. The top guy left by Friday was #7 Taylor Dent, and even he appeared to be in trouble for a while; he edged #16 Gilles Muller 6-4 4-6 6-2.

The other quarterfinal was one of the most improbable on the ATP this year: Bohdan Ulihrach, #140 in the rankings, against qualifier Bjorn Phau, #207. Assuming they didn't find a way to mutually self-annihilate, it would be the best result of the winner's year -- in Phau's case, potentially, the best of his career.

The potential didn't become actual. Ulihrach made the semifinal 7-5 6-4. And he gave Dent a surprising amount of trouble in the semifinal, but the #7 seed advanced 4-6 6-4 6-1.

Having beaten Srichaphan and Hewitt, though, Novak wasn't too worried about Dent. After a slow start, he took home the title 5-7 6-1 6-3. It's his first title since Gstaad last year, and the sixth of his career, and his first on hardcourts since his very first, at Auckland way back in 1996. And, of course, Tokyo is a big event -- the biggest of his career. From #28, he appears Top 20 bound. As for Dent, #55 coming in, he at least finds himself firmly on the right side of #50.

Novak, meanwhile, was cutting through the doubles draw with Petr Pala. Friday they defeated Coetzee and Haggard in straight sets, Saturday it was Nieminen and Oliver in three. That put them in the final against #2 seeds Jared Palmer and Pavel Vizner, Pala's old doubles partner. Sadly, all those matches had taken their toll on Novak; he had to retire after six games with what is listed as a rib injury.

Women's Match of the Day

Filderstadt - Final
Lindsay Davenport (2) def. Amelie Mauresmo (1) 6-2, retired

In the beginning, things looked promising. Amelie Mauresmo came out free of bandages or other tokens of injury. It was not to last. Having gone down 3-1, she called the trainer. It proved to be a problem with her upper left thigh; she left the court, and came back with it wrapped. The delay apparently distracted Davenport, since Mauresmo managed to win her first service game after that. But she couldn't move, and Davenport won the last three games -- of the set, and of the match.

And with the title comes, in all likelihood, the #1 ranking. Oh, it isn't formally certain; for this week (only), Mauresmo remains #1. And if she can play Moscow, she has, theoretically, the chance to stay #1. But, in practical terms, she and Davenport are now tied in terms of points, and Mauresmo has points to defend for the rest of the year while Davenport has none.

The really telling number, though, is the Race. Davenport's lead is now almost 750 points over Mauresmo, and a thousand over race #3 Svetlana Kuznetsova. And Kuznetsova has a lot more events than Davenport, so she's even further back in the race for year-end #1. Anastasia Myskina, more than 1200 points back, and Justine Henin-Hardenne, 1500 points back, are out of it. Really, though, barring injury or Mauresmo turning into Martina Navratilova, Davenport has clinched the year-end #1. She is likely to earn it even if she does get hurt. This match didn't settle it formally -- but it did in functional terms. Even assuming Mauresmo can play Moscow.

Davenport's seven titles are also all but certain to lead the Tour this year; Henin-Hardenne has five but can hardly play, and no one else has more than four. If, as many believe, this is Davenport's last year on the Tour, she's certainly going out with a blaze of glory. Only a handful of players have retired while still Top Ten, the last being Martina Hingis at #10 (and she didn't know she was retired at the time). Davenport could become the first to retire at #1.

For our Odd Stat of the Day, Davenport earned 193 quality points in winning Filderstadt, or an average of 48.25 quality points per match. That is the best quality points per match rate on the Tour this year -- yet more evidence of how tough Filderstadt is. The next highest rate was Henin-Hardenne's 44.25 points per match at Sydney.

Men's Match of the Day

Lyon - Final
Robin Soderling def. Xavier Malisse 6-2 3-6 6-4

Whatever you do, don't take a job as Xavier Malisse's cardiologist. Or the guy who has to keep him supplied with blood pressure medication.

