Wk.20- Brava, Serena

Serena Williams' barnstorming tour continued to wind its way through Europe last week, stopping off in Rome and, one week before the start of play in Paris, sending yet another momentous shockwave through a WTA tour full of players -- well, at least a half dozen or so of them -- hoping to maybe get a sniff at ultimate major success in what has traditionally been the world #1's least successful slam.

They all might have to reassess their expectations.

In fact, I'm tempted to say that what Williams did in the final on Sunday against Victoria Azarenka was the best she's ever played on clay, at least since she won the first leg of "Serena Slam" eleven years ago. I say "tempted" because, since her 1st serve numbers (just 45% in the 1st set) were a bit below par for much of this match it means she CAN actually play even better, I wonder if expressing that sentiment here might mean I'd only end up repeating myself after ANOTHER match about three weeks from now. And I wouldn't want to end up echoing my own words so soon, now would I?

Still, Serena looked like a REAL clay courter during her 6-3/6-1 win over Azarenka. Sliding into shots, using good defense to thwart potential Vika winners and extend points, then immediately turning that defense into offense with an even better ACTUAL winner one shot later. Why, she was almost the female version of Rafa Nadal out there. Oddly enough, Nadal came out on the court right after Serena's win and downed Roger Federer in the men's final by the exact same score, but in not nearly as a competitively played contest.

Considering she only one four games, and didn't hold serve until two games into the 2nd set, one would think that Azarenka would have had her share of angry antics and racket tosses, as usually occurs when she's frustrated, mostly with her own play, on Sunday. She did slam her racket once, after falling behind 5-1 in the 1st set, but wasn't hounded by negative reactions during the final. Largely, I suspect, because she knew that she was actually playing pretty well throughout, but that Serena was just simply playing even better. Such is what happens in an actual would-be big-time rivalry, or as close as we have at the top of a WTA right now dominated by the Big 3 (winners of five straight slams, last year's WTA Championships, all three London Olympics singles medals, and six straight high-level Premier titles, filling eleven of the twelve slots in the final in those events), and in the latest edition of a match-up that we'll surely see a handful more times before the end of the 2013 season.

The respect goes both ways when Serena faces Vika.

Despite the distance in the scoreline, Azarenka was close to making the Rome final a match. She held two break points on Williams' serve in the second game of the match, then finally cut the Serena lead to 3-1 two games later with her first break following her fourth BP attempt after having to seemingly hit multiple winners in a single point in order outlast the on-point Williams. Of course, Serena then turned around and broke back at love one game later. In the 1st set, won by Williams at 6-1 even with the 45% 1st serve percentage, Azarenka's downfall came on the weakened shoulders of a 5-to-13 winners-to-unforced errors total and, more importantly, on her 1-for-5 break point attempts stat.

In the 2nd set, Serena continued to pickpocket points seemingly owned by Vika. Five great "winners" off Azarenka's racket in a rally would ultimately be returned due to the great footwork displayed throughout by Williams, who'd then get back an ever BETTER shot to steal the point. Vika didn't go away, though. She got her hold for 1-1, staved off break point for 2-2, and then erased a Williams break with one of her own for 4-3. But after going up 40/15 in Game #8, Azarenka saw Williams wrestle away the game, and the match, for good. A poorly-timed double-fault on break point gave Serena the chance to serve out the match at 5-3, which she did with nothing remotely resembling a hiccup.

Naturally, when it comes to the clay season, it's ALWAYS good to be compared to Rafa. And it's easy to do so with Serena this year.

Like Nadal this spring, Williams has been tearing through the field on the clay. Undefeated on the surface in '13, winning fifteen straights sets and 32-of-35, she's 33-1 on clay over the last TWO seasons and is currently sporting a CAREER-best 24-match winning streak on all surfaces. With five titles in the books this season, the only pro player with more in '13 is, you guessed it, Nadal with six. While the Spaniard has reached eight straight finals, Serena has reached the final of eight of her last nine dating back to last season, and with wins in the Madrid and Rome finals over the world's #2 and #3-ranked players, respectively, she's now 25-4 against Sharapova and Azarenka combined for her career. In 2013 alone, Williams is 6-0 against the Top 10.



As she did so in Spanish last week after the Madrid final (where, of course, Nadal also prevailed), Serena responded to the fans in Rome on Sunday with some Italian. The on-court interviewer even wondered if Williams might one day become an Italian. Serena responded with something humorous about pasta. Whatever it was she said, I'm sure we can all think of something that she might have said that would cause each of us to personally chuckle. So have at it, I say!

Meanwhile, the women who'll start trickling into Paris this coming week for next Sunday's start of play at Roland Garros, will all be wishing for Serena's long run of bad luck to continue -- i.e. something shocking and unforeseen coming down hard on Williams and once again preventing her from getting her hands on that long-overdue matching Coupe Suzanne Lenglen replica for her trophy case. After all, it's pretty much happened nearly every June for a decade now. From Justine's hand wave to Virginie's stunning upset, it's always something. What -- and who -- is to say something won't happen again?

Well, for one, Serena herself. And, this time around, that might just be enough.



*WEEK 20 CHAMPIONS*
ROME, ITALY (Premier $2.216m/RCO)
S: Serena Williams/USA def. Victoria Azarenka/BLR 6-1/6-3
D: Hsieh/Peng (TPE/CHN) d. Errani/Vinci (ITA/ITA)


