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As Caroline Wozniacki prepares to play for the WTA Championships title (a win there would be Wozniacki's most significant title to date), we're entitled to wonder: Is she the next dominant WTA champion, plucking titles off the Grand Slam tree as if they were low-hanging fruit (see "G" for Graf, or "S" for Serena), or the next...Elena Dementieva?

Dementieva stole some of Wozniacki's thunder this week, choosing to retire from tennis at the same time that Wozniacki sewed up the year-end No. 1 ranking. So one blonde is out, one blonde is in, maintaining a tradition while also paring it down. Wozniacki, of course, has already surpassed Dementieva's career-high ranking of No. 3. But can she build a comparable resume, which includes two Olympic medals (including a gold in singles at the 2008 Beijing Games), nine semifinal—or better—finishes at Grand Slam events, and a 22-5 singles record in Fed Cup?

Two of those Fed Cup wins came in the 2005 final against a strong French squad. Dementieva put on a master class. She beat Mary Pierce and Amelie Mauresmo in singles, and partnered with Dinara Safina to win the critical fifth doubles (defeating the same two women Dementieva subdued in singles) in one of her career-best moments. And it was a championship tie played away from Dementieva's Moscow home, at the home of the French Open, Stade Roland Garros. In a way, that performance is emblematic of the realities that govern the WTA (as well as ATP): If you're not winning majors, you're chopped liver, at least as far as broad acclaim goes. But really, there's a lot more to having as long and rich a career as was Dementieva's.

A player like Dementieva—ask the next cab driver you hail if he recognizes the name—wins an awful lot of tennis matches. Many of those wins are resonant and certainly deeply satisfying. Kind of like writing a novel that's highly praised by your peers, and the most discerning of critics, but fails to crack the all-important best seller list, or attract a big, fat option deal from some movie producer. Why not me?, you may find yourself wondering. To which the only real answer is, Who knows? The prize-money check may balm what wounds a Slamless pro sustains, as does the respect of her peers and the cognescenti. But there's a bigger prize out there, and everyone knows it.

But it's easy to place so much emphasis on the majors, especially when it comes to players not our own. As important as the majors are, they're also to some degree a least-common denominator, universally used to judge players in who we don't necessarily have some vested interest. When you judge a player by her success at the majors—and it's not as if Dementieva has been a total Grand Slam flop—it's a little bit like adopting money earned as a baseline measure of success in business. (Or in the arts, although we're not supposed to say that. But would you really love, say, a Julian Schnabel—or even know who the hail he is—if his work wasn't going for $5 million a pop?) Or put it this way: If that cabbie to whom you put that question about Dementieva picked you up in Moscow, I'd bet dollars to donuts that he or she certainly would recognize her name and her accomplishments. But would he know the name Francesca Schiavone, or Gaston Gaudio?

Wozniacki in some ways has a tougher row to hoe than did Dementieva, despite having jumped out to a significantly better start. Dementieva, who's 29, didn't hit her career-high ranking until last season; Wozniacki, ranked No. 1, is all of 20. With 12 singles titles to her credit, Wozniacki is already just four short of Dementieva's career haul (16). And despite their age difference (even top players are generally thought to need a significant period of apprenticeship before ascending to No. 1, even if they win majors long before), Wozniacki has a winning head-to-head record against Dementieva (4-3).

Those statistics are prohibitively positive for Wozniacki. Yet somehow if I ask myself, Will Wozniacki have a better career than Dementieva?, I find myself balking at making what would be the obvious reply, and why that's so is a question that's more easily answered than the original one.

Dementieva had the misfortune to be a contemporary of Venus and Serena Williams. She played Serena surprisingly close, finishing 5-7 (and who can forget that epic Wimbledon win by Serena, 8-6 in the third, in last year's semis?), but had more trouble with Venus (3-9). Dementieva played Martina Hingis well seven times (3-4), but she was generally crushed by Lindsay Davenport (5-11). Against other Grand Slam champs or No. 1 players, Dementieva was 3-7 against Jelena Jankovic, 4-2 versus Ana Ivanovic, and 6-5 against Dinara Safina. Dementieva was hammered 11-3 by Kim Clijsters and even more savaged by Justine Henin, 11-2. She struggled against Svetlana Kuzentsova (4-7) but fared slightly better against Mauresmo, going 6-10.

By my unreliable math, Dementieva was 44-74 against the best players of two generations. Just for kicks, I checked to see if she'd ever played Steffi Graf, and came up blank. I don't have the patience to add up all the Grand Slam titles accounted for by the women represented in this head-to-head, but suffice it to say that it's mildy surprising that a woman who has a better than .500 record against the cream of the crop didn't hit paydirt on at least one occasion at a major.

Wozniacki is 0-2 against Serena Williams, and 0-4 against Serena's sister Venus. She won the only match she played against Mauresmo, lost her only match with Kim Clijsters (whom she'll face today) as well as her one encounter with Henin. She's 1-2 vs. Ivanovic and 0-4 vs. Jankovic. Davenport won the only time she played Wozniacki, and Hingis crushed her twice. Safina won her only match against Wozniacki. Wozniacki is 3-2 against Kuznetsova. All told, by my count, she's 5-19 against the best players she's faced, and two of those players (Jankovic and Safina) have, like Wozniacki, failed thus far to win a major.

