38 posts categorized "August 2010"
by Pete Bodo
NEW YORK—What kind of a man does it take to receive a kick second serve at ad-in (after multiple deuces) from the No. 12 player in the world and No. 10 seed at this U.S. Open and return it with a drop shot, the way Alexandr Dolgopolov did while facing David Ferrer here today?
Well, a brave one. Or maybe an incredibly gifted one. Or someone who's just plain dumb.
Then again, maybe it takes a guy who's feeling so ill he knows he can't string together more than two or three shots without feeling dizzy and incapacitated—a guy who's had a rare blood disorder from birth, one which is sometimes activated when he crosses a string of time zones and usually winds up forcing him to take intravenous medication and pills, and demands a severe change of diet (eliminating fried foods, salt and gassy beverages, among other things) coupled with a few weeks of utter rest.
I have to admit, I was having fun with all of the obvious options while watching Dolgolopov at work on Court 7 against Ferrer, and the truth, when I learned it, was—and I don't mean to be callous—a buzz-kill. But let me tell the story from the start.
Dolgopolov is a 21-year-old from Kiev, in the Ukraine. His father, Oleksandar, is a former ATP-grade player from back in the days of the USSR. He had scant opportunity to travel outside Russia and thus retired at around the age of 24, shortly after the son named after him was born (the younger Dolgopolov has since officially changed his first name to Alexandr, having grown irritrated by people who insisted on calling him "Olek"). The elder Dolgopolov became a coach and helped develop the former Top 5 ATP pro and French Open runner-up Andrei Medvedev. At the age of 3, his son was swinging racquets and rollling balls while his father trained Medvedev, and one thing led to another.
I've been hearing a lot of good things about Dolgolopov, often with a liberal use of words like "amazing," or "unbelievable," or "insane." He's up to No. 45 now, and so far this year he's beaten a pile of good players, including Mikhail Youzhny, Fernando Gonzalez and Alberto Montanes. He was a semifinalist at Queens Club, and at Wimbledon he lost to Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in the second round, 10-8 in the fifth. Dolgo played Ferrer a few weeks ago in Cincinnati, losing 6-4 in the third.
So I made a point of catching his re-match with Ferrer in the company of Eban Harrell, a buddy who works for Time magazine, here from London on a busman's holiday. Court 7 was sparsely populated when we flopped down onto the hot aluminum bench shortly before the match started. Dolgopolov was dressed in a regal purple jersey with short white sleeves, and sporting a hairdo that a WTA pro might envy: a subtle headband swept back his long hair, which was collected in the back in a pony tail, above which was a separate, substantial bun.
Dolgo has a light, confident tread; he walks with his chest flung out, bathed in what appears to be an air of entitlement. In fact, with his sharp, feminine features and hair-do, he rather resembled a Medici, or one of those other Renaissance personages vain enough to commission a portrait by a Da Vinci or Michaelangelo.
The impression was probably heightened by the manner of his opponent. Ferrer, dressed in conventional tennis whites with red trim, has a purposeful walk. He keeps his head down and his back is slightly hunched. This is a guy who's on his way to do something, although it's hard to imagine it being anything important. Honey, would you go down to the store to pick up a quart of milk?
Dolgopolov opened the ball with a quick hold, and you don't know "quick" until you watch this kid. His service motion is ultra-fast. It begins with an odd, subtle flinch and knee bend and he immediately flings himself into the shot, feet simultaneously leaving the ground. Blink and you miss it all.
On his groundstrokes, Dolgo generates incredible racquet-head speed, and still finds time to adjust in myriad ways to the flight of the ball; it's as if he's loathe to allow the stick to travel the same path twice. Guys as nimble as him rarely have such a varied repertoire. Ferrer, for example, is so fleet that his legs do most of the critical work. He has solid, reliable strokes, but they're pro forma. Dolgo is unpredictable and explosive in a way that Ferrer is not, and nobody—but nobody—is so precariously perched on the cusp of abandon when he unloads.
By around the fifth game, it was also obvious that Dolgopolov is also shockingly careless. He'd paint the line with one atomic forehand, then drill the next one into the fence. He appeared to have no plan beyond hitting the crap out of the ball. Not that this wasn't entertaining. Au contraire. We happened to be sitting near a gaggle of Desperate Tennis Housewives from New Jersey, and after Dolgo hit a screaming forehand winner from 10-feet behind the baseline, one of them simply cried out, "Good God!"
Ferrer, softly hissing 'mos, 'mos, after each winner, broke Dolgo twice from 2-2 to win the first set, with plenty of help from the opponent. By that time I was already toying around with headlines: Entitled, but Clueless? The Contortionist? In the second set, I kept track of how many rally strokes (points following the serve and return) were played in each point. I had a grand total of four by the time the score climbed to 30-40 (fewer than one stroke per point), although the five-stroke exchange that yielded the break for Ferrer ruined the percentage.
Of course, any time you can keep Ferrer from turning a match into a rallying contest you're onto something, even if it isn't always good. Dolgo's exuberant, let-it-roll strategy is highly appealing when it's matched against the steady Ferrer, who plays with all the joy of a graverobber. Refusing to submit to baseline torture of the kind Ferrer likes to inflict is a somewhat principled stand, and if it's executed at a sufficiently high level, it can bend a guy like Ferrer, who's obsessed with consistency and rhythm, right out of shape. But Dolgo was simply too erratic. At one point late in the second set, Eban turned, a puzzled look on his face, and said: "This is stupid."
And it only got worse, but for one last glimmer of genius from Dolgopolov. At one point late in the third set, he hit a drop shot. Ferrer, scrambling forward, dug the ball out and lobbed over Dolgo's backhand side, causing him to leap as if to hit a backhand overhead. But at the very last moment, he flattened the face of the racket and, still airborn, lightly flicked a lob of his own over Ferrer's head for a clean winner.
 When it was over (Ferrer won 2-2-3), I felt like I'd just sat through the worst tennis match I'd ever had the misfortune to witness, featuring some of the must radiant, gorgeous shotmaking I've ever been lucky enough to see.
I was pleased to find that Dolgopolov speaks English well. "It's quite tough, my style," he told me. "I need to really play the ball perfect. When I don't feel it really good, I lose easy matches. . ."
Well, we've heard that kind of thing before. But he went on. "I felt pretty good in the last tournament, I just had some health problems starting in Toronto. I couldn't pull out of the tournament, that made no sense, so I had to deal with it.