PLAYER OF THE WEEK: Serena Williams/USA

...sure, it's somewhat hard to believe that Serena's current 24-match winning streak is a career-best, considering who we're talking about, but I guess it says more about the current version of Williams that she's accomplished such a run at age 31 than it does about the younger Serena of old's strange inability to have pulled off something similar. Riding into Paris after straight sets wins over Laura Robson, Dominika Cibulkova, Carla Suarez-Navarro, Simona Halep and Victoria Azarenka means Williams is undefeated on clay in pre-Roland Garros action for the second straight year. Of course, we all know how last spring's run ended in Paris, right? Well, so does Serena, even if she'll likely, sometime between now and Day 1 at RG next Sunday, again deny that 1st Round loss to Virginie Razzano ever “really happened.” And that can't be good news to the other 127 players who'll be in the draw, now can it?
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RISERS: Simona Halep/ROU & Sara Errani/ITA
...Halep, 21, has reached three WTA singles finals in her career, but her qualifier-to-semifinalist run last week in Rome produced the best stretch of quality results of her career. After a successful qualifying run which included a win over Daniela Hantuchova, the Romanian defeated a two-time slam champ (Svetlana Kuznetsova), an ex-#1 (Jelena Jankovic, against who she saved two MP), a Top 5er and former slam runner-up (Agnieszka Radwanska) and a current Top 20er (Roberta Vinci) before losing to Serena in the semis, though she WAS up a break in the 2nd set of that straight sets loss. The result jumped Halep's ranking twenty spots to #44, not far below the career-high ranking (#37) she set last spring. On the other side of the Rome draw, Errani had one of those weeks that make you wonder whether she might have the Tennis Gods on her side as she heads to Paris to defend all those Roland Garros runner-up points. After a 1st Round bye and a win over Christina McHale, Errani was on the good side of a retirement (Kirilenko) and a walkover (Sharapova) from a pair of Russian Marias to reach yet another semifinal. In the semis, after getting blitzed in the 1st set by Victoria Azarenka, Errani overcame a 3-1 deficit in the 2nd and ended up serving for the set. Then her luck turned. She lost the final three games of the 2nd to Vika, then saw her and partner Roberta Vinci's 31-match clay winning streak come to an end in the final against Hsieh Su-Wei & Peng Shuai. Still, the duo will attempt to defend their '12 RG doubles title as the co-#1 ranked players in the world, while Errani's singles rank rises to a career-best #5 on Monday, as well.
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SURPRISES: Hsieh Su-Wei & Peng Shuai (TPE/CHN) and Paula Ormaechea/ARG
...Hsieh & Peng winning a doubles title -- their fifth as a duo -- in Rome isn't a huge shocker, but that they did it at the expense of world #1's Errani & Vinci in the final, ending the Italian pair's 31-match clay clay court winning streak, is. Kinda, sorta. Elsewhere, in a $50K challenger in Saint-Gaudens, France, Ormaechea continued on her quest to replace the now-retired Gisela Dulko as the best female player not only in Argentina, but the entire continent of South America, as she swept the singles and doubles crowns. En route to the ninth and biggest title yet in her career, Ormaechea notched victories over Ekaterina Bychkova, Teliana Pereira, Vania King and Dinah Pfizenmaier in the final. Now ranked at #134, Ormaechea is already the highest-ranked Argentine, with her sights set next on the South American #1, one of her Saint-Gaudens victims, #128 Pereira.
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VETERANS: Jelena Jankovic/SRB & Samantha Stosur/AUS
...for a bit, after wins over Tsvetana Pironkova, Bojana Jovanovski and Li Na, JJ looked like she might be up to putting in another deep run in a big tournament. Up 3-0 in the 3rd set in the Rome QF, Jankovic seemed destined for a third SF-or-better result at a Premier event (after Charleston & Indian Wells) this 2Q, but then she blew that lead, and two match points, against Simona Halep. Oh, well. Stosur, on the other hand, is just looking for some good results. Any good results. Still seeking her first semifinal of the season, the Aussie didn't get it in Rome. But she did get wins over both Hsieh Su-Wei and Peng Shuai (giving both enough extra rest to allow them to combine their efforts to win the doubles title), as well as Petra Kvitova, before pushing Victoria Azarenka to three sets in the QF. Sure, Sam's now 0-3 (with an additional walkover loss) in quarterfinals this season, but... well, small steps, right?
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COMEBACK: Alisa Kleybanova/RUS
...welcome back, Alisa. Again. In March of last year, the Russian returned for a brief stint in Miami (she got a 1st Round win over Johanna Larsson) after having been receiving treatment for Hodgkin's Lymphoma following the diagnosis of the disease in May '11. Since having admitted that she returned to action too soon, the 23-year old, a Top 30 player a few years ago, returned once again last week in a $10K challenger in Landisville, Pennsylvania. She made it through qualifying, then ended her weekend with an eighth straight victory in the final over American Natalie Pluskota, winning 6-3/6-0 to claim her first ITF crown since 2010 and, more significantly, her first in what will hopefully be a wonderfully successful comeback story. Which I guess it already is.
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FRESH FACES: Sloane Stephens/USA & Ons Jabeur/TUN
...hmmm, let's see. No ridiculous controversies. No ticking off of all-time greats. No blown leads in winnable matches, either. Just those things would constitute an "up" week for the slumping Stephens since her Melbourne heights, but throw in her first back-to-back match wins -- over Flavia Pennetta and Kiki Bertens, the latter from a set down -- since defeating Jovanovski and Serena at the Australian Open and it was a REALLY good week for the American recently named the "most marketable" player on the WTA tour in a recent listing. Sure, she got blasted by Sharapova in the 3rd Round in Rome, but the rest outweighed the end. Meanwhile, in a $50K challenger in Kurume, Japan, Ons Jabeur won her third singles title in her last four events. On a 20-1 run in recent outings, the 18-year old defeated Waffle An-Sophie Mestach in a final for the second consecutive week.
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DOWN: Caroline Wozniacki/DEN & Agnieszka Radwanska/POL
...Wozniacki's clay court slide continues, as she blew a 4-0 3rd set lead over Bojana Jovanovski in the 1st Round in Rome, leading to her fifth loss in her last six matches. She heads to Brussels this week as the #1 seed, largely because of the absence of last year's champion, A-Rad. Radwanska withdrew late in the week due to the continuation of the shoulder issues she's been experiencing -- and taping up -- for about a year now. A-Rad lost in the 2nd Round in Rome to Simona Halep, her second consecutive one-and-out result.
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ITF PLAYER: Lucie Safarova/CZE
...back home in the Czech Republic, Safarova, the world #27 and a four-time WTA titlist (though not since 2008), played and won the $100K challenger held in Prague, defeating Alexandra Cadantu in a three-set final after getting earlier wins over Aleksandra Krunic, Yvonne Meusburger, Monica Puig and Jana Cepelova. It's her first ITF singles crown since 2005.
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JUNIOR STAR: Belinda Bencic/SUI
...the Swiss 16-year old claimed her second junior event of the season in the second event she's entered in '13, winning the G1 girls title in Santa Croce, Italy just a few weeks after taking the Grade A Mexico City crown. Bencic, coached by Melanie Molitor, recently reached the semifinals at the $50K ITF challenger in Indian Harbour Beach.
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1. Rome Doubles Final - Hsieh/Peng d. Errani/Vinci
...4-6/6-3/10-8. Hmmm, so are the Italians still the odds-on favorites to win in Paris?
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2. Rome SF - Azarenka d. Errani
...6-0/7-5. Vika shows some Melbourne-style toughness, battling (literally) through Errani in the 1st set, as well as three brief rain delays and after nearly squandering her 3-1 lead in the 2nd (Errani served for the set at 5-4) in front of a partisan Italian crowd ready to jump on her back for even thinking about questioning a line call.
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3. Rome 1st Rd. - Jovanovski d. Wozniacki
...2-6/6-4/7-6. Hmmm, Caro was up 4-0 in the 3rd here. Has she become so addicted to watching golf tournaments that she decided to have a go at impersonating Sergio Garcia? Oh, if only there were lakes involved in tennis matches (we already have the petty, whining, Garcia-esque excuse-making on occasion).
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4. Rome 1st Rd. - Oprandi d. Pavlyuchenkova
...6-2/6-0. And, again, two steps back.
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5. Rome 3rd Rd. - Jankovic d. Li
...7-6/7-5. Go ahead and try to predict how these two will do at Roland Garros. I dare you.
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6. Rome QF - Halep d. Jankovic
...4-6/6-0/7-5. Up 3-0 in the 3rd and with two match points, Queen Chaos decides to drop into the proceedings. I wonder if she used a parachute, or maybe one of those helicopters she mentioned at Wimbledon a few years back?
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7. Rome 3rd Rd. - Sharapova d. Stephens
...6-2/6-1. I sure hope Sharapova didn't unfollow Sloane on Twitter after this, or that Stephens is now expecting a belated birthday card and a free box of Sugarpova from her good friend Maria.
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8. Rome QF - Errani walkover Sharapova
...and Sara silently wonders, "Why couldn't she get sick before the final in Paris last spring?" (But she thought it in Italian, of course.)
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9. $25K Balikpapen Final - Jovana Jaksic d. Yang Zi
...6-3/6-2. The 19-year old Serb wins her fourth challenger of the season, and a circuit-best tenth since the start of 2012.
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10. $10K Sharm El Sheikh Final - Melis Sezer d. Basek Eraydin
...6-2/4-6/6-3. The 19-year old Turk defeats the 18-year old Turk. Cool. Or medieval?
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HM- $10K Bastad Final - Rebecca Peterson d. Zuzana Luknarova
...6-3/6-2. The 17-year old Swede grabs her first career ITF crown, getting additional wins over Ysaline Bonaventure and countrywoman Ellen Allgurin along the way.
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1. Rome Final - S.Williams d. Azarenka
...6-1/6-3. Vika was playing to become just the second woman ever -- along with Sharapova in '04 -- to defeat Serena in two finals, on two surfaces, in the same season. JUUUUUST missed it. Of course, considering Maria's plight since then, maybe it was for the best.
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2. Rome 1st Rd. - Robson d. V.Williams 6-3/6-2
Rome 2nd Rd. - S.Williams d. Robson 6-2/6-2
...come on, even Laura knew she wasn't going to do it back-to-back.
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3. Rome 1st Rd. - U.Radwanska d. Ivanovic
...6-2/2-6/6-2. AnaIvo has suffered three losses at the hands of the Radwanska sisters this season. I wonder if she gets a "good karma discount" for that?
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HM- Rome 2nd Rd. - Morita d. U.Radwanska 6-3/6-1
Rome 3rd Rd. - Azarenka d. Morita 6-1/2-0 ret.
...Morita doubled down on Radwanskian bad luck, getting her second win over U-Rad in the last three weeks. Then, wouldn't you know it, it all finally came back to get her. You can run, Ayumi, but you can't hide.
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**S.WILLIAMS vs. AZARENKA**
2008 Australian Open 3rd Rd. - S.Williams 6-3/6-4
2009 Australian Open 4th Rd. - S.Williams 3-6/4-2 ret. (Azarenka heat illness)
2009 Miami Final - Azarenka 6-3/6-1
2009 Wimbledon QF - S.Williams 6-2/6-3
2010 AO QF - S.Williams 4-6/7-6(4)/6-2 (Azarenka led 6-4/4-0, served for match twice)
2011 Toronto SF - S.Williams 6-3/6-3
2011 US Open 3rd Rd. - S.Williams 6-1/7-6(5)
2012 Madrid Final - S.Williams 6-1/6-3
2012 Wimbledon SF - S.Williams 6-3/7-6(6)
2012 Olympics SF - S.Williams 6-1/6-2
2012 US Open Final - S.Williams 6-2/2-6/7-5 (Azarenka served for title at 5-4)
2012 WTA Chsp rr - S.Williams 6-4/6-4
2013 Brisbane SF - S.Williams w/o
2013 Doha Final - Azarenka 7-6/2-6/6-3
2013 Rome Final - S.Williams 6-1/6-3