Five of 24 is a far cry from 44-74, but it's also true that Wozniacki is at the very beginning of her career; I doubt that Dementieva's winning percentage was much higher against the best players at a comparable age. But the critical detail is that Dementieva was nowhere near the No. 1 ranking when she was 20 (she finished 2001 ranked 15th, and actually fell back four places the following year). So what we have in Wozniacki is the apprentice in charge of the workshop, and we'll just have to wait to see how that all works out. It's absurd to challenge or attempt to discredit that No. 1 ranking. It's a fact, although we can while away hours discussing how it came to pass. But the burdens that are passed along to the player who's no. 1 are not to be dismissed.

The great advantage Wozniacki enjoys, which Dementieva never had, is that she's free to write her personal history on what looks more and more like the proverbial tabula rasa. Her path isn't exactly strewn with roadblocks. Three of her main rivals—Jankovic, Ivanovic and Safina—have one major between them. Maria Sharapova hasn't been the same since her shoulder injury of over a year ago, and the Williams sisters are banged up, their future uncertain. Clijsters returned, but has put up exactly the kind of results you can expect from a part-time employee who's secure—she appears to be working only because she needs to fill her days and the money, which after all, is pretty darned good. Henin has retreated to lick the wounds inflicted during her brief return to the fray. Hail, even Kuznetsova's future is clouded, although I imagine Wozniacki wouldn't mind battling her, given how Sveta has provided Caro with more than 50 percent of her wins over top players.

Dementieva is a superior athlete to Wozniacki, but then tennis isn't a game ruled by athleticism, even if it's the value-added element that tends to lift great champions above merely good ones. That raises an interesting point: Was Dementieva a better "athlete" than "tennis player?" And if so, does it mean that Wozniacki, who's clearly more tennis player than athlete, ought to fare better in the long term?

Wozniacki hasn't exactly lit it up at the majors (the U.S. Open excepted), but she's demonstrated a great deal of consistency—more than was ever shown by Dementieva. In tennis, winning begets winning; it's a simple as that. And Dementieva's failure to win a major is less of a comment on her athletic abilities than on some flawed component of her make-up as a tennis player—a shortcoming she was able to overcome on only a few occasions, like the Beijing Olympics, or in that Fed Cup final against France. Call it choking, call it falling prey to a bad day on an important day, or call it the quality of competition—it amounts to the same thing: An inability to raise her game and tighten down the mental screws when it most counted. The failure of a habitual consistency.

So there is Wozniacki's position in a nutshell. The WTA is there for the taking, and Wozniacki has shown signs of being the kind of player who can put the hammer down on her rivals, week-in, week-out. But she has yet to prove herself by the most reliable measure of all, winning the biggest of titles. The opportunity for her is enormous, partly because at the moment there is a surprising lack of potential resistance. And until we see a player whose combination of desire, dedication, fitness and talent exceeds that of Wozniacki's present rivals, it's her game to lose.

Hey, TWibe. It's good to be back following my little hiatus. Many thanks to white line fever for pinch hitting as Deuce Club host last week. Fantastic work, wilfy! I'll be bugging you again soon, I'm sure.

I had planned on another hodgepodge DC, but that changed as of this morning, when I was bludgeoned by the news of Elena Dementieva's retirement. Check out the video here.

Earlier today, Bobby so eloquently summed up my reaction to the development. Here are a few additional thoughts:

I'm left now with this feeling that we took Dementieva for granted. She was one of those constants, someone you counted on always being there, running down every ball. I don't want to imagine the WTA without her. It wasn't a cakewalk being a fan, but that almost made the experience more worthwhile—more humanizing. You felt like you had to support her through the ups and downs, like you couldn't leave her hanging. And that she would too often come up maddeningly short only made her victories ever more gratifying, both for her and for us.

When I first heard the news, I was in such a daze I couldn't figure out how to honor her here. I figured I'd start by searching for Dementieva's name in the Deuce Club archives to see what I'd previously written about her. Then the memories came flooding back.

Recognizing her as my "most improved player" of 2008 . . . Reveling in seeing her up close (seven rows in?) in Ashe Stadium, playing her heart out even in a losing effort . . . Catching her sign a fan's ball in Indian Wells before a practice session, with such warmth and patience that you'd swear she'd just given her first autograph . . . Standing next to her at a salad bar as she ordered food for her mom, as I've done so many times . . . Waking up in the middle of the night to watch her play Henin in Melbourne and staring agape for the entire first set . . .

And of course there's the Olympic gold, her Fed Cup heroics, the anxiety-inducing thrillers ('09 Wimbledon, vs. Serena, anyone?).

Most of all, I'll remember her athleticism, those powerful groundies, the grunt!, her effortless beauty, her class. We'll miss you, Elena.

If you haven't already in the earlier post, feel free to share your Dementieva memories here. If you're looking for lighter fare, and I don't blame you if you are, consider these topics: the World Series (is anyone watching?), the wretched Project Runway finale (Mondo wuz robbed!), Halloween (are you dressing up?).

I didn’t root for Elena Dementieva because she’s perfect. If anything I rooted for her because she’s not—just like the rest of us—but tried anyway.