"I have this problem from birth—some blood problems. Sometimes, I don't feel so well, especially when I change time zones a lot: Australia, Europe to the U.S. . . That's why I don't like to fly. Sometimes it affects my game, and I just have to deal with it. I couldn't have the usual [medical] treatment before the U.S. Open Series because I played Umag and then had just five days before I came to the U.S."
"And what exactly is that treatment?"
"They do intravenous blood stuff. They just put some medicine in, and I have to take some pills and change my diet, take some time [two weeks] off."
I had to ask, what is this disease officially called?
"I don't really want to say a lot. . . I just have it. It affects my stomach. I feel ill all the time. I don't want to eat. So for four tournaments now, I couldn't play my game. "In Cincinnati, I felt a lot better. I was more consistent in my game. Here in New York, I didn't even practice before the tournament. I practiced today for 20 minutes, just to hit the ball. I'm feeling really bad.
"So today I risked what I could, got a few games, but pretty well that was the maximum of what I can do. I couldn't run. I couldnt serve. I was feeling dizzy. I just had to go for it because the more I played the worse I felt. So I just play like I could, and with David you have to play really soild, because he's running so good, and he's getting all the balls back. I couldn't let him play a lot."
I felt badly for the guy. I reminded him he still managed to pull an impressive number of rabbits out of his hat.
"Well, it's my style, too. I don't wait for the other guys. I don't run like crazy on the baseline. I like to play a lot of risk—attacking tennis, serving fast, going to net, drop shots. . .And now, with my health, I don't have a choice. I can't imagine running and working out points."
So there it is. And I thought I'd more or less heard it all. I need a drink, almost as badly as Dolgopolov must. But I, at least, can drink whatever the hail I want.
 by Pete Bodo
Well, day one is in the books, folks. And day two will begin with some talk about books. First, though, note that this is a Crisis Center post, which means it will be the place for you to discuss all the U.S. Open action of day two. Going forward, you'll have a Crisis Center (CC) post every morning (or midday), and that will the place for y'all to chat about the action. I'll come back with a red meat post later every day, and ask you to keep the off-topic chatter to a minimum there.
I got a note from Hyperion, the publisher of Hardcourt Confidential: Tales from Twenty Years in the Pro Tennis Trenches, the recently released book I helped Patrick McEnroe write. We're experiencing a nice bump in sales now that the U.S. is focused on tennis. Those of you who are interested can get the book via Amazon or Captain McEnroe's Facebook page, which I urge you to visit in any event. Pat and I are both happy with the way the book turned out and believe it adds to the historical record of the game in Pat's time. Our title tries to make clear that this isn't a Pat McEnroe autobiography, but a collection of his experiences and observations through a career that touches many of the bases in tennis.
James Blake plays his first-round match against Kristof Vliegen on Louis Armstrong today (third match on), and the way Blake has been playing this year makes it impossible to predict the outcome. He's here as a wild card—presently, Blake is ranked No. 108, just missing the cutoff for direct entry. I'd hate to see Blake slip out of the U.S. Open without making one more run, or playing one more compelling match.
Blake is one of the main characters in Hardcourt Confidential, and Pat writes about him with candor that may surprise many of you. James was not an easy player to manage. He was often reticent and always self-protective, skeptical of any advice that came from anyone other than his entourage, in which the key member for most years was his long-time coach, Brian Barker. McEnroe, among others, feels that one reason for Barker's longevity was that he knew enough to tell Blake only what he wanted to hear. Mostly, the message boiled down to this: Play aggressive, high-risk tennis. Hit it flat and hard. Load up on the service return in order to take charge. Resist any urge or temptation to modulate or broaden your margin for error.
Blake believed that was the only way he could compete at the highest level; McEnroe and others often felt he ought to have been more aware of percentage play and various tactical and strategic options. McEnroe gives many examples of how hard it was to move Blake off his articles of faith, often to the detriment of his game.
Unfortunately, Blake's game of choice doesn't have a very long shelf life. It's live-fast/die-young tennis, and Blake is now 30 years old. It's hard to imagine him at this stage incorporating many changes in, or addition to, his game. But you also have to wonder, wouldn't a commitment to a makeover of some kind provide the kind of challenge and motivation that might help pull Blake out of the doldrums?
I mean, if people who have been married a long time and finally divorce can go on to find the mirage of youth and happiness again in a new spouse, why can't a tennis player? Thirty is old in tennis, no doubt about it. But Martina Navratilova, among others, showed us that with sufficient incentive, self-belief and discipline, it isn't a drop-dead cutoff for achievment.
 Andrew Friedman collaborated with Blake on his own autobiography, Breaking Back: How I Lost Everything and Won Back My Life. I've asked Andrew, who's here this week and writing for TENNIS.com, to write a post for you on Blake, and to get the skinny on those remarks Blake made after Wimbledon, which made it sound an awful lot like he was contemplating retirement. I believe Andrew is sitting down with James after the Vliegen match. So look for a post on Blake later tonight or tomorrow.
While Patrick was often frustrated by Blake's guarded ways and streak of inflexibility, he also appreciated the way Blake was always available to play Davis Cup, and gives him credit for stepping up to emerge as a Davis Cup hero when the U.S. defeated Russia to win the competition. In retrospect, it may have been the finest moment of Blake's career. I believe McEnroe helped orchestrate that, and handled Blake with just the right mix of understanding, forbearance, tact and challenge, although it's a claim Patrick would never be arrogant enough to make.
Use this your Crisis Center post for today and enjoy the sights and sounds of the U.S. Open.
-- Pete
by Pete Bodo
When we last left Robert Kendrick, under leaden skies almost a full week ago, he was beating up on some poor schmo named Middelkoop on Court 10 at the National Tennis Center before a scattering of tennis diehards and dead-enders, just setting forth on a perilous three-stage journey intended to land him in journeyman heaven, the main draw of the U.S. Open.
Yesterday, that journey having been completed with admirable efficiency and speed (Kendrick didn't lose a set in his successful qualifying run), he was out on Court 11, under a dazzling blue sky and a burning sun, exchanging punches at racket's length with the mercurial French star and the No. 17 seed, Gael Monfils. The permanent grandstand on the west side of the court was packed for the duration of the three-hour and 20 minute match, and both players had partisans on hand. Every cry of "Allez Gaa-ayle" was answered with a robust, "Go, Kendo!" or "Go, shadow!"—Kendrick somehow having acquired the nickname White Shadow thanks to a coach with a sense of humor.