Poor Malisse came into this final with a truly unenviable record: Five finals, no titles (cue Anna Kournikova joke #3,153). He once made the Wimbledon semifinal. He's been Top 20. He has the game. But the heart?

You could feel the nerves from a continent away. Soderling is a very big server -- but Malisse is a fine returner; he had the tools to win this match. Except that the only time he played his best was in the second set, when he was down. And so he falls to 0-6 in finals. (Anyone care to bet on what happens in his next final?)

Still, the points count. Or most of them, anyway; Malisse was a quarterfinalist last year as a qualifier. Even so, he'll gain more than a dozen places from his current #58.

Soderling, whose ranking had peaked at #37 this summer, had taken a big of a slide recently after his Shanghai semifinal came off; he was #50 two weeks ago, and #47 this week. This obviously halts that slide (though he has the Stockholm final coming off in a few weeks). This will easily put him back into the Top 40, and earn him a career high. A few more good wins and he'll earn an Australian Open seed.

And, with a title in only his third career final, he clearly won't be going the way of Malisse.

Women's Look Forward: Moscow, Tashkent

For years, Moscow was the black sheep of the Tier I circuit -- among the weakest, if not the weakest, of the nine events. Eventually the WTA induced (hard assigned?) Martina Hingis to play there, and it became vaguely respectable. But it had still been close to the bottom of the list.

It's still not especially popular with the non-Russian players. But so what? These days, you can be a giant on the WTA Tour with nothing but Russians among the seeds.

Not that the field consists solely of Russians. In fact, it looks almost eerily like Filderstadt: Amelie Mauresmo and Lindsay Davenport are supposed to bring their duel for #1 here, with Mauresmo the top seed and Davenport #2. (Mauresmo, of course, is injured, and it's not clear whether she will be able to play. But she hasn't pulled out yet; she won't have to play until Wednesday or Thursday, so she may take a few days to make a decision.) As at Filderstadt, assuming no withdrawals, Anastasia Myskina is #3 and Svetlana Kuznetsova #4, and as at Filderstadt, they are competing for the #3 ranking. As at Filderstadt, Elena Dementieva is the #5 seed and Vera Zvonareva #6. The first change comes at #7; Venus Williams takes that spot. Nadia Petrova rounds out the seeds, meaning that five of eight are Russian.

The one interesting name that's missing is Maria Sharapova, who played the Pacific hardcourts rather than coming here.

Despite her absence, the rest of the field is also very strong. Again, it looks very much like Filderstadt, save that the qualifying is a lot weaker (Eleni Daniilidou was in both qualifying draws, though she lost second round to Michaela Pastikova of all people, but Fabiola Zuluaga -- who made the main draw -- and Lisa Raymond and Jelena Jankovic and Jelena Kostanic are all missing from Moscow qualifying; Iveta Benesova, who was the #6 qualifying seed at Filderstadt, is #2 here). But in the main draw we have Elena Bovina, Daniela Hantuchova, Magdalena Maleeva, Ai Sugiyama, Mary Pierce, Patty Schnyder, Anna Smashnova, Karolina Sprem, Fabiola Zuluaga, Elena Likhovtseva, Paola Suarez, Silvia Farina Elia, and Francesca Schiavone. All of them save Hantuchova and Smashnova were Top 30 last week. The only player who had direct entry into Filderstadt and didn't come here is Alicia Molik, who hurt herself in Germany.

The two wildcards are of course Russians: Dinara Safina and Vera Douchevina.

This bodes not well for Zurich next week, but it's going to be quite a tournament for the Russian fans.