I rarely root for or against anyone, hoping simply for good tennis. But I have my soft spots, and Elena Dementieva is one of them. (For the record, Venus Williams is another.) This doesn’t mean I agree with everything she's said or done. And I appreciate several qualities of hers in other players, too. I’ve written about those players, or will eventually. This piece though is about Elena Dementieva…and maybe a little about me.

Not everyone who plays professional tennis likes professional tennis. (Just ask Andre Agassi.) Dementieva seemed to love it. She watches (for fun!) and has in the past mentioned doing something tennis-related after she retires. As a fan who loves tennis, it’s fun to watch a tennis player who shares a similar affection.

Dementieva has achieved at least the 80 percent of success that is, it’s said, just showing up. She played her first tour main draw match 13 years ago. By this year’s French Open she had the longest consecutive Grand Slam appearance streak of any active player—46 straight Slams. Think about that: She was healthy enough—and good enough—to play in Grand Slam main draws for more than 11 straight years.

Her ability to keep playing at that level likely had something to do with her desire to keep improving her level. After losing to Sam Stosur at the French Open last year, she complimented Stosur’s “impressive” play and said that to compete, she herself needed to work on her “physical condition, to get in a better shape.” Because, you know, fitness has always been such a challenge for Dementieva. Yes, sometimes it was too much. Heck, the woman tried to improve during matches—isn’t that what all those air forehands and serves were about?

She plays offense well, aided by some of the fiercest groundstrokes in the business. She plays defense well, aided by some of the best movement around. (Sania Mirza said Dementieva's movement is one of the tennis skills she admires most.) And her return of return of serve (yes, I made that up) can be a thing of beauty. Don’t take my word for it; watch last year’s Wimbledon semifinal against Serena Williams.

Of course, there’s that serve, her greatest weakness. I suspect it’s another reason I rooted for her. She had a glaring problem with a huge part of her game—like so many of us recreational players do—yet she still managed to play with the big girls. Sometimes I wonder if she succeeded not despite her serve, but because of it. Like a blind man whose other senses get sharper as a result of the blindness, perhaps the rest of her game improved to compensate for that downright wacky serve.

She first entered the Top 10 nearly a decade ago and has consistently been in the Top 20 for the past seven years. She reached a career-high singles ranking of No. 3 last year and her career-high doubles ranking of No. 5 a few years before that. Her resume includes Olympic gold and silver medals, a Fed Cup title for Russia, four Grand Slam finals (two in singles, two in doubles) and 16 tournament titles.

Only five active players have won more titles, and they’ve all won majors. It’s often suggested that she’s the best player never to have won one. Several key stats suggest that’s true, among active players at least.

What those stats also suggest is that she’s one of the game's best players—with or without a major. Having a higher career win percentage than a Grand Slam winner isn’t the same as having a Grand Slam title. But is the stat worth remembering? I think so.

She was asked about the lack of a Grand Slam title and that serve...again and again and again. Yet she rarely seemed bothered by it. Until maybe Beijing a few weeks ago. Personally, I wouldn’t have waited that long.

But she managed sometimes to bring humor to the situation, as she did after her loss to Stosur at last year’s French Open. Asked whether the loss was “one of your bigger disappointments here in Paris,” she thought for a second and replied, laughing, “I had so many.”

Marion Bartoli, no stranger to honesty, said Elena Dementieva is her favorite player. Bartoli’s not alone. Dementieva has won both the Karen Krantzcke Sportsmanship Award and the Tour Fan Favorite Singles Player of the Year. I haven’t interacted with her much in press conferences, but one time when I did, I sat across from a video blogger so taken with her that he turned red and prayed she wouldn’t notice. (No, I didn’t make this up. He told me so himself.)

I rooted for Dementieva because she’s noisy when she loses a point—I’ve never watched a match she played without wishing I spoke Russian—but rather quiet when she wins one. When her opponent hits a good shot she can show her appreciation, as she did yesterday in Doha, when Stosur hit one in the third-set tiebreaker.

I especially rooted for her because, during the handshake, she smiles little when she wins and, like Venus Williams or Maria Sharapova, smiles big when she loses.

Soon after hearing about Dementieva’s retirement, I discussed the dire situation with a friend (who happens to be a diehard Serena Williams fan). She humored me as I got louder and louder, faster and faster and then interjected with a question.

After a while you don’t necessarily watch your favorites play tennis because of the tennis they play. Heck, sometimes you watch despite it. (Dinara Safina fans, you know what I mean.) Chances are, your interest started with some match, forehand or tactic then grew into something bigger, less tangible, more inexplicable. There’s a reason ‘fan’ is short for ‘fanatic’—the word once meant ‘insane person’.

I certainly felt like one during last year’s Wimbledon semifinal after watching Dementieva hit that backhand crosscourt when a down-the-line shot would have gotten her to the final. It was a tough loss for her, but from what I’ve heard and read, she was gracious in her post-match press conference only a half hour later. I can’t forget the missed opportunity against a champion who doles out so few of them, but I also try to remember the fabulous tennis and her attitude afterwards.