**LONG WIN STREAKS - LAST TEN SEASONS**
32...Justine Henin, 2007-08
26...Victoria Azarenka, 2012
24...SERENA WILLIAMS, 2013
24...Justine Henin-Hardenne, 2005
22...Kim Clijsters, 2005
22...Lindsay Davenport, 2004
--
NOTE: Venus Williams had 35-match streak in 2000

**2013 TITLES AS #1 SEED**
4...SERENA WILLIAMS
2...Victoria Azarenka
2...Agnieszka Radwanska
1...Sara Errani
1...Jelena Jankovic
1...Li Na
1...Maria Sharapova

**BEST RESULTS BY QUALIFIERS IN 2013**
SF - Teliana Pereira, BRA (Bogota, #156)
SF - Alexandra Cadantu, ROU (Katowice, #117)
SF - SIMONA HALEP, ROU (Rome, #64)

**2013 ITF FINALS**
5...JOVANA JAKSIC, SRB (4-1)
5...Reka Luca-Jani, HUN (4-1)
4...Melanie Klaffner, AUT (4-0)
4...Maryna Zanevska, UKR (2-2)
4...Ellen Allgurin, SWE (1-3)
4...AN-SOPHIE MESTACH, BEL (1-3)
4...Ankita Raina, IND (1-3)





BRUSSELS, BELGIUM (Premier $681K/red clay outdoor)
12 Final: A.Radwanska d. Halep
12 Doubles Champions: Mattek-Sands/Mirza
13 Top Seeds: Wozniacki/Vinci
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=SF=
#6 Goerges d. #4 Stephens
Kanepi d. #2 Vinci
=FINAL=
Kanepi d. #6 Goerges

...Wozniacki would be the one of the favorites here if, well, you know.


STRASBOURG, FRANCE (Int'l $235K/red clay outdoor)
12 Final: Schiavone d. Cornet
12 Doubles Champions: Govortsova/Jans-Ignatik
13 Top Seeds: Bartoli/Paszek
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=SF=
#5 Niculescu d. #3 Cornet
Beck d. Muguruza
=FINAL=
#5 Niculescu d. Beck

...Bartoli would be one of the favorites here if, well... sort of the same reason with Caro in Brussels.

ALSO: Roland Garros Qualifying



All for now.

Read more...

Wk.19- Gracias, Madrid

One could make a case that the WTA just had the sort of week that dreams are made of.

Week 19's event in Madrid included the early-outs of the likes of players named Azarenka, Li, Wozniacki, Radwanska and Kvitova. But it didn't really matter. Even as some occurrences produced a spate of hand-wringing last week, the women's game's two biggest names set off on a collision course for the final. And that's always a good thing. Although it all ended in fairly predictable fashion, Madrid was all about the journey, as one of the best shows in sport took a rare, non-slam dance in the worldwide spotlight. So what if much of what was talked about actually happened occurred OFF the court, it was still a fabulously fun week.

We saw Maria Sharapova make headlines for magazine covers and being the focal point of press-related spy games as photographic evidence was finally uncovered -- perhaps because of a parked-in-public-view blue Porsche won in Stuttgart by a certain blond, Siberian-born candy maven -- of the Russian's much-rumored relationship with Bulgarian tennis (soon-to-be supernovic?) star Grigor Dimitrov. Gotcha!

After one win, Sharapova wrote "How did you catch us?" on a courtside camera lens. Priceless.