You may remember that I wanted to write a post on Kendrick last week, before the rains came, because he's an archetypal tennis journeyman. By broad athletic standards, he's been enormously successful. He's been in the elite ATP tour Top 100 (he made the big leap in 2008, and is knocking on the door again), he's earned over $1.2 million in career prize money, he was an All-American collegiate player (he also led his high school team to a state title and had an 80-1 prep record, which may be more charming than impressive, but still. . .), and he not only won his first career Grand Slam-event match at Wimbledon in 2006, he also went on at that tournament to scare the bejesus out of Rafael Nadal, firing 32 aces as he won the first two sets and stretched the third to a tiebreaker.
On the other hand . . . Well, let's be blunt about this: Kendrick is 30 years old, an age at which the commute between the Challenger and tour level-events gets tiring, and sometimes even depressing. He seems to be spinning his wheels. The ATP website has no summary of his 2009 record, as if the organization had decided it isn't worth the bother—just look at 2007 or 2006 and switch around some dates and stuff. Thirty is an age in tennis at which people who may have more exacting standards of success for a tennis pro than for themselves are likely to wonder: Why does he keep banging his head against the wall?
I guess that depends on whether or not you see Kendrick's job as a noggin-meets-concrete kind of enterprise, which strikes me as falling far short of a realistic or appropriate comparison.
It proved not to be a good day for exploring this delicate subject with Kendrick, because he blew a significant opportunity to advance. He led Monfils in the fifth set by 2-1 and 40-love on serve, and the cries of "Run it, baby!!" and "Keep coming after him!" had to be ringing in his ears.
Alas, it didn't end well for Kendo. Monfils won the next two points, and Kendrick then double-faulted to deuce. An inside-out forehand error gave Monfils the advantage, but an errant lob wasted it. But a forehand error by Kendrick gave Monfils another break-back-point, and he capitalized on it with a forehand winner to level the set at 2-2. Three hours in, we were back to Square One. It's a feeling Kendrick knows well, in the big picture.
But it wasn't like we'd wasted those 180 minutes. Monfils and Kendrick both have great presence, and the contrast between them was arresting. Kendrick skews to the conservative; he was wearing tennis whites and an everyman trucker cap. He's a good-looking kid, in a clean-cut way, and he really likes to dial in that forehand, especially inside-out. He moves easily but slowly, with a ramrod-straight back, and he projects Zen-like tranquilty, except, of course, when he totally loses it and screams a string of expletives into a towel held against his mouth—which he did at least once today.
Monfils is well known and much loved as a ham. He looked like a comic-book superhero today; his sleeveless, tight-fitting white tummy coffin emphasized his guns, and his baggy but preppy patterned shorts highlighted his stick legs, each one girded by an elastic strap just below the knee, as if you could screw off the lower legs to make him the size of Olivier Rochus.
Appearances don't make much of a difference when it comes to execution, but Monfils' style of play is no less flamboyant than his look and his frequent dramatic outbursts. Therefore, he's capable of making his life much more complicated than it need be. For one thing, he's always looking to hit that bunny-hop backhand, even when there's no real reason to get on that back foot and jump. I like that two-handed flipper backhand he sometimes uses, with the top of his racket starting almost at shoetop level. it can be effective, but it's also a bit lazy, or perhaps the right word is flimsy.
That's the trouble with Monfils' game, and also the thing that can make him so dangerous. He likes to make it up as he goes along, relying on something like feel combined with mood of the moment. Where a guy like Kendrick is always trying to get in touch with the discipline that informs each swing of the racket in a player like Roger Federer or Rafael Nadal (or Robin Soderling and Andy Roddick, for that matter), and sometimes has trouble managing the job, Monfils seems to rebel against that basic mandate to execute your strokes with discipline and clear purpose.
Monfils is like a guy playing chicken with the ball; let's see how far out of position I can be, or get, before I have to take a swat. For all of his assets, and they are formidable, he never leaves you feeling that he knows what he's going to do next. As a result, his shots typically look more improvised, challenging, and hurried than the flow of play demands. And the longer the point lasts, the more likely it is that Monfils' shot will wind up looking more like a barn door flapping on its hinges than a Federerian, rapier-like thrust.
 But this same streak of the bombastic also makes Monfils inventive, explosive and unpredictable, capable of riding his emotions to extraordinary highs as well as base lows. The gravitational pull of the latter was in greater evidence yesterday, which explains how Kendrick, who made just 43 percent of his first serves, found himself in position to win the match.
I watched all this unfold from a seat one of the aluminum benches in the bleachers, surrounded by sunburned, tennis-starved fans. When Monfils popped an authoritative volley winner early in the match, a beefy college-aged kid on the bench in front of me cried out, "That's filthy, baby, Filthy!"
He turned to the nicely dressed middle-aged lady alongside and sheepishly said, "You've got to get this crowd going. It's too serious here."
"You're probably achieving that," she said—a mite tersely, I thought.
Both Kendrick and Monfils have a flair for the drop shot; at times, it appeared that they were playing a game of one-upmanship with that delicate offering, which is tailor-made for passive-aggressives. Because of his elastic arms, loose wrist, and those long legs that gobble ground quickly, Monfils usually got the best of those exchanges. The men used all the real estate between the lines well and showed no fear of changing the pace. There was nothing one-dimensional about this one, and it had the appropriate swings of momentum. Natural talent and personal history are the only real explanations for how Gumby (Monfils) could fare so well against Dirty Harry (Kendrick).
Kendrick won the first set over a sleepy Monfils, but Monfils broke early in the second. When Kendrick broke back for 3-all, he was right back in it, but Monfils broke him again for 5-3 and served it out. Monfils rolled through the third set, and you have to give Kendrick credit for the way he hung in during the fourth and kept his head in the tiebreaker. He led that, 6-3, only to have Monfils win the next two points, both on his own serve. But Kendrick finished him off with a flourish, smacking one of his numerous inside-out forehand winners to send the match into a fifth set.
On the changeover after Monfils held the first game of the fifth set, Kendrick forsook the shade of his chair while Monfils melted into his, in a funk. Kendrick stood defiantly facing the blazing sun. He took a few measured swallows of his sports drink, squinting. He toweled off his arms. It was the moment every qualifier dreams of, and he went right out and broke Monfils.