Now, as Elena Dementieva clears out her cubicle or does whatever it is retiring tennis players do, I hope it’s true what she told Amelie Mauresmo when Mauresmo retired, and I hope she remembers those words—that life doesn’t end when tennis ends and she’ll succeed at whatever comes next, because talented people are talented in everything.

Hi everyone. Looks like a new thread is necessary, so here it is. We're through two days of Doha and the standings are as follows:

(Match won/lost : Set won/lost)

White Group

1. Vera Zvonareva (2-0 : 4-0)
2. Kim Clijsters (1-0 : 2-0)
3. Victoria Azarenka (0-1 : 0-2)
4. Jelena Jankovic (0-2 : 0-4)

Maroon Group

1. Samantha Stosur (2-0 : 4-0)
2. Caroline Wozniacki (1-1 : 2-2)
3. Francesca Schiavone (0-1 : 0-2)
4. Elena Dementieva (0-1 : 0-2)

Not too much middle ground so far; just one player, Wozniacki, has both won and lost a set. Zvonareva, Stosur -- looking good. Jankovic, Dementieva -- not so much. Clijsters? Too early to tell, but her match tomorrow against Azarenka will be revealing. I'm looking forward to that tussle the most. Before that, however, Stosur takes on Dementieva and Wozniacki faces Schiavone.

If Stosur clinches a semifinal spot tomorrow (not precisely sure how that happens, but I'm sure some of you know) she'll essentially have a day-and-a-half of rest before her Saturday match. That will be a welcome respite after three straight days of play. As for Clijsters and Azarenka, they'll have to play five consecutive days if they are to win. Nothing they haven't done before, but if squared off in the final against a much fresher opponent, like Stosur, that could prove important. And Sam has been solid so far; I thought today's win was a big one for her.

So what I'm saying is, I like Stosur's chances. But we're only halfway through the round-robin portion of the tournament. Chat about the rest of it here; Pete will be back later this week.

(match won/lost : set won/lost)

White Group

1. Vera Zvonareva (2-0 : 4-0)
2. Kim Clijsters (1-0 : 2-0)
3. Victoria Azarenka (0-1 : 0-2)
4. Jelena Jankovic (0-2 : 0-4)

Maroon Group

1. Samantha Stosur (2-0 : 4-0)
2. Caroline Wozniacki (1-1 : 2-2)
3. Francesca Schiavone (0-1 : 0-2)
4. Elena Dementieva (0-1 : 0-2)

Before talking Doha and data, let’s talk Venus and Serena Williams. They're the elephants in the room, even if they're not in the desert. The sisters qualified for the WTA Championships but aren’t playing due to injuries. If you’re not sure that’s a loss, or how much they mean to this sport, consider something as simple as the short WTA press release bios of the women who are playing: Nearly every one included a reference to one or both sisters.

With Justine Henin also out (she qualified as an alternate but is injured as well), Doha is a competition for best of the rest. That isn’t meant to disrespect the ladies there—a player could do much worse than be known as the best after Serena or, for that matter, Venus and Henin. After all, the Doha draw includes two Grand Slam winners, and the others who qualified beat out Maria Sharapova, Svetlana Kuznetsova and Ana Ivanovic, all of whom have won majors. All but one of the entrants has been in a Grand Slam final, and two players, Caroline Wozniacki and Vera Zvonareva, are competing to leave Doha with the year-end No. 1 ranking.

Now let’s do the numbers and include the Williams sisters and the alternates, Li Na and Shahar Peer. (You just know one or both of them will end up playing.) First, let's consider singles win percentage, which indicates who did the winning, regardless of how much they played. Here’s that list in descending order.

Serena Williams – 86.2%
Kim Clijsters – 85.7%
Venus Williams – 84.4%
Caroline Wozniacki – 79.7%
Vera Zvonareva – 73.0%
Sam Stosur – 72.6%
Elena Dementieva – 71.4%
Victoria Azarenka – 69.5%
Shahar Peer – 69.1%
Li Na – 66.7%
Francesca Schiavone – 66.1%
Jelena Jankovic – 65.5%

Let’s also look at average prize money per singles match won. Call me crass for bringing dollars into this, but if the win percentage tells us who won often, this tells us who won the big matches. (Disagree? Want to suggest a different measure? Let me know in the comments.) Here goes, again in descending order. (No, I didn’t make up Serena’s figure. And, yes, that’s about the median price of a single-family home in the South.)

Serena Williams – $148,280
Kim Clijsters – $99,151
Vera Zvonareva – $56,536
Francesca Schiavone – $55,404
Caroline Wozniacki – $54,348
Venus Williams – $54,099
Jelena Jankovic – $44,820
Sam Stosur – $35,952
Li Na – $29,631
Elena Dementieva – $28,667
Victoria Azarenka – $26,307
Shahar Peer – $19,802

Now about the groups: Maybe the divas haven’t been split up, but the top two seeds, Russians and Grand Slam winners have been. Take a look.

[1] Caroline Wozniacki (DEN)
[4] Francesca Schiavone (ITA)
[5] Samantha Stosur (AUS)
[7] Elena Dementieva (RUS)

This group includes the draw’s youngest and oldest players, Wozniacki and Schiavone. It also includes the two players making their year-end championship singles debuts, Schiavone and Stosur.