We saw Sloane Stephens put on a full frontal assault against Serena Williams via a magazine interview and social media, shining a light on the world #1's egregious use of the "unfollow" button and her unwillingness to buddy-up to the player who got a win against her in Melbourne. Essentially, it all single-handedly set back the young Bannerette's entire generation in the eyes of every living generation that came before it, until an actual grown-up -- Venus Williams -- quite possibly brokered a Stephens face-saving "peace deal." That Venus managed this while also taking the time to purchase a stake in the WTT along with Andy Roddick says much about her multi-tasking abilities. Venus for WTA CEO!

After another win, Sharapova wrote about her going over ten million followers on Facebook. Not quite as priceless, but a nice "See, I'm just like everyone else" moment for Maria.

Oh, some things happened ON the court, too. I mean, who could overlook the return of Victoria Azarenka? In two straight-sets matches, she managed to show sides of the "bratty" Vika that all the Whack-a-Vika aficionados love to look down their noses at, while also giving those of us who tend to fall under her I'll-say-what-I-want-because-I'm-thinking-it-at-the-moment charm when she reminded everyone why we still feel that nagging tightening in the gut whenever they see a match being umpired by Mariana Alves.

Oh, how did it take so long for this space to make Vika its "face?"

Meanwhile, there were actual on-court impressions made, too. Imagine that. Namely, that Serena might just be ready to make up for lost time in Paris starting in a couple weeks. After getting off to not-great starts most of last week -- winning a 1st set tie-break vs. Yulia Putintseva in the 1st Round, dropping a love set to Anabel Medina-Garrigues and falling behind 4-2 in the 3rd in the QF, and winning a tight 7-5 1st set over Sara Errani in the SF -- Williams had no such difficulty when she faced off with Sharapova in the final, as the world's top two ranked players met to decide the #1 ranking.

Going into Sunday, the Russian hadn't lost a set all week, but she was never really in contention in the final. Of course, that's nothing new in tennis' "best non-rivalry rivalry," as the one set won by Sharapova when the two met in the Miami final in March was just an aberration in a head-to-head history that has been remarkably one-sided for nearly nine years. Since getting Williams' attention (Are you listening, Sloane? If you ask Maria about the bear trap you stepped in last week, you might want to go ahead and start gnawing on your foot right now.) with two wins over her in 2004, Sharapova never sees the "Serena hospitality" that the American sometimes bestows upon others, when she has a hard time getting herself focused and all the working parts of her game into gear on certain days. Maria pretty much always gets the Serena who sternly asks, "What are you doing on MY court?" when they meet. As a result, Sharapova just isn't the same mentally strong player against Williams that she is against most other mortals. I guess that goes with knowing that if your opponent plays her best you have little chance to win, an odd reality for the four-time slam champ.

Against Serena, Maria learns how "the other half" lives.

In the Madrid final, as has been the pattern with far lesser opponents in Williams' past, it was a case of Serena winning the 1st set in the tunnel before the warm-up, meaning she really only had to win one set for the title, the fiftieth of her career and fourth of 2013. While Williams was on top of her game from point #1, Sharapova was far from it. In fact, she opened the match with a double-fault, the first of three straight service games that she began with a DF. She was broken in the first two as Serena built a 4-0 advantage. In Game #5, the Russian managed to hold on her fifth game point after double-faulting on two previous GP. While Williams would easily take the 1st set at 6-1, Sharapova coach Thomas Hogstedt told her to go forward, and that she had nothing to fear against Williams. What was the worst that could happen, that she'd lose to her once again?

Sharapova took to Hogstedt's words early in the 2nd. After Williams framed a shot and followed it with an error to hand the Russian a break in Game #1, Sharapova had a nice hold for 2-0 and seemed set to maybe at least make a match of the set. It didn't last long, though, as DF #6 led to a love break for 3-3. Serena saved a BP with a huge serve and held for 4-3, effectively ending Sharapova's chances in the match. Up 5-4, with Sharapova on serve, Williams outhit Sharapova on the first two points of the game, then saw a DF and forehand error on match point finally put the period on the end of Serena's 6-1/6-4 win, her twelfth straight over her opponent. Williams served at nearly an 80% clip for the match, highlighting just how much of a difference there can be between a world #1 on her "worst surface" against a world #2 on her best.

Who knew?

And now comes Rome, where Sharapova is the two-time defending champion, and where this very same match-up could greet us next weekend. The last time Williams won in Rome was 2002... hmm, the very same year she last won Roland Garros. It sort of makes me think back to the potentially telling, as statements like this from Williams have a tendency to be, "lament" made by Serena before the season about her lack of a second RG trophy. "I only have one lonely trophy. He has spider webs on him," she said. It sort of sounded then like she was planning on doing a little housecleaning, and it still does for a player who is now 28-1 on clay over the last two seasons, and who has an intense desire to erase from existence that single loss -- a squandered-lead shocker to Virginie Razzano in Paris -- that she already likes to say never really happened.

No matter what occurs this week in Rome, Sharapova might still go to Paris as the favorite to defend -- or maybe the CO-fave with you-know-who, but that notion would all rest on Serena's renowned bad luck in the City of Lights rearing its ugly head yet again. Another win in Rome, in the final over Sharapova, just might set a course that even Williams' Paris demons might not be able to alter.

Maria might always have Paris, but Serena wants it back. In the post-final ceremony in Madrid, Williams surprisingly addressed the crowd with some passable Spanish. "Gracias," she said, before sheepishly handing off the microphone with a chuckle.

After last week in Madrid, on and off court, the WTA might be saying the same thing.



*WEEK 19 CHAMPIONS*
MADRID, SPAIN (Premier €4.033/RCO)
S: Serena Williams/USA def. Maria Sharapova/RUS 6-1/6-4
D: Pavlyuchenkova/Safarova (RUS/CZE) d. Black/Erakovic (ZIM/NZL)


PLAYER OF THE WEEK: Serena Williams/USA

...career tour title #50 came a day after career tour match win #500 for Williams, who pushed her record on clay to 28-1 over the last two seasons, and her head-to-head against Sharapova to 13-2. Currently riding a 19-match win streak, Serena thus passes Azarenka's "unofficial" (since two walkover exits were thrown into the mix) tour-best season mark of eighteen in a row. Last year, of course, Vika strung together a 26-match streak. Williams would get to twenty-four with a title in Rome this week.
=============================
RISERS: Sara Errani/ITA & Ekaterina Makarova/RUS
...no one's overlooking Errani anymore, and certainly not on clay. If they are, well, then they aren't paying much attention. Or they broadcast for ESPN2, I guess. No difference. Anyway, Errani, interestingly continuing the practice of foregoing the regular doubles pairing with Roberta Vinci (even as the pair still sport a 28-match clay winning streak), put up her fourth SF-or-better result of 2013, getting Madrid wins over Urszula Radwanska, Sorana Cirstea, Varvara Lepchenko and Ekaterina Makarova before putting up a close 1st set (7-5) against Serena in the final four. Speaking of Makarova, she, too, continues to move up the rankings. After Madrid wins over Lucie Safarova, Victoria Azarenka and Marion Bartoli en route to the QF, the Hordette is back in the Top 20 at #20, just one spot off the career-best ranking she held in January.
=============================
SURPRISES: Lucie Safarova/CZE & Asia Muhammad/USA
...coming into this season, Safarova had only won one tour doubles title in a career that spanned a decade. So far in 2013, she's already won two. In Charleston, with Kristina Mladenovic, she defended the title she'd won there a year earlier with Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova. This weekend in Madrid, she picked up another crown with the Russian, who joined with her to defeat Mladenovic (w/ Galina Voskoboeva) in the semis. In the new rankings, Safarova is now up to a career-best doubles rank of #22. Meanwhile, 22-year old Asia Muhammad won this week's ITF "Hey, Didn't You Used to Be...?" Award, taking the $25K challenger in Raleigh, North Carolina with wins over Maria-Fernanda Alves, Jamie Loeb, Samantha Crawford and Chalena Scholl in the final. It's Muhammad's second career ITF win, but her first since taking a $10K crown in 2007. In fact, she hasn't even reached an ITF semifinal since 2008. Asia was so hot last week that she threw in an appearance in the doubles final, too, just for kicks and giggles.
=============================
VETERANS: Maria Sharapova/RUS & Anabel Medina-Garrigues/ESP