With Kendrick leading 2-1 and serving, it looked as if Gumby were done. His customary swagger had degenerated into stagger. He pissed and moaned. He stalled. He tried playing a few points with a busted racket and that didn't work out too well, so he unsheathed a new one. Monfils was a picture of misery as Kendrick raced out to that 40-love lead. But that's when you really have to keep your eye on a guy like Monfils, and Kendrick let down his guard, surrendering the big lead and the break. As he said afterward: "He was losing his mind a little bit and then he hit a couple of shots off the line to get back in that game. Then I had a bad service game at the end (at 4-5). That's all it was."
Kendrick had come so far since last Tuesday, when he played his first qualifying match (a day which the footloose Monfils had partly spent playing basketball on Greenwich Village's storied public courts). And if that third round of qualifying is, as Patrick McEnroe claims, the toughest match in tennis, then blowing the chance to record a big upset in a first-round match after having survived that third match must leave you with an equally hollow feeling, despite the lower grade of pressure. "I think I raise my level against these guys," Kendrick said. "I'm not pissed at myself, I just wish I'd served a little better. Usually, I have to serve well against the top guys, but today I didn't, and I still was right in it. I guess that's the bonus. I just didn't keep on him in the end."
That's a tale often told by the qualifier, the journeyman. And like his brethren, Kendrick will keep coming back for more, unconcerned that he's 30. He's not defending very many points this fall, so the returning to the Top 100 is a realistic goal—and that means direct entry into the Australian Open.
It gets even hotter in Melbourne than New York, but that shouldn't be a problem for Kendrick. Say what you will about him. He got burned today, and on plenty of yesterdays. But at least he stands facing the sun.
 by Pete Bodo
NEW YORK—Let's get right down to business on Day One of the U.S. Open, shall we? Andy Roddick and Kim Clijsters, two players who have won the U.S. Open but no other major, are featured on today's day card here at the National Tennis Center. And while Roddick's condition is more perilous, both players are in a do or die situation, insofar as that ever obtains in a sport where each of the four Grand Slams played annually offers potential for redemption and re-invention—as well as horror and desperation.
But let's face it, Roddick has been knocking at the door of two majors, Wimbledon and the U.S. Open, since he won his lone Grand Slam win here in 2003—a feat that catapulted the raw-boned, fresh-faced, just-turned-21 kid into a star.
The following year, Roddick lost a tough five-set quarterfinal to Joachim Johansson, but then flamed out in the first round in 2005 to Gilles Muller. That wiped out a lot of Roddick's U.S. Open capital, and he spent years rebuilding it.
Roddick lost back-to-back matches to eventual champion Roger Federer after that loss to Muller (one of them in Roddick's second final on Arthur Ashe stadium), and in 2008 he was laid low by Novak Djokovic—no shame in that. But last year's third-round loss to countryman John Isner had to be a bitter blow salved only slighty by the sense of kinship between the men.
Now Roddick is the No. 9 seed, and the graphic portait of his ranking history is one of those "worth a thousand words" tableaux. Twice in recent years, Roddick has re-energized a slipping game with the help of a coach; first, Jimmy Connors, then most recently Larry Stefanki. You get the sense that banging the reset button works for a guy like Roddick, who's always been willing to turn over every stone in what is a very demanding quest, given the limitations of his game: keeping himself in the mix near the top. His real hole cards in that regard have been his proficiency at Wimbledon and his history at the U.S. Open.
But Roddick was staggered at Wimbledon this year in the fourth round by Yen-Hsun Lu of Taipei, losing in the most unexpected way—9-7 in the fifth. So while he doesn't have a great 2009 finish to defend here (nor the cartload of ranking points), an indifferent performance will leave people wondering if he isn't on that inevitable downward slide. And given the diligence with which Roddick has worked on his game and fitness, you have to wonder where he could go from here. Remember, Connors and Stefanki didn't engineer surges by Roddick simply by force of their persuasive personalities. They did hard, targeted work. But what's there left to work on in Roddick?
As long as Roddick has that big serve, he'll be a potential factor on any medium to fast court, particularly if the bounce is low and the ball goes through quickly. But if he doesn't have a good tournament here, he'll find himself in a position where he has to work harder to achieve less, unless he makes a drastic decision to target a relatively small number of tournaments—rankings be danged.
You might assume that Clijsters is much younger than Roddick, but there's barely a year difference (Roddick is 28, Clijsters 27). And she's been to the final of the last three U.S. Opens in which she's played, and won the last two (she beat Mary Pierce in 2005, and came back from an extended break to win the tournament last year).
When Clijsters won here last year, in just the third tournament of her comeback, it seemed that she might present a consistent challenge to Serena Williams and perhaps even dominate the WTA tour. But while the women's game is more wide-open than ever, Clijsters hasn't been able to capitalize on the chaos.
Now that Justine Henin has called it quits for 2010, and the day-to-day impact of the Williams sisters seems to be diminishing, the stage is set for Clijsters do do what her fans have been hoping for and expecting since she first joined the tour: emerge as the dominant star.
Clijsters has all the earmarks of an old-school style prolific champion. She's focused on a mangeable combination of her young family and tennis. She has no desire to be a movie star or rock musician. She doesn't run with a fast crowd. She's works hard, and has also worked through the personal issues that turned her against tennis, a significant victory for a woman who turned pro at 14 and was in the Top 5 by the age of 18. We sometimes forget that Clijsters played an awful lot of tennis (a decade, to be precise) before she pulled the plug in the spring of 2007, while ranked No. 4 in the world. She'd already been to a dozen semifinals or better at majors, and had appeared in five finals (winning just one, here in New York).
Since her surprising victory here a year ago, the question, "just how good is she?" has been approaching critical mass. Is she the same old Kim, pleasant, fun, happy-go-lucky, filthy rich and not quite cut from great champion cloth? Or is she bent on earning a place in the company of Martina Navratilovas and Serena Williamses and Justine Henins of the game?
This is not Roddick's tournament's to win, but it is Clijsters'. How she fares will go a long way toward answering that question.
P.S.—While Roddick and Clijster are big names, I plan to focus on the lesser players during this first week at the Open.
Mornin', and a fine one it is, although we'll have classic, hot and almost intolerably humid U.S. Open weather by mid-week if the last forecast I heard is reliable. Sorry about all the Typepad heartaches, everyone. It figures they would monkey around with their blogging task bar right before the start of this blog's most active period! All seems good now, though. Those help tickets were flying for a while. Many thanks to the Mod Squad for being so on top of this issue with updates.