Based on head-to-head records, Schiavone is the weakest of the eight: She has a winning record against only one other player in Doha. Perhaps luckily, that player, Wozniacki, is in her group. Schiavone is probably happier, though, about who isn't in this group—Clijsters and Zvonareva. She’s 0-21 against them.

Dementieva has the most winning head-to-heads against others in this group (two versus one for the others). Yet she has a poor record at the WTA Championships, where she’s playing, impressively, for the 10th time in 11 years.

[2] Vera Zvonareva (RUS)
[3] Kim Clijsters (BEL)
[6] Jelena Jankovic (SRB)
[8] Victoria Azarenka (BLR)

This is the stronger group at least partly for one reason—Kim Clijsters. She has a winning head-to-head against everyone who's playing Doha. In fact, she’s never lost to Schiavone, Stosur or Wozniacki. (Think they’re glad to be in the other group?)

Clijsters won this tournament in 2002 and 2003. Zvonareva, having a career year, was a finalist in 2008. Jankovic has the worst winning percentage of all eight players this year, but note that she has a favorable head-to head record against five other players. Azarenka has perhaps the barest resume in the group, but she won Moscow just days ago. And you know what they say about winning begetting winning.

Those are the numbers, and hopefully they give you an idea of what happened this year. You’ve seen enough stock prospectuses and women’s tennis though to know they don’t tell you much about what happens next. But you have Doha for that.

‘Big babe tennis’ is about strong women who know how to smack a tennis ball harder than the rest. The Top 100 is loaded with them—Maria Sharapova, of course, but also Elena Dementieva, Nadia Petrova, Dinara Safina and, more recently, Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova and Alisa Kleybanova. Yet it’s a Russian not on this list who has the best ranking of them all right now. Today, Vera Zvonareva took the No. 2 spot from a big babe you may have heard of, Serena Williams. Small babes can play, too.

It’s a career-high ranking for Zvonareva and a bit of a surprise for many of us, partly because we’ve been busy obsessing over another not-so-big babe’s rise to the top spot. So how did Zvonareva do it? I mean, she’s short and everything. (All right, she’s not short, but at just under 5’8” she’s shorter than 12 of the 17 Top 100 Russians.) She was ranked outside the Top 20 only a few months ago. Sure, she won an Olympic bronze medal and three Grand Slam doubles titles in past years, and reached two Grand Slam finals in a row this year. But No. 2 in the world…really?

You’re not immediately sure what Zvonareva did, but you know she did something right. It’s fitting, because that’s how she can make her opponents feel when she plays well. Ask Melanie Oudin. After her quarterfinal loss to Zvonareva in Charleston, Oudin seemed as discombobulated as the word sounds. “I did not hit a clean ball…and she really made me hit like that because she started changing everything up on me,” she said, more breathlessly than usual. “I started shanking. I would hit the tip of my racquet and all kinds of stuff.”

Zvonareva’s got skills beyond the ability to vary spin and pace and make Melanie Oudin shank a lot. Like the know-how to hit a backhand down the line or crosscourt without setting up all that differently. “It’s very hard to read the shot,” said Kim Clijsters after her fourth-round loss to Zvonareva at Wimbledon. “Especially when she goes down the line, it’s like a last-second.”

Now the results are paying off for her, literally. Zvonareva, who turned pro a decade ago, earned nearly 30 percent of her career prize money this year alone. That might have a little something to do with her win percentage: For her career it’s around 68 percent; for the year it’s around 73 percent. By comparison, this year’s win percentage for Francesca Schiavone, who herself had a year worth celebrating with a naked run down the Champs-Élysées, is 66 percent.

There have been bumps along the way, of course. Last February, Zvonareva reached a career-high No. 5, but an ankle injury tripped her up, causing her to miss the French Open and struggle for at least half the year. At the start of the year it wasn’t clear if she’d get that momentum back. She says she’s fully recovered now, and perhaps the memories of that injury and others before it have made her more excited to be out there practicing, which has made it easier for her to do all this winning.

There have also been some coaching changes. The much-Googled, oft-ogled Sergey Demekhin is her third coach in the past year. Things seem to be going well though. She said he’s gotten familiar enough with her game to give actionable advice and comfortable enough with her to know how to give it.

And, yes, there’s been some on-court wackiness. We’ve seen tears, like the ones partner Elena Vesnina spent a whole set of the Wimbledon doubles final wiping away. We’ve seen racquet-smashing and, for good measure, wicker-kicking. Yet the drama’s become a smaller part of the bigger Zvonareva picture. Commentators who begin and end with “emotional meltdowns” do her an injustice…and not enough homework. This year she’s shown that she’s more than the sum of the racquets she’s smashed and the tears she’s shed.

Off court, that’s easy to see. Zvonareva is composed, articulate and downright nerdy. (She’s working on a second degree, in International Economic Relations no less.) I’ve found those qualities also make her an excellent interviewee. She’s surprisingly open, attentive and voluble. (Sometimes she’ll go on longer than you expect, and just when you start wondering if she’s answering the right question, she’ll wrap it up with a reference to the question.) That’s been true even when she’s lost and acted up in the process, as she did in that one-sided Charleston final against an unbeatable Sam Stosur.