...another final (the 50th of her career), another loss to Serena (#13). The Madrid defeat is Sharapova's fifth straight in a final against Williams over the last seven seasons, and the twelfth consecutive loss to her since the start of '05. Straight sets wins over Alexandra Dulgheru, Christina McHale, Sabine Lisicki, Kaia Kanepi and Ana Ivanovic, not to mention eschewing any potential flower shop endorsements, appearing on a swimsuit cover for Latin American Esquire magazine, and being officially "outed" as Grigor Dimitrov's girlfriend on the streets of Madrid just days after his upset of world #1 Novak Djokovic had made Sharapova the big story of the week. Well, until she no longer was, that is. One final stinging stat: Sharapova is 28-4 this season, with three of those losses coming to Serena. Meanwhile, Medina-Garrigues had a pretty good, pretty fortuitous week in Madrid. A wild card in the draw, she saw Venus Williams pull out of her 1st Round match with the Spanish vet. Instead, AMG got "lucky loser" Stefanie Voegele, then another LL in Madison Keys in the 2nd, and a walkover from Yaroslava Shvedova in the 3rd. Facing off with Serena in the QF, she actually bageled Williams in the 2nd set and led 4-2 in the 3rd before the predictable happened and the American pulled things together. At least it freed AMG up to head to Rome to attempt to qualify for the main draw there, which she did over the weekend, wrapping up a berth with a win on Sunday over Yulia Putintseva, with whom Serena had opened up the week in Madrid with a 1st Round win. Sometimes the Tennis Gods like to wrap things up in a little bow, which they can then unravel at a later date.
=============================
COMEBACKS: Ana Ivanovic/SRB & Barbora Zahlavova-Strycova/CZE
...well, it's been five years since AnaIvo won Roland Garros, and it's becoming harder and harder to remember the moment. But she's still trying to fight her way back into the Top 10, and is making some decent progress. In Madrid, she notched wins over Bethanie Mattek-Sands, Chanelle Scheepers (who'd defeated JJ in the 1st Round), Laura Robson and Angelique Kerber before falling to Sharapova in the semifinals. She's now at #13 in the rankings, 650 points behind #10 Sam Stosur. Zahlavova-Strycova, now back from her six-month doping violation suspension, claimed the $75K Trnava, SVK challenger with wins over Katerina Siniakova, Serbian Bad Luck Charm Vesna Dolonc, Serbian Good Luck Charm Aleksandra Krunic and Karin Knapp in the final. Coming in ranked #189, BZS had been 0-3 this season since returning to action in mid-April after having tested positive last year for a stimulant she'd said had entered her system when she used the weight loss supplement ACAI Berry Thin.
=============================
FRESH FACE: Laura Robson/GBR
...all right, so it was an up-and-down week for Robson. But after the slip-slidey nature of her season following her Australian Open upset of Petra Kvitova, I think she'll take Madrid and run with it for as long as she can (which might not be long, as she'll face Venus in the 1st Round in Rome). Either way, last week in Spain, Robson threw coach Zeljko Krajan over the side, got a straight sets win over Agnieszka Radwanska in the 2nd Round, led Ana Ivanovic 5-2 in the 3rd set and had two chances to serve out the match against the eventual semifinalist. She didn't, but why quibble? At least she didn't get into a social media battle with a player who'll now forever after (and a day) have her name on her you-know-what list. And I'm not talking about Aga, either.
=============================
DOWN: Victoria Azarenka/BLR
...playing for the first time since mid-March, when she pulled out of the Indian Wells QF with foot and ankle injuries, Azarenka showed a bit of rust on both her game and her on-court demeanor in Madrid. On the bright side, she battled with Oeiras champ Anastasia Pavlychenkova in the 1st Round, winning a pair of tie-breaks to advance, but then went down in straights one round later to Ekaterina Makarova. A few rackets sacrificed their natural lives in the effort, as well, as did chair umpire Mariana Alves' belief (far-flung hope?) that some of her own worst on-court moments had been lost to time and memory lapses. Ummm, no. Just like Serena, who's had her own issues with Alves in the past, Vika doesn't forget. Hmmm, that sounds like a good #13 for the "Reasons to Love Vika" list I started last season.
=============================
ITF PLAYER: Caroline Garcia/FRA
...two years ago, the then 17-year old Pastry made quite the name for herself in Paris when she took a 6-3/4-1 lead against Maria Sharapova in their 2nd Round match at Roland Garros. Garcia ultimately lost that match, but her future seemed bright. It still might be, but she's pretty much hovered between #130-150 ever since. Her win at the ITF circuit event in Cagnes-sur-mer, France -- she defeated Maryna Zanevska in the final -- gave her the second $100K challenger title of her career. Still just 19, Garcia climbs to a new career-high rank of #114 this week.
=============================
JUNIOR STAR: Maria Bouzkova/CZE
...one Maria had ultimate success this weekend. It's just that this one was Czech, not Russian. The 14-year old Maiden, the #2 seed at the Grade 1 Mediterranee Avenis junior event in Morocco, claimed the her first G1 title with a win in the final over American Johnise Renaud. From Prague, the #81-ranked girl also lost in the doubles final with Sara Tomic (what an odd she must have had, huh?), who'd been the #1-ranked singles seed at the start of the week. Of some interest, Bouzkova's ITF site bio says that she started playing tennis at the age of 1. Which begs the question, do they even make rackets that small?
=============================


1. Madrid 1st Rd. - Azarenka d. Pavlyuchenkova
...7-6(8)/7-6(3). Vika saved three set points in the 1st, winning on her own ninth. In the 2nd, she saved three more after squandering a 5-2 lead. Once more, Pavlyuchenkova takes two steps forward, and one step back after winning in Oeiras a couple of days before. Naturally, befitting her whiplash-style results, A-Pav went on to win the doubles.
=============================
2. Madrid 2nd Rd. - Makarova d. Azarenka