I enjoy the Sunday before the start of the U.S. Open; it's radio silence all around, although there's plenty of palavering going on if you care to find it. The build up to the tourament is now so massive—it's a masterstroke of marketing, really—that the radio silence of today is slightly eerie, welcome, and perfectly placed. I can hear the clicking of buckles and the clanging of shields and swords as players (and their fans at TW) all get into their battle armor for tomorrow.
Reviving an old TW tradition, I'm going to reprint that wonderful Man in the Arena passage from a speech once given by the late U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt (father of, among other things, our U.S National Parks system. But that's another subject).
It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.
I'll see you all tomorrow. That picture above is of New Haven champ Caroline Wozniacki, with the Yale football team, who generally are less triumphant than the girl whom they surround. (For more on Wozniacki, go to American Express' Next Contenders page.)
-- Pete
 by Pete Bodo
Mornin'. It appears that the glitch in Typepad has been fixed and now I'm also having to use a new task bar. I won't bore you with the details, but changing font style and size in Typepad has been a major annoyance, but I think it's better now. BTW, what size type do y'all like? I mean, it used to be small until about a year ago; I then changed the style and increased the size by a point. Should it be larger still?
Anyway, I had to go pretty hard last week, what with a podcast (it should be up already) from the BNP Paribas and TENNIS.com Taste of Tennis event at the W hotel, we bagged just about every interview we wanted, including Victoria Azarenka, whom I've officially picked to win the tournament. We missed Brad Gilbert, a bummer to me if not to you, because David Rosenberg, our photo editor, was all fired up to catch Alex McCord.
Alex who? Got me, but I learned that she's a desperate housewife on television, not a tennis player. But don't get me wrong, David really knows his tennis, particularly the WTA brand. I confess before all of you that I wouldn't know Anna Keothavong if tripped over her. David can spot them all and he knows their "situation" cold.
It was a little depressing, though, to see how this entire "red carpet" thing that's so vital to the celebrity world works (in this case it was a green carpet, presumably to acknowledge that this was tennis, not your typical film or music industry drill). There's something ghastly about the whole celeb-media-fan nexus, especially when all the parties agree to play ball. Reminds me to read Nathanial West's classic novel, Day of the Locust again sometime, if not in this life then my next.
On the other hand, there's a kind of energy about these events and it was kind of fun to just hang around gabbing and laughing as we watched the players and various celebrities who wouldn't know a racket from a rocket parade themselves. Gilles Simon was all jacked up and hamming it up to the point of appearing goofy, but great fun to interview (finally, an ATP player who admits he—and his colleagues—study the draw at any given tournament). Most of the WTA women looked terrific—none moreso than Sabine Lisicki. That girl can get dolled up when she puts her mind to it. She looked hotter than a two-dollar pistol on Thursday night.
I noticed that Long John Isner was supposed to be part of this crew at T of T, but he never appeared. This makes me think that Isner is still down at Saddlebrook, or at home in North Carolina, or maybe holed up in Manhattan, resting that ankle and trying to get fit enough to compete in the upcoming tournament. It must be a bummer for the folks at Amex, who built a whole "Next Contender" ad campaign featuring exclusive material around—and with—Isner, Melanie Oudin, Sam Querrey and Caroline Wozniacki. On the other hand, Wozniacki is the top WTA seed and both Querrey and Isner (if he's fit) have to be considered players who could go deep in the men's draw, so maybe that will prove to be a coup for Amex. Be sure to check it out.
Also, I had a long conversation the other day with the world's fifth richest man, Larry Ellison. I'll be posting more on this, but probably not until after the U.S. Open is done. Ellison, most of you know, bought the Indian Wells Masters 1000 early this year. I was somewhat skeptical when we decided to do a story on Ellison; I mean, what if he was just another rich schmo who bought himself a trophy sporting event/franchise?
But boy, does this guy know—I mean really know—his tennis. He's going to be a enormous asset to the tennis community, in which he's already neck deep. Just talking to him I got the sense that the guy is nothing less than a genius, which only makes sense, given that he was given up by his mother as a child in the Bronx (New York) and ended up where he is today.
What can you say about a fella whose hobbies include flying decomissioned jet fighter planes?
I also see that Wozniacki is on a roll—still carving her way through opponents this week in New Haven. While I've been very skeptical of her ability to defend her final finish of last year, the momentum is bound to help her—if it doesn't leave her worn out, and set up to suffer an upset at the U.S. Open with the excuse of fatigue in her back pocket. Not that she'd do that consciously, but you know how it is in tennis.
Anyway, Arthur Ashe kid's day at the Open. See you all later.
By Jackie Roe, TW Social Director
Hey, everyone. As I post this, the Typepad servers are still acting up. We've been told the problems should be resolved shortly, so I hope you'll stick around; what's a Deuce Club without Comments, right?
Today's DC is packed with both a look ahead to the U.S. Open and a look back at Toronto and Cincy, so let's jump right in.
First up is your official invite to the U.S. Open TW gathering. A number of you have asked me about it, so I think we'll have a good turnout! Here are the details:
When: Sunday, 9/5. Let's set the start time as 9 PM, but night session ticketholders, feel free to come later in the evening.
Where: Dublin House. Address: 225 W. 79th St. (between Amsterdam and Broadway). According to Pete, the place has "a lot of authentic character." They don't serve food but there are plenty of restaurants nearby, and you can have food delivered or even bring your own. Don't worry about missing the tennis as they have flat-screen TVs. Click here for more info.
Please RSVP here in the Comments (provided Typepad is running normally), via e-mail at rasslinpriestess@hotmail.com, or by sending me a note on Facebook or Twitter (@JackieRoe), as I need to reserve space for our group. And if you could pass the word along to other TWibers who might not catch this invite, that'd be great. Thanks, everyone. I hope to see many of you there!
Next is your Suicide Pool reminder:
The U.S. Open Suicide Pool (SP) is on at TalkAboutTennis.com. If you have played it before, you know what to do. Click here to play.You should find the instructions and the thread for the first day (after the OOP is announced) at that link.
If you don't know how to play the Suicide Pool, read on.
