Monday, November 2, 2009 10:29 AM
Tough week for the women
Tom Tebbutt
The women’s tennis year will be put out of its misery this week with the final two events on the calendar – a sort of best-of-the-rest 12-woman tournament in Bali, Indonesia, for players who won lower-tier WTA Tour events, and the Fed Cup final in Reggio Calabria, Italy, between the host nation and the United States.
For the top players, the year effectively wrapped up with the Sony Ericsson Championships in Doha, Qatar, which concluded on Sunday when Serena Williams defeated her sister Venus 6-2, 7-6(4) to take home a champion’s cheque of $1.55-million (U.S.).
That brought to an end a week that was as much casualty ward as competitive tennis.
Four of the 10 players involved (both alternates were called on to replace injured players from the original field of eight) – Dinara Safina (back), Victoria Azarenka (thigh), Caroline Wozniacki (abdomen) and Vera Zvonareva (ankle) – had to withdraw from matches. At various times, four players – Safina, Wozniacki, Zvonareva and Azarenka – were suffering and in tears on the court.
While neither Serena nor Venus lost their composure, or had to retire from a match, both were also ailing. Serena had wraps and/or tape on her left thigh, left wrist, abdomen and ankle, while Venus had a left knee problem that required a large wrap for Sunday’s final.
The end of the tennis year has, regrettably, become a survival-of-the-fittest exercise.
One of the problems at the tour championships is that the top eight in the rankings qualify and then play against each other for either five of six days (six players in the field) or five of five days (two players) if they make it to the final. It’s a gruelling schedule with the best playing the best with virtually no days off between matches – unlike the Grand Slams where there is almost always a rest day between rounds.
One simple solution would be to extend the event by a day, allowing the two groups of four in the round-robin phase to play on a day-on, day-off basis.
This year, Wozniacki played and won two three-hour matches in the heat of Doha on consecutive days, and had nothing left the next day (Friday) when she lost 6-2, 6-2 to Jelena Jankovic, aggravating an abdominal strain that forced her to retire against Serena in Saturday’s semi-finals. A day off between matches might have allowed the Dane, 19, to recover enough to continue.
It is also disappointing that this weekend’s Fed Cup comes down to a grand finale between singles players (rankings in brackets) Melanie Oudin (47) and Alexa Glatch (136) for the U.S. and Flavia Pennetta (11) and Francesca Schiavone (17) for Italy on the red clay in Reggio Calabria.
Venus did not make herself available and Serena, before her semi-final with Wozniacki on Saturday, pulled out, claiming she was too exhausted to play. She and Venus were the only players who could have added some real star power to an event that should be right behind the four Grand Slam tournaments in terms of prestige.
Finally, here’s a thought. The season-ending Championships in Doha managed to attract the top eight in the world, but there were four players absent who probably would have drawn more attention had they been competing in an event of their own – and all four are slated to be in the 2010 Australian Open. They are Maria Sharapova (still getting up to speed after shoulder surgery), Ana Ivanovic (poor results in 2009), Kim Clijsters (only played four events on her 2009 comeback) and Justine Henin, who is set to rejoin the tour in January in Australia.
Who would not bet that those four together would draw better crowds than the marquee names in Doha, basically just the Williams sisters, and maybe Jankovic?
Roger Federer, playing for the first time in five weeks since Davis Cup the weekend following the US Open, is on the schedule for Monday’s opening day of the ATP 500 event in his home town of Basel, Switzerland, taking on old junior pal Olivier Rochus of Belgium. The great Swiss would generally not play on the first day but, at 28 and considering his recent back troubles playing on hard courts (the surface in Basel), he obviously requested the early start because he’s looking to get some rest during the week – i.e. two days off before Saturday’s semi-finals if all goes as he hopes it will.