...1-6/6-2/6-3. Vika didn't end her week as well as Pavlyuchenkova, though. Instead, she jumped in a time machine, broke a few rackets and delivered a withering little retort to chair umpire Mariana Alves that might just have to be included on the "Reasons to Love Vika" list, too. In fact, let's call it Entry #14. In case you can't make out Vika's words, she said, "After all you've done, how are you still in the game?" Remember, Alves' list of questionable moments go all the way back to the 2004 U.S. quarterfinal between Serena and Jennifer Capriati, which included the slew of controversial calls from Alves that almost single-handedly brought the current instant replay system into the sport.
=============================
3. Madrid 2nd Rd. - Hantuchova d. Kvitova
...2-6/6-2/6-3. Wake me when it's over. Hey, where's that time machine?
=============================
4. $10K Villa Maria Final - Montserrat Gonzalez d. Camila Silva
...6-3/4-6/6-3. The 18-year old from Paraguay wins her second straight title in her third consecutive final. Hmmm, I wonder if Sharapova would consider buying a summer home at this place? I'm sure there are places to park blue Porsches.
=============================
5. $10K Sharm El Sheikh Final - Ipek Soylu/TUR d. Camilla Rosatello/ITA
...7-5/6-1. The 17-year from Turkey wins her first career ITF singles crown.
=============================
HM- Rome Q2 - Oudin d. Hampton
...4-6/6-3/6-3. Hmmm, somehow I doubt that Oudin's advice earlier this season to Sloane Stephens included getting into a magazine/social media playground fight with the baddest female tennis player on earth. Ah, kids.
=============================


1. Madrid Final - S.Williams d. Sharapova
...6-1/6-4. It's now been 101 months (and counting) since Sharapova last defeated Serena.
=============================
2. Madrid 2nd Rd - Robson d. A.Radwanska 6-3/6-1
Madrid 3rd Rd. - Ivanovic d. Robson 5-7/6-2/7-6
...you mess with The Rad, you eventually get the horns. This time, pretty quickly, as Robson blew a 5-2 3rd set lead vs. AnaIvo, failed in two attempts to serve out the match, and then the "little Rad" sitting on her shoulder caused the Brit to be unbalanced and serve a DF on match point. Tsk, tsk.
=============================
3. $50K Fukuoka Doubles SF - Namigata/E.Sema d. Bobusic/Sanders
...6-3/6-2. A week after getting some early-season payback in singles (in Gifu) against Sanders for "crimes against the Sema sisters," Erika gets it in doubles. And she didn't even have to leave Japan to do it, either.
=============================
4. Madrid Doubles Final - Pavlyuchenkova/Safarova d. Black/Erakovic
...6-2/6-4. Black fails to get what would have been her biggest title since winning Madrid in '09 with Liezel Huber.
=============================
5. Madrid 1st Rd. - S.Williams d. Putintseva 7-6/6-1
Madrid QF - S.Williams d. Medina-Garrigues 6-3/0-6/7-5
Rome Q2 - Medina-Garrigues d. Putintseva 4-6/7-6/7-5
...AMG wins the Serena Consolation Bowl.
=============================


**MOST FINAL MATCH-UPS, 2012-13**
4...S.WILLIAMS (4) vs. SHARAPOVA (0)
4...Azarenka (3) vs. Sharapova (1)
3...S.Williams (2) vs. Azarenka (1)

**MOST WTA FINALS, 2011-13**
17...MARIA SHARAPOVA (7-10)
16...Victoria Azarenka (11-5)
15...SERENA WILLIAMS (13-2)
13...Caroline Wozniacki (8-5)
11...Petra Kvitova (9-2)
10...Agnieszka Radwanska (8-2)
10...Li Na (4-6)

**#1 vs. #2, 2012-13**
2012 Indian Wells Final - #1 Azarenka d. #2 Sharapova
2012 Stuttgart Final - #2 Sharapova d. #1 Azarenka
2012 Beijinb Final - #1 Azarenka d. #2 Sharapova
2012 WTA SF - #2 Sharapova d. #1 Azarenka
2013 Doha Final - #1 Azarenka d. #2 S.Williams
2013 Miami Final - #1 S.Williams d. #2 Sharapova
2013 MADRID FINAL - #1 S.WILLIAMS d. #2 SHARAPOVA
--
RECORDS: S.Williams (2-1), Azarenka (3-2), Sharapova (2-4)

**2013 SINGLES TITLES DEFENDED**
Australian Open - Victoria Azarenka, BLR
Doha - Victoria Azarenka, BLR
Acapulco - Sara Errani, ITA
Charleston - Serena Williams, USA
Stuttgart - Maria Sharapova, RUS
MADRID - SERENA WILLIAMS, USA





ROME, ITALY (Premier $2.216m/red clay outdoor)
12 Final: Sharapova d. Li
12 Doubles Champions: Errani/Vinci
13 Top Seeds: S.Williams/Sharapova
=============================
=QF=
#1 S.Williams d. Pavlyuchenkova
#6 Li d. #4 A.Radwanska
#3 Azarenka d. Lisicki
#2 Sharapova d. #7 Errani
=SF=
#1 S.Williams d. #6 Li
#2 Sharapova d. #3 Azarenka
=FINAL=
#1 S.Williams d. #2 Sharapova

...will Serena be able to psych out Sharapova for Paris with a win here?


All for now.

Read more...

Wk.18- A Revolutionary Russian Renaissance?

Has it really been nine years since the official rise of the Hordettes?

Back in 2004, after gathering their forces on the borders of the WTA, the Russians "stormed the castle," taking three straight slams, the WTA Championships and the first of four Fed Cup titles over a five-year stretch. Anastasia Myskina, Maria Sharapova and Svetlana Kuznetsova became slam champions, with Elena Dementieva twice being a major runner-up to her countrywomen. That season, four Russians finished the year ranked in the Top 6, and the nation has been a consistent force in the sport ever since. With numbers on their side, the Hordettes dominated large stretches of WTA action throughout the rest of the 2000's.

Two players from the generation (Sharapova and Dinara Safina) eventually rose to #1 in the world, and at least two Hordettes finished in the year-end Top 10 every season for nine straight years once Anastasia Myskina and Elena Dementieva first did it in '03. Since Anna Kournikova became the first post-Soviet era Russian to find WTA success in 1997, finishing in the Top 10 in 2000, eight other Russian women have reached the Top 10 since '01, more than any other nation during that span. In all, they've won seven slam crowns, produced twelve major runner-ups, one singles Gold Medalist, and put four other players on the Olympic medal stand (including a sweep of all three spots in Beijing in '08). Ultimately, the level-headed Sharapova, after surviving career-threatening shoulder surgery, emerged as the most enduring Russian force in the sport, outlasting pretty much all of her more emotionally-hampered Russian countrywoman as a slam threat and completing a Career Grand Slam last season in Paris. For a while, it seemed as if the Russian pool of talent would be never-ending and forever slam-worthy.

But that notion has changed a little over the last few seasons.