The basic idea of the Suicide Pool is to pick, for each day of the tournament (in this case the U.S. Open), one player from the OOP who you think is going to win his/her match. If he/she wins his/her match you get to pick a fresh player from the next day's OOP. The end goal, of course, is to progress to the final and pick the eventual winner. There is a catch, in that you can only pick a player once for the entire tournament (so, for instance, you might want to save Federer for a later round).
There are separate games for the ATP and WTA singles draws and you can play one or both of them.
Additional rules:
You have to be a registered member of TAT, which you can easily become by registering here for free.
We will be keeping track of the fortunes of the TWibe. If you want your name to be tracked, please indicate this with the text "TW" in your first day's (and ONLY your first day's) pick. Only include your TW name if it’s different from your username on TAT. Check out the example below:
***********************
Thomaz Bellucci
ptenisnet
TW
***********************
There will be a fresh thread open every day of the tournament, for both the ATP and WTA. You'll also see a thread which tracks updated results once the tournament begins.
You have to get your picks for each day, not round, before play starts for the day. The entry deadline into the contest is the scheduled start of play on Day 1 - Monday, August 30th.
Good luck, TWibe!
So now that we're set for the Open, let's take one last look at Toronto and Cincinnati. Hungover, clearly...
Don't worry, you won't have to hear me yap about those tournaments for the millionth time. Instead, I asked a few of the TWibers I met up with at these tournaments to share some of their favorite memories, and they graciously obliged. Happy reading!
From A_gallivant, aka Andreen:
Last year I was a complete tournament junkie and went to Indian Wells, Miami, Roland Garros, Halle, Eastbourne, Wimbledon, Montreal, Cincinnati, US Open, Shanghai, and the WTFs. [JR: Holy cow, Andreen! You’ll have to guest host a DC and give us a summary of your year in tennis!] Montreal was one my favorite tournaments because of its intimate atmosphere, so I promised myself I’d make the trek to Toronto in '10.
On Tuesday, after two buses and a 15-minute walk, I arrived at the Rexall Centre at York University. As I’m no tourney novice, I quickly bought myself a hot dog outside the stadium for the relatively cheap price of $3, and armed with my two frozen bottles of water, I bought the only reasonable price ticket left for nosebleed seats at $36. I didn’t really care about my seat for the main stadium, as I usually camp out on the outside courts; I like being close to the action and discovering players that rarely get face time on TV.
My initial impression of this tourney site is that it is as intimate as the one in Montreal. They also do a great job of posting player practice schedules not only on the daily printed order of play but also by the practice courts. Sadly, I was only able to get a peek at Federer, but I did manage to catch shirtless Robredo, Almagro, and Verdasco practicing. On my second visit on Thursday, I caught shirtless Feliciano Lopez and David Ferrer, and Marin Cilic. The Spanish boys like to show skin, huh?
On Tuesday, I pretty much camped out on Grandstand. A great perk of this site is that the reserved seats for premium ticket holders are pretty limited, so you can sit in the front row with very little hassle. I discovered this when I wandered over to catch Baghdatis vs. Chardy; that match turned out to be more interesting than I had anticipated. I thought Baghdatis would take it easily, but from the time I sat down it was clear that Baghdatis was irritated. Chardy hung around, forced him to play one more shot, and before I knew it they were going to a third set.
Next, I watched some of Gulbis vs. Soderling, but after just a few games, I missed being close to the action so I went to see Tipsarevic vs. Kohlschreiber. That was short-lived as Tipsy hurt his ankle and had to retire early on. I stuck around for Monfils vs. Devvarman. It wasn’t the cleanest or best played match by either guy, but the crowd was enthusiastic and I enjoyed Monfils’s booming forehand and ridiculous slides. I stayed on for the Verdasco vs. Schwank match but Schwank was playing so poorly that I thought I’d better head home before it got too late. Imagine my surprise when I checked Twitter and saw that Schwank took Verdasco to a third set!
On Thursday, instead of watching Nalbandian vs. Soderling like most folks, I wanted to see Berdych vs. Dolgopolov. I remembered seeing Dolgopolov play Nadal in Madrid on TV without the slightest bit of reserve or fear, and he was just as fearless this time around. Nothing was going right for him, though – lots of flying forehands and netted volleys. I broke my no-stadium rule to catch Federer vs. Llodra which turned out to be a really entertaining, almost light-hearted affair. I was initially worried when Federer lost his serve early on, but Llodra didn’t carry himself like a guy who thought he was going to win it, so the match turned out to be less stressful than I had anticipated. I ventured down to the 100 level to get better pictures of Federer, but I ended up missing the underhanded serve and the shirt exchange in the process!
After that, I watched some of Murray vs. Monfils, then checked out Kohlschreiber vs. Lu. Lu had an awesome cheering section which gave the match a great vibe. When I heard that Monfils bageled Murray in the second set, I hustled back to the stadium to catch what I hoped would be a competitive final set, but by then Monfils had run out of steam. I caught some of Djokovic vs. Hanescu, then left shortly thereafter as I was totally wiped out by the heat and rollercoaster matches from the day.
I have some fun mementos from my Rogers Cup experience: A poster for participating in a roving survey and two pairs of Rogers Cup sweatbands, which I won! Click here to view my photos.
From Shelley:
My top three memories from Cincinnati:
1. What I'll remember most? The great people I met while I was there, including TWibers Jackie and Jenni. The Cincinnati tournament is a wonderful one and I highly recommend that everyone attend it at least once in their life! Mason, OH will always hold a special place in my heart.
 2. One night, I met up with Jackie and her friend Rachel in the hotel lobby to do some "player watching" while Jackie did her write-up of the day's events. [JR: Look at me, so hard-working. ;)] I didn't realize that Rafa was in the hotel restaurant, which is attached to the lobby, so when I saw him I was pretty shocked. Jackie encouraged me to get a photo taken with him, which I was reluctant to do because I didn't want to bother him. As he left the restaurant, he got mobbed by little kids who wanted their big tennis balls signed (it was past 11 PM - why were these kids still up?), but Jackie offered to take the photo for me. She grabbed her camera, and off we went. When I asked him for a picture, his back was to me, but he heard me because he turned around and just smirked. Jackie nabbed a photo just in time before Rafa ran off!
3. Something else I'll remember? Gael Monfils showcasing his dancing skills. The same night I got the photo with Rafa, we saw Gael and his two French friends break dancing right there in the lobby (and it was past midnight, by the way)! He was doing flips and handstands. The whole scene was hilarious. Soon after the break dancing started, I read on Twitter that Gael had just come back from seeing Step Up 3D, so I guess he was inspired by the film!