Zvonareva came to her post-match interview within 10 minutes of that match ending. A dozen or so of us sat in the small room, saying nothing at first, mindful perhaps of the score (and the wicker). Less comfortable with silence than I should be (according to my sisters anyway), I finally blurted out a question. As usual, Zvonareva spoke calmly and at length. Was this really the same woman we saw on court just 10 minutes ago? She certainly wasn’t Svetlana Kuznetsova glumly mumbling after her Cincinnati loss, or Yanina Wickmayer uttering monosyllabic responses after hers. I may not have agreed with some of Zvonareva’s answers, but I appreciated that she gave them her full attention.

The thing is, the way Zvonareva carries herself off court and the way she can sometimes melt down on court both owe more than a little to the same quality—her perfectionism. Zvonareva wants to do everything as well as she can, regardless of the results. A perfectionist “squeezed like a lemon” can stay on YouTube forever—or maybe become the No. 2 tennis player in the world.

Hey there, TWibe. I won't be around tonight as I'm traveling this weekend, but I made sure to prepare something special for you in my absence.

But first, who among us is attending the ATP World Tour Finals in London this year? I've heard that a number of TWibers are attending, and it'd be neat if we could get a little gathering together. If you plan on going, let us know in the Comments.

Now on to today's topic, brought to you by my great friend and occasional TW poster white line fever. He hit this one out of the park (still have baseball on the brain). Read on and enjoy!

Hi everyone! White line fever here, aka WLF, aka Wilf/Wilfy, etc. (although I will allow you to choose your very own terms of endearment if you play nice). Of course, for some of you, your chosen nickname may be “Who?” as I've been less of a regular poster 'round these parts for some time. But I was once a hardcore poster before I became irregular, and luckily Jackie has remembered me long enough to offer me my second pinch-hitting job at the Deuce Club. Thanks, Jax!

Anyway, Halloween is coming soon, and that got me thinking a bit about superstitions, rites, and rituals. Now, even the most casual tennis fan among us knows that many players cloak their on-court activities within various layers of both pre-, inter- and post-match superstitions and rituals (three words: Rafa's water bottles).

But in this DC, I'm more interested in what rituals—if any—you as fans may employ as you watch your faves duke it out on the court. What hocus pocus might you undertake in hopes that you will be the magical, mystical, and unreasonable (you know they can't hear you when you shout at them on your TV or computer screen, don't you?) reason that your player wins on that day?

Now, it wouldn't be fair for me to ask you to divulge such a thing without doing the same. So in the interest of full disclosure, here are some (but perhaps not all) of the ridiculous things I do while watching a tense match unfold:

1. The Lucky Position: No matter where I'm watching a match, whether live or on TV, I have this belief—especially on big points—that if I fold my arms in such a way and put the big toe of my left foot on top of my right foot just beneath its big toe, then “my” player will win the point (and don't worry, I make a shoes-or-sneakers allotment for public displays of this behavior).

2. Window Pains: If I'm watching a match on a computer stream, the layout of the various windows on my desktop starts to have magical powers. If the player I'm supporting begins winning a few points in a row, I become increasingly hesitant about changing the size or position of any open windows lest it “cause” a momentum shift.

3. The Scoreboard Staredown: Sometimes, when there's no stream or TV coverage available and I like a player so much that I've resorted to scoreboarding his or her match, I start to believe that if I stare at one number enough I can—through force of mind-power and non-blinking—will the scoreboard to change to the “right” number. Mind you, it's always whatever the next logical number in the score would be—I don't expect my mind to work miracles, you know!

There are more, but you probably think I'm enough of a lunatic as is. So allow me to defensively disclaim: I'm fully aware that none of these methods actually, you know, work. If they did, then the top five ranked ATP players in the would be Henri Kontinen (that's him in the photo above), Roger Federer, Daniel Brands, Samuel Groth and Ricardas Berankis. I have eclectic tastes, OK?

And, interestingly, I don't carry any of the above viewing quirks into any sport other than tennis, and I'm a fan of many. Nor am I superstitious in any other area of my life. But I guess tennis is such an enchanting sport that it turns many of my viewing experiences into occult comedy. Or, at the very least, infuses me with an uncharacteristic belief in the power of juju.

Wilfy, you've outdone yourself. (Reminds me of how I used to watch Bulls games.) Thank you so much for subbing—we all appreciate it!

Howdy, everyone. I'm heading for the Milk River Country in northern Montana bright and early tomorrow morning, and I can't hardly wait to look out of the window as the plane approaches Great Falls (you'll know where the city got its name, if you've read one of the greatest adventure stories every told, The Journal of Lewis and Clark), to view the upper Missouri river as it bi-sects one of my favorite western towns.

I'm going where the only electronics that will matter are my hand-held GPS, although I wouldn't want to mis-represent this as a trip into the wilderness. It's just that out where you measure the size of properties by the number of "sections" (each one comprised of one square mile), as opposed to acres, it's pretty easy to get turned around on your way back to the ranch house for dinner. Meanwhile, either this message or another will appear every day, to give you a new place to talk tennis, while I'm gone. I'll be back in a week, after which it will be business as usual. Happy trails.

Yesterday, I listed five things I'd like to see more of before we call it quits for the year. Today, I'm going to focus on five things of which I've had enough for one year, perhaps even time immemorial, otherwise known as that long period between the resolution of the Australian Open and Roland Garros.