Oh, the Hordettes still populate the tour, but the numbers have dwindled a bit and, save Sharapova, who had to stage a four-year comeback to do it, their slam "worthiness" hasn't been in the discussion for a while. The leading edge of players of the 2000's Russian tennis revolution, as is to be expected over the course of a nearly decade of play, has become tattered and torn, with many key figures disappearing altogether. Myskina is long gone, while Dementieva likely left a season or two too soon. The injury-plagued Safina doesn't appear to ever be coming back, while her injured countrywoman Vera Zvonareva had yet to play a match in '13. The enigmatic Kuznetsova, for her part, is still around, but sometimes doesn't seem to "be" on the court even when she is; while Anna Chakvetadze's fall from Top 5 player to "Do You Remember Her?" status came after a particularly nasty off-the-court hostage incident. Meanwhile, a slew of Russian-born players now play for Kazakhstan, and the expected second wave of "NextGen" Russian success has been slow in coming.

Some of their most impressive statistical numbers have taken hits, too. In 2012, for the first time since 2002, only a single Russian (Sharapova) finished in the Top 10. The Hordettes' streak of leading the tour as the nation with the most different singles champions in a given season ended (three nations had three to Russia's two). And while there were still more Russian singles finalists than from any other nation in 2011-12, Hordettes filled less than twenty final slots in those seasons after averaging twenty-nine a season from 2003-10. In 2011, only seven singles titles were won by Russians, the lowest total since 2002, when they won six. Then, in 2012, only six titles were claimed by Hordettes. 2012 was the only the second season since '03 in which a WTA final was not contested between two Russian women, and the first since '05. There has been at least one Russian in the semifinals of thirty-one of the last thirty-six slams, but only Sharapova has managed the feat over the last eight majors. And while the one-Russian-in-the-Top 10 streak was extended to ten years last year, no Hordette has authored a Top 10 ranking debut since 2007, when Chakvetadze was the last Russian to climb so high for the very first time.

Needless to say, it's not exactly a "buy now" trend.

Recently, though, there has been at least some light visible at the end of the proverbial Russian revolution tunnel, if such a thing exists. For one, almost single-handedly, Sharapova has lifted the standing of the entire group. She (briefly) returned to #1, won Roland Garros and seems on the verge of adding to her career slam haul this season and/or over the next few years. Not only that, but several late-blooming Russians are finding career-best success as the tour has become a more hospitable place for veterans. Maria Kirilenko, 26, had her best season-ending rank (#14) in '12, while 30-year old Nadia Petrova (at #12) had her best season since '08 last year. Ekaterina Makarova, 24, saw her first Top 20 season in '12 and has shined in Fed Cup play in '13, while earlier this season Elena Vesnina (26) finally won her first career title and has twice teamed with Makarova to win deciding doubles matches in FC play this year. Speaking of Fed Cup, with a group of players I "lovingly" call the Russian "B-Teamers," the Hordettes overcame a 2-0 deficit against the Slovak Republic in the semis to reach the final. They'll host the championship in Moscow later this season, looking for their first FC crown since 2008.

While the (so far) lack of follow-up success of the NextGen Hordettes surely hasn't constituted it being called a "lost generation," ala the post-Williams Sisters/Davenport/Capriati generation of Bannerettes, the younger group -- and the revolutionaries' late-blooming generational counterparts -- that have come after the 2004'ers has surely turned out to be an unpolished, less striking lot. They win, but rarely big, following in the footsteps of the likes of Safina and Zvonareva, who crumbled on court in their potentially-grandest days, not the big moment grabbing players like the multiple slam-winning Sharapova and Kuznetsova.

Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, now 21, has always been the key player who would determine precisely how the NextGen Hordettes would be viewed. A junior champ extraordinaire, she was touted while still a young teen as the "next Russian champion." For the most part, it hasn't happened. Blessed with a slam-competitive power groundstroke game, she's nonetheless had a hard time breaking through at big events. She reached two slam QF in '11, but failed after leading Francesca Schiavone in Paris 6-1/4-1 in her bid to reach her first slam semifinal, then immediately slumped in '12 and fell from her Top 20 ranking to barely inside the Top 40. Fitness questions and sometimes-freakish week-to-week consistency have bedeviled her up-then-down seasons the last few years. Earlier this year, she notched two Top 10 wins in Brisbane before being pollaxed by Serena Williams in the final. Still, her talent, even with all the two-steps-forward-and-one-step-back shenanigans, has shined through enough to allow her to grab five titles since 2010, the last coming this weekend in Oeiras, Portugal. With two titles in hand, on two different surfaces, already this season, has Pavlyuchenkova turned some sort of corner? Only time will tell.

The overall track record of the Russians has improved in 2013, too. After just two different Russians won singles titles last season, four have already done so this year. Pavlyuchenkova's Oeiras crown, coming a week after Sharapova's in Stuttgart -- the first time since '11 that two Hordettes have won titles in back-to-back weeks on tour -- gives the Russians six total titles in '13 through eighteen weeks, tying last year's full season mark, and just one fewer than 2011's total of seven.

While the overall impact of the follow-up generation of Russians, as well as most of the generations of players that will forever after come around down the road, will never edge close to the impact of the group of now-gone and current veteran Horde members who remain to "play for history," or simply play out the back-half (at best) of their careers, the lasting influence of the Hordettes who led the way nearly a decade ago will only grow stronger if Russia continues to be a WTA power player after proven champions like Sharapova are long gone.

Until another "next champion" comes along, Pavlyuchenkova is still the "key" player when it comes to the continuation of Russian success in the shadow of the revolution. As she goes, so will go the NextGen Hordettes.

Anastasia, it's your serve.



*WEEK 18 CHAMPIONS*
OEIRAS, PORTUGAL (Int'l $235K/RCO)
S: Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova/RUS def. Carla Suarez-Navarro/ESP 7-5/6-2
D: Y.Chan/Mladenovic (TPE/FRA) d. Jurak/Marosi (CRO/HUN)