The doubles draw is also fairly impressive -- stronger than Filderstadt, in fact, since Virginia Ruano Pascual and Paola Suarez are in the field as the #1 seeds -- though Cara Black is playing Tashkent, so Black/Stubbs will not be here. Svetlana Kuznetsova is playing doubles with Elena Likhovtseva for the first time since the U. S. Open; they're the #2 seeds. With Alicia Molik out, Ai Sugiyama is playing with Elena Dementieva; they're #3. Anastasia Myskina and Vera Zvonareva are #5. Several interesting teams are unseeded: Nadia Petrova is playing with Elena Bovina (talk about a powerful team), and they'll open against Kuznetsova/Likhovtseva. Lindsay Davenport and Corina Morariu are paying together again. And Janette Husarova will try her luck with Magdalena Maleeva, who has hardly played doubles since she and Liezel Huber broke up.

The week's other event, Tashkent, was originally scheduled for a few weeks earlier. The thought crossed our mind that the organizers tried to put it off as long as possible in hopes that Iroda Tulyganova could play. It worked, too, because Tulyaganova is back, though unranked and a wildcard (though it's not clear why she needed a wildcard; her injury ranking would seem to be enough to get her in). But the difference between this event and Moscow is clear: The top seed is Marion Bartoli, #41 last week -- meaning that she would have been only the #3 seed in Moscow qualifying. Based on last week's rankings, there are only two Top 50 players in the field: Bartoli and #2 seed Meghann Shaughnessy. The #3 seed is Marta Marrero, who will be just in from the final of the Girona Challenger; Arantxa Parra Santonja is #4, Anca Barna #5, Anna-Lena Groenefeld #6, and Tamarine Tanasugarn enjoys the fruits of her recent success with the #8 seeding. Lubomira Kurhajcova #7 was supposed to be #7, but she withdrew; Virginie Razzano was promoted into the #9 seed and replaced by a Lucky Loser (as of this writing, there are two Lucky Losers in the draw, and several rather doubtful players in the field).

The most noteworthy unseeded player is probably Anne Kremer, one of 17 players in the field to have direct entry despite being ranked below #100. Tashkent has a history of crowning unlikely champions. This looks like it might be another such year. In that case, we'd watch out for Nicole Vaidisova, who already has one title this year, and for the young Russian Evgenia Linetskaya. Tulyaganova is dangerous if she's healthy -- but given the way the WTA works these days, she's probably back too soon.

Noteworthy First Round Matches

At Tashkent, there are only a few of these. The context between #8 seed Tanasugarn and Evgenia Linetskaya was the first to catch our eye. But it turns out that the top two seeds both have big matches: #1 seed Bartoli because she has to face Tulyaganova, who is a national hero and perhaps the best player here when she's healthy, and #2 seed Shaughnessy simply because she's a wreck right now, though she does have the advantage of facing Bahia Mouhtassine.

Moscow is altogether another thing, with great matches everywhere. We have no fewer than six first round matches pitting Russians against non-Russians. One of those, Maleeva versus Douchevina, isn't likely to be too exciting assuming Maleeva plays anywhere near her form. And recent results give Elena Bovina a big edge on Daniela Hantuchova. But the contest between Elena Dementieva and Patty Schnyder is truly fascinating, given the way both women's heads work. #6 Vera Zvonareva will be up against Nathalie Dechy in a contest involving two players without big weapons but both very steady. And Zvonareva lost too early last week. The contest between Fabiola Zuluaga and Elena Likhovtseva involves two women both trying to stay Top 25. Finally, the match between #8 Nadia Petrova and Paola Suarez pits two players with almost equal rankings, with Suarez preferring slower surfaces but always ready to play; Petrova is much more likely to self-destruct.

Other interesting contests include the all-Italian battle between doubles partners Francesca Schiavone and Silvia Farina Elia, with a place in the Top 20 potentially on the line, and the match between quick and steady (but indoor-hating and injured) Anna Smashnova against big-hitting (but indoor-hating) Karolina Sprem.

The Rankings

At Filderstadt, Amelie Mauresmo had the advantage in the contest for #1; she had the edge in safe points, and it held up -- barely. Not this week. Davenport has no more points to defend all year. Mauresmo has only one point to defend this week, which doesn't even count toward her Best 17 -- but still, that doesn't leave much margin for error. She has a 15 point margin on Davenport, which means in practice that they're tied. Whoever lasts longer will be #1; if they go out in the same round, it depends on quality points. And Mauresmo has the tougher draw (though, of course, that also means she has more quality points available).

