The Bell Challenge in Quebec City kicks off Monday with a field headed by Lindsay Davenport, Nicole Vaidisova and Vera Zvonareva.
To absolutely no one’s surprise, the original top-ranked entrant, No. 6 Anna Chakvetadze, pulled out at the last minute. The world No. 7, who has qualified for the eight-player WTA Tour Championships in Madrid next week, was never likely to fly across the Atlantic Ocean to Quebec City for the $175,000 Tier 3 event and then go back to Spain for the $3 million year-end grand finale.
Davenport, who is returning after giving birth to son Jagger in June, was a winner in Bali, Indonesia and a semi-finalist in Beijing in September.
A resident of Laguna Beach, Calif., the Bell Challenge gives her an opportunity to play an autumn tournament in North America before heading Down Under early next year for the Australian season.
With a current ranking of No. 124, she is unseeded. Vaidisova, at No. 14, is the top seed, with Zvonareva, No. 22, seeded second.
Quebeckers Stephanie Dubois, Marie-Eve Pelletier and Aleksandra Wozniak will represent Canada in the main draw.
The WTA Tour avoided a dicey situation when Venus Williams pulled out of next week’s Tour Championships because of ongoing assessment of a dizziness problem that dates back to the U.S. Open.
Williams had qualified seventh in the eight player field. When Daniela Hantuchova defeated Patty Schnyder 6-4, 6-2 to win the title in Linz, Austria, Sunday, she wound up the 2007 season with 2431 points, tied for eighth spot with exactly the same number as Maria Sharapova, who has only played one event since the US Open because of her chronic shoulder woes.
With Williams’s withdrawal, both Hantuchova and Sharapova qualified. If a tiebreaker had been necessary, Hantuchova would have been in on the basis that she played more tournaments – 26-12 – than Sharapova.
Sharapova’s participation is still in doubt, in which case Wimbledon runner-up Marion Bartoli would get in.
The current line-up is as follows: Justine Henin, Jelena Jankovic, Svetlana Kuznetsova, Ana Ivanovic, Serena Williams, Chakvetadze, Hantuchova and Sharapova.
Stat-of-the-week: Mardy Fish hit 43 aces during his second round match at the Lyon, France, ATP event last week. The trouble was that the final score – 6-7(5), 7-6(6), 7-6(15) – wound up in favour of his opponent Olivier Rochus.
Fish’s total of 43 aces was one short of the best-of-three sets record of 44 set by Mark Philippoussis in Kuala Lumpur in 1995.