I have the fondest memories of Cincy 2010 and it was the best tennis tournament I have attended thus far. It's going to be hard to top, that's for sure!
From jb (on behalf of herself and lpb (Susan)):
Our most notable Cincinnati “adventure” occurred the morning we arrived! Susan and I were checking into our hotel, a bit frazzled after getting lost. As we were struggling to get our luggage out of the trunk, she suddenly hissed at me, “Is that Mirka – Mirka and the TWINS?!” I look over, and yep, there’s Mirka, her mom, and a stroller with four little feet sticking out. We figured where there’s the three Federer chicas, there’s bound to be TMF wandering about!
We were very cool until we got to the front desk and promptly began hopping up and down (okay, more like gently vibrating). The lovely woman behind the desk just laughed at us and motioned to her right. There he was, TMF himself, just down the corridor talking to a couple of people. After checking in, we walked right by them as we headed to the ladies room to change into our “tennis clothes.”
Susan, smart self-possessed chica that she is, approached TMF ever so politely and asked if he’d sign her ’09 French Open tickets. He said “Sure” and then when he saw the tickets he stopped and said “Oh, this was a good one, eh?”
While Susan scrambled for a pen, Mirka offered her a Sharpie (the woman must never leave home without one) and TMF went over to a table and carefully signed the tickets. They actually had a conversation about the matches Susan and Alex had seen that week, as well.
Fed was awfully nice, as was Mirka. I’ve got to say, Fed always looks so lean on court, but standing next to him, he’s much more solid; tall, broad-shouldered, and very much the athlete. Mirka is tall and really lovely, in a totally natural, girl next door way. TV does NOT do that woman justice - I’d sue, really. As for the twins … well, they’ve got cute feet!
So I guess it wasn't so bad that we didn't get into the players' hotel!
Brilliant write-ups, ladies! Thank you for sharing your stories, and I'm thrilled to have been a (tiny) part of your tournament experiences.
While we're at it, here are the links to my Toronto and Cincy photo albums (I posted them last week but not many of you were around, so I'm giving it another go). Click here for Toronto and here for Cincy.
Have a good one, TWibe, and enjoy the start of the Open!
[[ I asked our summer intern, Brad Kallet, to cover a qualifying match yesterday while I was pre-occupied with the draw. I hope you enjoy his report. We've continued to have problems with Typepad (see my alert, below), but I'm hoping the kinks are ironed out in time for you to read this and comment - Pete ]]
by Brad Kallet, TW Contributing Writer
Upon arriving to Flushing Meadows this morning, I searched the qualifying schedule in hopes of finding a match that jumped out at me. And then to my delight, there it was—at 11 on Court 13, the young British girl Laura Robson was set to square off against the #2 seed in qualifying, Jelena Dokic.
Robson, who's 16, was touted as a future champion after she rolled through the junior ranks with tremendous success, but she has yet to make her mark as a pro, and that was about two years ago. She's currently ranked No. 220, and has only appeared in the main draw of a Grand Slam on two occasions (Wimbledon in 2009 and 2010)—that, thanks to the habit of awarding wild card entries to promising homegrown talent.
Dokic, on the other hand, is a resurgent, once troubled prodigy who has had a terrific summer. The Aussie, once a world Top 5 player, has lifted her ranking to a very respectable No. 82. A hard-hitting veteran of 27, she's been on fire, winning three sub-tour level tournaments and 15 matches in a row.
It was going to be a battle between the youngster with huge upside and the ex-superstar attempting to regain glory. I was ready to see a war.
Sitting in the front row of the bleachers as the two players awaited the coin toss, I noticed how differently they appeared to approach the match. Robson seemed composed as she stood still with her hands to her side. Dokic, on the other hand, was jumping up and down, swinging her arms in an effort to loosen up and get pumped. She looked like a woman on a mission, or, quite honestly, an animal waiting to pounce on her prey.
Once the first ball went up, the players’ mannerisms prior to the match directly translated to their actions on court. Robson was cool and collected, barely showing any emotion as she hit her picture-perfect strokes. Her opponent, however, exuded aggression. Dokic grunted volubly, and the expression on her face was the equivalent of a growl.
But it was a day when the cooler head would prevail. Robson rolled through the first set rather effortlessly, winning in just 23 minutes, 6-1. Her strokes were only slightly less powerful than Dokic’s, but they were precise, crisp and deadly. She capitalized on her opportunities with beautiful winners down the line, rarely making mistakes. Dokic, however, let some chances pass her by. She consistently put the ball in the net when she had her opponent outmaneuvered. Robson took the second set as well, 6-4. She had just four unforced errors to Dokic’s 10.
Robson won the battle of the serve, raining down 11 aces to Dokic's two. And Dokic hurt her cause by tossing in too many double faults. Robson’s consistent serving helped her take five of the final seven games to close out the match.
After the English sensation whacked an ace that would put her into the second round of qualifying, she allowed herself a discreet fist pump and nonchalantly strolled off the court. She posed for pictures with children and signed autographs before kissing her mother and heading for the trainer’s room.
Is Laura Robson maturing before our very eyes? We’ll find out.
Next up for Robson will be Russian Vesna Manasieva, who lost in the first round of the main draw at last year’s Open. Will Robson pull off another upset in Round 2? If she shows even a glimpse of what she did today, it should be smooth sailing into Round 3.
Typepad has been acting up tonight, and the toolbar appears to have been re-designed. I understand that many posters trying to use Safari or Internet Explorer browsers have been unable to post comments at some point since the last post (Quick, Draw!) was published. Please bear with us if this difficulty persists; we've filed a help ticket with Typepad.
-- Pete
[Update from Andrew: as at 5pm ET on Friday, the bug still isn't fixed. Hang in there - this is outside the control of TW, and Tennis.com. The only comments that appear to be getting through are from posters using Firefox - Chrome, IE and Safari appear to have issues.]
 by Pete Bodo
New York—The USTA conducted the U.S. Open draw this morning, sans Novak Djokovic. He was supposed to join Kim Clijsters (right) as a player representative, but was last heard from while lost on the Sheridan Parkway or the Cross Bronx Expressway en route to the ceremony.
I know the highway system in the New York boroughs, and trust me, if you're from Serbia, you don't want to have to find your way around out this way. Even if you're from Connecticut, you don't. And the tournament gave Djokovic a courtesy car of his own to use during the event. Like giving a toddler a loaded gun. Good luck, Novak, you could make Pittsburgh by nightfall.