As I'm heading off for a week in Montana tomorrow, with no access to any sort of electronics (other than a hand-held GPS), let's get right to it. And don't worry, you'll have a fresh table set for your comments here each day while I am away, although the post might be a simple, repeated "vacation message."

5. Images of Rafael Nadal throwing his celebratory uppercut, knee up around his waist. It seems that photo editors never get tired of that shot, anymore than they do of the trophy-biting photo. I don't mind the latter so much. Sure, it's outlived its use-by date, but it's also become a tradition with Rafa so, as old hat at it may seem, it's appropriate. Rafa is biting another trophy. All is well in the world.

The uppercut photo is something different, and it tends to hammer away at the theme that Rafa is a young bull with a muscular, knockout game. This is still in some measure true, but it reinforces the cliché, still popular in some quarters, that Rafa is little more than a bull—a specimen. And that simplistic take was pulverized some time ago. So I say, bring on images of Rafa hitting the sliced backhand; making a desperate forehand scoop return while running toward the parking lot with his back to the net; throwing in the drop shot, which he hits with what always seemed to me a smidgen of reluctance. It's like he's thinking, I can't quite believe I'm actually doing this. . .Uncle Toni is going to kill me!

4. The great Williams sisters debate. You know, the one where one camp denounces them as gifted, arrogant opportunists bringing tennis into ill repute with their independent, self-serving actions and attitudes. Then their counterparts, veins bulging in their foreheads, respond by saying the Williams sisters are the best thing that ever happened to tennis. To me, both are in some ways true, and in some ways exaggerations.

That the sisters are great for tennis is so blatantly obvious that it doesn't even merit discussion. That they also, individually or jointly (none of this "you don't even know the difference between Serena and Venus!" business for now, either), can be opaque, imperious, too coy by half, indifferent to some of the more routine obligations of anyone who purports to be an "amabassador for the game," and maddeningly elusive also appears to be true.

But to me, the key issue is their longevity. Venus and Serena have had long, rich, productive careers. When people look back in a decade, nobody is going to nitpick their commitment to Fed Cup, the Roadmap, Indian Wells, or the player party before Wimbledon. Would we be better off if the sisters were more focused, their careers featuring a clear beginning, middle and end? I'm not so sure. Did Steffi Graf, who also had a long career but seemed terribly pained through most of it, "do more" for tennis than have the sisters? I think not. The record says that Graf was a more successful player, while Venus and Serena have been more successful personages—at least in elevating tennis in the general public's consciousness. They've done as much to further popularize tennis than anyone since Jimmy Connors.

The main problem here may be that many people, critics as well as fans, expect them to be more than what they are, or read more into them than the evidence supports. Let them be just what they are, the greatest sibling act ever in tennis, and perhaps the most amazing sports story ever created and told, going about their business in the way that makes the most sense to them. The truth always comes out in the wash, and it will in this case when you look in the record books.

3. Tomas Berdych. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me three times, and you're . . . Berdych! After those fine performances at Roland Garros and Wimbledon, Berdych has effectively regressed into the unreliable competitor we've known and liked, if not loved—a headcase. And to think he had so many of us fooled for a while there, with what appeared to be his newfound consistency, based to a large degree to the fitness work he'd been doing.

Granted, if we're going to let Venus and Serena be the Williams sisters, we're also obliged to let Berdych be Berdych. And on balance it's not such a terrible thing to be. But I have a problem embracing such a predictably inconsistent player, even though the tours—and tennis clubs and public courts—are loaded with them. In that sense, Berdych is more representative than unique when it comes to his profile as "head case," and perhaps his biggest crime is showing off his spectacular unreliability on a stage which most comparably flawed players never reach.

2. Bag Check. How many more times do I need to turn on Tennis Channel to discover that deep within, say, Andreas Seppi's racquet bag lurks an iPod. Imagine that!

1. Vera Zvonareva, weeping, or looking like she's about to throw herself off the Brooklyn Bridge. Okay, Zvonareva's inability to hide her feelings and her willingness to turn on the tear ducts works out okay sometimes, like at the U.S. Open. After crushing Vera, Kim Clijsters got to play the Duchess of Kent to Zvonareva's Jana Novotna. This role suited both women to a T, as it sometimes seems that Clijsters' highest aspiration is to have people look at her and remark, "Aw, isn't she nice?" It sure beats being though of as a rude pig, I'll say that much.

But on other occasions, the weeping (in which a number of other players have also indulged) and general bummed-out-edness shown by some runners-up is inappropriate, mainly because it takes attention away from the one who deserves most of it—the winner. I'm not saying the runner-up has to stand holding his stupid crystal plate with a smiley-face icon plastered on his mug, but out of the respect for the winner the runner-up should always cowboy up as best as he or she can.

Have a great weekend and next week, everyone. I'll post a vacation message starting tomorrow.

As the long season winds down, I'm thinking there are a few things I'd really like to see more of before the season-ending championships and Fed Cup and Davis Cup finals come to a conclusion, and a few things I've had quite enough of for one year, thank you very much. So today I'll name five things I want more of in the next few weeks, and tomorrow I'll write about five things I'd just as soon not see again before the start of the new year.