Moving down the rankings a little, Justine Henin-Hardenne will see her points from winning Zurich 2003 come off. And that means her #3 ranking is history; she is certain to end up behind both Anastasia Myskina and Svetlana Kuznetsova. She could fall as low as #6 if Elena Dementieva has a really good tournament.

With the Belgian falling, either Myskina or Kuznetsova will be moving up to #3. Myskina has a slight edge -- about 150 points, counting her lead in the rankings and what Kuznetsova has to defend. But the winner here can expect to pick up 400 or more points, and the finalist 250 or so; that's not a safe lead at all. Kuznetsova needs at least a semifinal to pass Myskina, but if she gets that far, and lasts longer, she will probably reach #3. She will be at a career high no matter what.

The next three players down the Top Ten -- Sharapova, Capriati, Serena Williams -- have nothing to defend; they will maintain their relative order. And, probably, their absolute places, though that could change if Vera Zvonareva wins Moscow.

#10 Kim Clijsters, though, is in real danger of falling out of the Top Ten; she has 149 points to defend, which constitutes more than half her lead over Zvonareva -- though Zvonareva has 100 points of her own to defend. Odds are that either Zvonareva or Venus Williams will displace her.

That's nothing compared to what Jelena Dokic will suffer, though. Dokic, last year's Zurich finalist, has 369 points coming off -- more than half her total. And she isn't playing. She will probably end up below #100.

Nadia Petrova has 192 points to defend; she will probably stay Top 15 no matter what but could easily fall behind Ai Sugiyama. Amy Frazier has 117 points on the line. Patty Schnyder has 127, and that means she could fall out of the Top 15, with Suarez or Sprem in position to replace her. Rounding out our "uh-oh" list is Tina Pisnik, a quarterfinalist last year who has already fallen out of the Top 50 after peaking around #30.

Tashkent is only a Tier IV, and it doesn't feature any Top 30 players. Fewer than half the players here have ever won a title (by contrast, about three-fourths of the players at Moscow have titles; most of them have several), so it could be psychologically big for someone. It might well be big in terms of points, too -- but until we have some idea who might make the final, we can't really predict much.

Key Matches

At Moscow, start with the second round contest Mauresmo vs. Bovina (or Hantuchova). Bovina is big and strong, she's Russian, and she's healthy. This could be the contest that, combined with the second round match Davenport vs. Safina, cold settle the #1 ranking.

Another interesting second rounder would pit (7) Venus Williams versus Maleeva. It was, of course, Magdalena Maleeva who beat Venus Williams on this same court two years ago. Admittedly Venus has more reason to care this year, but on the other hand, she isn't playing as well.

All four quarterfinals have strong points of interest. If Venus Williams can beat Mauresmo in their quarterfinal, she will probably return to the Top Ten. Nadia Petrova would then have the chance to protect her #13 ranking, and perhaps prevent Lindsay Davenport from taking #1, by beating Davenport in that quarterfinal.

The other two quarters are more psychologically interesting. Vera Zvonareva will play against doubles partner Anastasia Myskina for her chance to hit the Top Ten; in the other quarterfinal, we could see a rematch of the U. S. Open final as Svetlana Kuznetsova faces Elena Dementieva. Kuznetsova has to win that match if she wants to be #3; Myskina is likely to be the one who makes #3 if she wins her match.

At Tashkent, other than seeing how Shaughnessy will do in her comeback, it's almost impossible to predict which matches will be big, because we don't know which matches will actually take place.