Anyway Clijsters was obliged to pinch-hit as the celebrity name-puller for both men and women. So let's get right to the nub of it, then I'll get out of your road so you can populate the comment section.
Men's Singles:
Top quarter: No. 1 seeded Rafael Nadal's quarter could be described as the killing fields for Spanish players, given that it also includes Rafa's Spanish brethren Feliciano Lopez, David Ferrer, Daniel Gimeno-Traver, Pere Riba and Fernando Verdasco (seeded eight). A bunch of Spaniards are going to get blown to pieces, often by their countrymen. What is it, some kind of "Stop Spain!" conspiracy? The quarter also includes Ernests Gulbis and David Nalbandian.
The most dangerous of the those players (Verdasco, Nalbandian, Gulbis, Ferrer) are in the bottom half, and will battle it out for the privilege of playing Nadal in the quarters. The main obstacle in the top-seed's path to the quarters is Ivan Ljubicic (seeded 15)
Let the great "cupcake draw" debate begin!
Second quarter: In his half of the quarter, No. 4 seed Andy Murray may have to contend with Stanislas Wawrinka, whose game has fallen off in the last year, and a dangerous favorite son at the U.S. Open, Sam Querrey. But the guy must likely to distress him, IMO, is No. 14 seed Nico Almagro.
The bottom half of the quarter has some fast-court stud ponies: Long John Isner (although he may pull out of the tournament with a bad ankle before Monday's start), Tomas Berdych (No. 7), unseeded Michael Llodra, Radek Stepanek and Mikhail Youzhny (No. 12) among them. I think Murray likes it just fine where he is, all things given.
Third quarter: Nikolay Davydenko is a very soft No. 6 seed, which is good news for Andy Roddick (No. 9) despite the loss Davydenko inflicted in Roddick in Miami a few years back. Gael Monfils is in the top half of the quarter as well, along with a guy who could do much better than his No. 26 seeding indicates, Brazil's Thomaz Bellucci.
The bottom of that quarter appears to belong to Djokovic, seeded third (if he ever finds his way off the Major Deegan Expressway), but Marcos Baghdatis and Mardy Fish, two players who have been on fire this summer, are on track to battle it out for the right to challenge Djokovic. James Blake is in the bottom of this quarter, via a wild card, and with any luck he'll get past Kristof Vliegen and face either a qualifier or No. 30 seed Juan Monaco. Does Blake have another run left in him? He's set up for one if he's up to it.
Bottom quarter: This is Roger Federer-land, and the No. 2 seed's most powerful challenger would appear to be No. 5 seed Robin Soderling. That's pretty powerful. But I kind of like that Rafa gets Berdych to contend with in his half, while Federer gets Soderling—albeit one round earlier (in the quarters).
 Soderling is in the top half of this quarter, along with recuperating but rusty Fernando Gonzalez (No. 27). Beyond that, there's Marin Cilic, a surprisingly uninspired performer in majors this year. But Soderling might have to watch out for Taylor Dent, who hasn't quite matched his goals after returning from back surgery, but is capable of inspired play—especially in his native major. They could meet in the second round.
In the bottom half, Federer is looking at two former U.S. Open championship match contenders and world No. 1s in his path: Lleyton Hewitt and Juan Carlos Ferrero, along with the next highest seed after him, No. 13 Jurgen Melzer. Why do I think The Mighty Fed doesn't have a whole hail of a lot to worry about? Neither Hewitt nor Ferrero is as dangerous as he once was; in fact, Federer is nothing less than an albatross around Hewitt's neck. Can a Paul-Henri Mathieu or Dmitry Tursunov upset the applecart? My gut reaction is, Naw. . .
So let the great "cupcake draw II" debate begin.
On the whole, I'd say we're about as nicely set up for a Federer vs. Nadal final as anyone could hope.
Women's singles:
I'm just going to look at the two halves here, because I'm pressed for time (We're podcasting tonight from the Taste of Tennis event at the W Hotel in Manhattan). Besides, with Serena Williams out of action, what would ordinarily deserve a pamphlet of a preview suddenly could get the full War and Peace treatment and still not mean anything.
The field, IMO, is that wide open.
Top: Forgive me if i fail to give credit where credit is due, and I'm willing to eat crow on this one if Caroline Wozniacki wins the tourament. But she looks to me like a most vulnerable top seed—even more vulnerable than was Dinara Safina last year. It once seemed an accident of history that the top seed at a major was a woman who had yet to win her first major, now it seems almost a requirement for the position. That's the WTA tour for you these days, and that's not necessarily a complaint.
In any event, Wozniacki has crashed and burned—and badly—early in the second week in the first three Grand Slam events this year. That could happen again, because the draw hasn't been especially kind to her: she's targeted to play resurgent Maria Sharapova in the fourth round, although Aravane Rezai could trip up 'Pova one round earlier.
Li Na (No. 8) is likely to be a tough quarterfinal for Wozniacki, and former champion Svetlana Kuznetsova has been showing signs of life again, too. Also in this half: Yanina Wickmayer, Vera Zvonareva (No. 7) and Jelena Jankovic. If you can make heads or tails of it as a handicapper, be my guest.
Bottom: Venus Williams (No. 3) is in pretty good shape. On form, she would play Francesca "I don't care about nothin' since I won Roland Garros!" Schiavone (No. 6) in the quarters, and who wouldn't jump all over that? But Victoria Azarenka (No. 10) is in that quarter as well, as is Flavia Pennetta. They might complicate things.
In the bottom quarter, Kim Clijsters (No. 2) could meet Slammin' Sammy Stosur (No. 5) in the quarters, but Stosur is coming off injury and hasn't played much this summer. It's just as likely that Clijsters stiffest test will come in her (lower) half of the quarter, which also features a former No. 1 emerging from a terrible slump (Ana Ivanovic, unseeded), and unpredictable but volatile Marion Bartoli (No. 13).
Elena Dementieva is also in Clijsters' way, if not until the quarters. And while Dementieva has struggled lately, you have to like her (or Azarenka) as a finalist should Clijsters or Venus Williams falter. The absence of Serena Williams is bound to embloden that entire class of Top 10 players who have yet to win a major. It takes a brave soul to make a call in the WTA draw this year.
Anything can happen, and probably will. . .
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