5. John Isner's "they can't win if you don't let them play" strategy. I'm a big fan of any player who can impose his will (or serve, or groundies, for that matter) on a match to such an extent that it's all about him. The minimalist approach isn't especially popular or suited to tennis; just look at how many players great and ordinary have complicated techniques (with signature, individual flourishes) or pursue their ends with the kind of robust variety that makes people nod and remark, Now that's a thinking man's tennis player.

Not me. One of the more intriguing questions to me is: Just how far you can pare down technique or strategy and still win? Miloslav Mecir, probably denied a Grand Slam because he had to retire from the tour with back problems, was one of those players who had a genius for the minimal. In some ways, Marcelo Rios did as well (another lumbar casualty). Monica Seles, who hit her groundstrokes with such laser-like precision that she turned tennis into something like a game of darts rather than a battle of skill sets, was of the same school. Isner has that gift, too, albeit less because of timing and placement than his huge serve.

Plenty of other players have big serves—Robin Soderling and Tomas Berdych come to mind—but few of them so simply and transparently construct their games around the stroke. In this day and age of gifted baseliners, it's refreshing to see a guy just say no to groundies. Try as you might, you're never going to lure Isner into an extended baseline rally. I find his departure from the conventional wisdom and what has become a template for the international game downright refreshing.

4. Ana Ivanovic, playing well. Although I'm not smitten by Ivanovic, I really feel for the young lady and what she's been through since the wheels began to fall off over two years ago. In tennis, that's an agonizingly long period of frustration, dejection, and disappointment. She won Linz on Sunday—it was her second win there and, more importantly, the place where she won her last title almost exactly two years ago.

Ivanovic is a graceful player and gracious person, and the diligence with which she's pursued a comeback has made me want to see her succeed. Although some people are irritated by how easily it all seemed to come to her, especially in the marketing area, I never hold it against a player when he or she capitalizes on her appeal. And I find it annoying when some people actually hold a person's charisma or appealing looks—no matter how "conventional" they are—against her. Ivanovic strikes me as the quintessential "good girl," and I've never heard her speak ill of anyone. Boring? White bread? Vanilla? Maybe. But her virtues are anything but the norm these days and I appreciate them.

3. Roger Federer's inside-out, attacking forehand. Ever notice the footwork that goes into one of those suckers? How Federer simultaneously steps around and into the ball, and ends up hitting it with his right leg high off the ground, extended behind him? The timing is exquisite. Balletic. Ordinarily, I'm not real big on men in tights, but that shot defines the extraordinary body control and timing that supports Federer's game roughly like the sills and floor joists you never see keep your house standing and you safe on your couch, remote in hand.

2. Serbian heroics in the Davis Cup. Serbia is there to remind us that not every nation has a great history in tennis, nor favorable circumstances for producing great champions. Yet all it takes to start a fire is one spark, and that's just what Novak Djokovic and his teammates have accomplished. And while Djokovic is the star of the team, Janko Tisparevic played a huge role in bringing the squad to the final (in which Serbia will host France).

Here's what I don't get: every four years, the world goes crazy for whatever underdog nation has qualified for the World Cup of soccer, yet Davis Cup—the most renowned, popular, annual international team sporting competition—has trouble creating the same level of energy, at least outside the nations who are engaged in the final. And don't even get me started on the U.S., where it's become hip and cosmopolitan to hit the bars in a Brazil jersey and Puma ballet slippers during the World Cup, but you're lucky if the Davis Cup championship scores make the nightly sports news.

1. Kimiko Date Krumm. There's an intrinsic smallness about most feel-good stories. They give you a little tickle of pleasure or sentiment, bring a smile to your face, and make you mutter, "How cute! That 39-year old Kimiko Date-Krumm just beat a girl half her age. . ." Then you move on to ostensibly more important, attention-commanding things. Apparently, Kimiko never got the memo. It's getting to the point where, perusing this website, you might find yourself thinking, "Sheesh! That 40-year-old Date Krumm just beat another kid. Is she ever going to go away?"

I hope not. And I was disappointed when she faltered last Sunday in the final of Osaka, where Date Krumm nearly became the oldest player in WTA history to win a main tour singles title. Date Krumm lost to Tamarine Tanasugarn, who is no spring chicken herself at 33. There is no truth to the rumors that the three hour, seven minute battle (Tanasugran won, 7-5, 6-7 (4), 6-1) caused at least one melee, complete with chair and walker-throwing, to erupt in the common room of a Tokyo senior citizen housing complex.

I'm not sure anyone at the WTA has crunched the numbers yet, but it's hard to imagine that any WTA final has featured a higher cumulative age than the 73-plus years represented by these two. The really amazing thing, though, is that unlike Tanasugarn, Date Krumm, despite being seven years older, has been doing this kind of thing over and over, for months now. When Date Krumm won in Seoul, she became the second oldest player to win a WTA event (at 38 years and 11 months), behind only the redoubtable Billie Jean King, who won in Birmingham at 39 years, 7 months, and 23 days.

No, wait—the really amazing thing is that Date Krumm announced after the match that she's now going to play some ITF events, followed by the Asian games. There's no quit in Kimiko. I say rewrite the rules and give her a wild card into the season-ending championships.