Men's Look Forward: Moscow, Vienna, Metz
If you didn't know better, you might think that Russia was still a Soviet state. The draw at Moscow is very, very Communist: Nobody is rich and nobody is poor. There aren't many top players -- but there aren't many weaklings, either. The only Top Ten player in the field is #1 seed Marat Safin. Joachim Johansson and Dominik Hrbaty, #2 and #3 respectively, are the only other Top 20 players. But we still have many very tough players -- Jonas Bjorkman, Thomas Johansson, Robin Soderling, Igor Andreev -- unseeded. Indeed, the list of unseeded players includes even last year's finalist, Sargis Sargsian. As well as big servers Greg Rusedski and Ivo Karlovic.

And, of course, there are the other seeds: Vincent Spadea at #5, Mikhail Youzhny #5, fast-rising Tomas Berdych #6, Filippo Volandri #7, and Nikolay Davydenko #8. It can't match the women's side in either strength of field or number of Russians, but it's a good solid tournament.

Vienna is a bit different; it looks like the clay-courters' pick. Partly, perhaps, that's because it's an indoor hardcourt, as opposed to the carpet at Moscow. But more of it may be because it's Vienna: Austrians tend to prefer clay, so they'll make the court as slow as they can get away with. It's attracted a fairly good field: David Nalbandian is the top seed, Nicolas Massu #2. Rainer Schuettler, still seeded #3 for the moment, is the first guy who isn't mostly a clay player. But we see more dirt on the shoes of #4 seed Juan Ignacio Chela. Not that #5 Paradorn Srichaphan has any liking for clay! But it's the native surface of #6 Guillermo Canas and #7 Jiri Novak (assuming Novak actually makes it here from Tokyo; he pulled out of the doubles final citing a rib problem) as well as #8 Feliciano Lopez.

And, like Moscow, there are several solid floaters. Mariano Zabaleta will be attempting a comeback; Agustin Calleri will be playing the second event of his return. Other clay fans include Alberto Martin and Albert Costa. Unseeded players with better fastcourt credentials include Tommy Haas (who, on current form, might almost be the favorite here), Thomas Enqvist, Florian Mayer, Robby Ginepri, Taylor Dent (odd to see him unseeded, but he had a lot of points come off in the past month), and of course Austria's #1 Jurgen Melzer (another player who surely belongs on the list of candidates for the title). Only one other Austrian -- Davis Cup hero Stefan Koubek -- managed to get direct entry, but the locals will still have plenty to cheer about as they watch wildcards Alexander Peya, Julian Knowle, and Konstantin Don Gruber.

That leaves Metz as rather the odd event out. Which is only fair, since it's the smallest in terms of points and prize money. It's well endowed with Frenchmen -- no fewer than 11 of them in the initial draw, though one or two of them were iffy -- but only one player in the field, top seed Ivan Ljubicic, was Top 50 on last week's rankings list (though Xavier Malisse is of course climbing). Malisse earned the #2 seed, Jose Acasuso is #3, Olivier Rochus #4, Juan Monaco #5, Julien Benneteau is the top Frenchman in the field at #6 (Sebastien Grosjean remains hurt, and Fabrice Santoro hasn't played since Davis Cup either; Michael Llodra rounds out the high-profile absences). Dennis Van Scheppingen is the #7 seed, Gilles Muller #8.

The amazing thing is to realize that, in this field, Arnaud Clement is unseeded! Though the most noteworthy unseeded Frenchman, these days, may be Paul-Henri Mathieu. And they gave a wildcard to Gael Monfils of the three junior Slams. Other unseeded Frenchmen are Olivier Mutis, Nicolas Mahut, Gregory Carraz, Richard Gasquet (another wildcard), Thierry Ascione, Antony Dupuis, and Olivier Patience.

The other interesting floaters are mostly reclamation projects (as are some of the Frenchmen, for that matter): Jan-Michael Gambill, Alex Corretja, Wayne Arthurs. This field is weak enough that it could really help several guys get over their problems.

Noteworthy First Round Matches

At Moscow, the interesting politics start right at the top, as Max Mirnyi faces Marat Safin. Mirnyi has fallen so far this year that he had to play qualifying at Lyon last week -- but he did qualify, so maybe he's getting things together again.

Perhaps the toughest early match, though, pits Dominik Hrbaty, who likes slower surfaces but is ranked higher, against Thomas Johansson, who likes things much faster. A similar situation occurs in the match between clay-loving Filippo Volandri and Robin Soderling, with the added note that Soderling is tired after winning his first title this week.

If Safin versus Mirnyi doesn't give you enough thundering serves, you can always watch Greg Rusedski take on Ivo Karlovic. That should do a good job of setting off the local seismographs.

At Vienna, we'd note especially the match between #4 seed Chela and Florian Mayer. Mayer has had better fastcourt results, and he's a Germanophone to boot, and Chela's results have slipped a bit after a fine start to the year.

The contest between #8 seed Feliciano Lopez and Agustin Calleri is also interesting. Lopez probably likes fast courts better than any other Spaniard -- but Calleri came back pretty well last week.

#3 seed Rainer Schuettler opens against Jurgen Melzer. Given Schuettler's recent results, that looks like big trouble.

Ordinarily you wouldn't expect Alexander Peya to give #7 seed Jiri Novak much trouble. But Novak will be tired and jet lagged from Tokyo, apart from being injured, and Peya is Austrian.

At Metz, perhaps the two biggest matches involve a Frenchman against a non-Frenchman. Arnaud Clement will try to shake his slump against #8 seed Gilles Muller, who is just in from Tokyo, while Jan-Michael Gambill will try to overcome his problems against #6 Julien Benneteau. That latter looks like a mismatch, but the rankings obviously say otherwise.

French fans in particular will surely be interested to see how Gael Monfils fares in the first round against #2 seed Xavier Malisse, who will come in both tired and distressed after losing the Lyon final.

The Rankings

We've had several odd weeks this year when the number of Masters Series on the calendar isn't the prescribed nine. This will be another such: Madrid 2003 is coming off, so there will be only twelve required events instead of thirteen. That means, for this week only, that players will get to count a sixth optional event.

That isn't much consolation to Madrid champion Juan Carlos Ferrero or finalist Nicolas Massu, though, both of whom will be hit hard. Ferrero is already out of the Top Ten, and he doesn't have much in the way of optional events; this will drop him to probably the low end of the Top 30. The effects on Massu probably won't be as dramatic -- he's ranked a bit higher, he has less to defend, he has more optional points, and he's playing this week -- but he could potentially end up at the low end of the Top 20.

Also hit hard will be last year's semifinalist Younes El Aynaoui, who can't very well afford it; it's a good thing he'll get injury protection.

None of this affects the Top Ten much, though. Roger Federer was the other Madrid semifinalist last year, but of course he'll stay #1. Lleyton Hewitt, who didn't play Madrid last year, will see his point total bounce up a little, but not enough to make any difference, and the points come off the following week anyway. Indeed, it appears that there will be no appreciable change in the Top Ten, unless Marat Safin wins Moscow to move past Gaston Gaudio. Below that, Sebastien Grosjean will fall a bit, which he can ill afford, but he must be getting used to that by now.

Two of the week's three events, Moscow and Vienna, feature big points, so we could see mid-level players shooting up dozens of places -- but it's just too soon to calculate all those possibilities.

Key Matches

Because of the rankings peculiarity described above, it's hard to identify key matches. What goes on the rankings this week may go off next. And few of the guys who have much to defend are even in action.

The biggest match, in that regard, is probably the Vienna quarterfinal between Nicolas Massu and Jiri Novak. If Massu wins that, he at least starts to defend some of those points from Madrid. If he win, then he'll feel just about the full blow of seeing those 350 points come off.

Matches to watch for other reasons are David Nalbandian's first few rounds; the question with the Argentine these days is always, "How much pounding can he stand?"

Moscow features a number of interesting Russian versus Russian matches. We could see quarterfinals between Safin and Davydenko, and also between Youzhny and Andreev. The psychology, at least, could be interesting.