PLAYER OF THE WEEK: Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova/RUS

...while Pavlyuchenkova is still looking for consistency and a true grand slam breakthrough worthy of her position in the post-2004's Hordette generation, she's still managing to collect a fair number of singles titles on her way to where she's always been expected to be. Her Oeiras crown was her second of the season, and fifth of her career, and came after a string of wins over Shahar Peer, Estrella Cabeza-Candela, Elena Vesnina, Romina Oprandi and Carla Suarez-Navarro.
=============================
RISERS: Carla Suarez-Navarro/ESP & Romina Oprandi/SUI
...what with Elena Vesnina finally getting her first tour singles title earlier this year, CSN has become the most "hard-luck" player in the WTA. Once again, she put up a good showing in Oeiras, knocking out Marina Erakovic, Yanina Wickmayer, Monica Puig and defending champ Kaia Kanepi, getting a bit of payback after losing to the Estonian in the final a year ago when this tournament was held in Estoril. This was CSN's second '13 final, and the fifth of her career. Thing is, she's now 0-5 in those matches. Meanwhile, Oprandi, 27, continued to put up good "late-bloomer" numbers, getting Oeiras victories over Kiki Bertens, Peng Shuai and Svetana Kuznetsova to reach the semifinals, just the third such tour-level result of her career, but the first since she did it in 2011 on the grass in 's-Hertogenbosch.
=============================
SURPRISES: Monica Puig/PUR & Madison Keys/USA
...it's good to be lucky, and a "loser." Apparently. Both teenagers lost qualifying matches this past week, but ended up getting the last laugh. In Oeiras, Puig, after a nice win over Maria-Teresa Torro-Flor, was taken out by Galina Voskoboeva, only to slip into the main draw and get upset victories over Julia Goerges and Francesca Schiavone to reach her first career tour-level QF. This weekend in Madrid, Keys was felled by fellow Bannerette Bethanie Mattek-Sands, only to be a late replacement for Tamira Paszek in the main draw and get a HUGE 1st Round win over Li Na. In Sydney in January, Keys took Li to three sets in a quarterfinal match-up.
=============================
VETERANS: Petra Rampre/SLO & Shahar Peer/ISR
...33-year old Rampre, ranked #277 in the world, tied her best-ever ITF result with her third career $50K challenger title, winning the Indian Harbour Beach event in Florida with a 6-0/6-1 win in the final over Dia Evtimova. She got previous victories over the likes over Laura Pous-Tio and youngsters Mayo Hibi and Belinda Bencic. Earlier in Oeiras, Peer went 3-0 in qualifying -- getting wins over Karin Knapp, Anastasia Rodionova and Catalina Castano -- before falling in the 1st Round to eventual champ Pavlyuchenkova. Peer has put up a 9-2 mark in her recent forays into tour-level Q-rounds.
=============================
COMEBACKS: Kaia Kanepi/EST & Alexandra Dulgheru/ROU
...even though the Portugal Open wasn't held in Estoril, where she won the title a year ago, Oeiras was a mostly-suitiable replacement for Kanepi, who continued her latest comeback from injury by getting wins over Kristina Mladenovic, Sorana Cirstea and Ayumi Morita en route to the semifinals, where she lost to CSN, the player she beat in last year's final... hmmm, considering that, maybe "mostly-suitable" wasn't the right way to describe things. Oh, well. Forward movement is still good for the Estonian, who got a 1st Round win Sunday in Madrid over Flavia Pennetta. Dulgheru, a Top 30 player in 2011, was out from March to November last season after surgeries on both knees, an absence that caused her to take a nearly 200-spot tumble down the rankings. In January, Dulgheru won a small ITF event in Antalya, Turkey to begin to get a little traction in her comeback. Ranked at #363 this weekend in Madrid, her third tour-level event since she returned to the court at the end of last year, the Romanian won two qualifying matches (including one over Marina Erakovic) to reach the main draw.
=============================
FRESH FACES: Kristina Mladenovic/FRA & An-Sophie Mestach/BEL
...who wouldn't want to play doubles with Mladenovic? I mean, at the very least, you'd have a good shot to reach a final. In Oeiras, the Pastry reached her third consecutive doubles final -- with three different partners -- and won her third doubles crown of the season (also with three different partners). Chan Yung-Jan (who also won a 125 Series crown w/ her then-teenaged partner in '12) pulled the long straw this week in Portugal, celebrating with Mladenovic as Kristina won her fifth tour-level doubles crown since last August. And, altogether now, she's won those five titles with... five different partners. At the $50K challenger in Gifu, Japan, 19-year old Waffle Mestach claimed the biggest title of her career. After early wins over Yurika Sema and Kimiko Date-Krumm (via retirement), ASM won a 1-6/6-3/6-0 final over China's Wang Qiang, who dropped her second ITF singles final in as many weeks.
=============================
DOWN: Marion Bartoli/FRA & Caroline Wozniacki/DEN
...La Trufflette did well in her first-ever Fed Cup singles action two weeks ago, but her stint with new coach Jana Novotna has yet to bear any fruit on the regular tour. While she still sports the WTA's longest active Top 20 streak -- 309 weeks as of Monday -- Bartoli had dropped four consecutive tour-level singles matches after her 1st Round exit in Oeiras last week until finally getting a win on Sunday in Madrid when Elena Vesnina retired in the 2nd set of their 1st Round match. Meanwhile, a day after wishing a Twitter birthday to Rory McIlroy -- "Happy birthday to the most amazing person I know! @McIlroyRory today u are the oldest you have ever been and the youngest you will ever be! -- Wozniacki was sent packing from Madrid with little trouble in a 6-2/6-4 loss to Yaroslava Shvedova. After looking as if she might be picking up some momentum, the Dane, wrapped around caddying a bit for her favorite golfer at the Masters week or so ago, has skidded off course with a 2-4 mark since reaching the Indian Wells final.
=============================
ITF PLAYER: Yvonne Meusburger/AUT
...the 29-year old Australian won her second challenger of the season at the $25K event in Wiesbaden. Her fourteenth career circuit crown came after she ran off wins over Jill Craybas, Barbora Krejcikova, Anna-Lena Friedsam, Dinah Pfizenmaier and Sharon Fichman in the final.
=============================
JUNIOR STAR: Belinda Bencic/SUI
...the Melanie Molitor-coached 16-year old, the #5 junior in the world, had her best bigger-event result at the $50K challenger in Indian Harbour Beach, Florida. A winner of two previous $10K titles, Bencic reached the semifinals here after reaching the main draw as a qualifier (def. Allie Will), then upsetting the #1 seed (Tatjana Maria) and Shelby Rogers en route to the final four.
=============================


1. Oeiras Final - Pavlyuchenkova d. Suarez-Navarro
...7-5/6-2. A-Pav joins Serena and Sharapova as the only women with '13 titles on multiple surfaces.
=============================
2. Oeiras 1st Rd. - Schiavone d. Dominguez-Lino
...6-3/6-2. A couple of days later, an "instant rematch" of the Marrakech final plays out pretty much the same way as the original.
=============================
3. Oeiras 2nd Rd. - Puig d. Schiavone 6-3/6-2
Madrid 1st Rd. - Keys d. Li 6-3/6-2
...maybe it was something about "6-3/6-2?" Either way, two "lucky losers" have gotten extremely fortunate over the past week.
=============================
4. Madrid 1st Rd. - Ivanovic d. Mattek-Sands
...6-7(10)/6-3/6-2. Not so much "luck" for the qualifier who defeated "lucky loser" Keys in the final qualifying round in Madrid, though. Hmmm... there's (partially) that "6-3/6-2" scoreline again, too.
=============================
5. Madrid 1st Rd. - Hantuchova d. Stephens
...6-3/7-5. Stephens is becoming the "most predictable" player on tour. Even this, in some way, probably should have been seen coming, I guess. Habitual name-droppers -- surely you remember all of Sloane's comments in interviews about "me and Serena" over the past year -- tend to get bitten by their "bonds" with said "names" at some point down the line.
=============================
6. Oeiras SF - Suarez-Navarro d. Kanepi
...6-4/6-1. One year, a different city and a round earlier, CSN gets some payback for losing to Kanepi in 2012's Estoril final in Portugal.
=============================
7. $10K Villa Allende Final - Montserrat Gonzalez d. Constanza Vega
...6-4/6-1. The 18-year old from Paraguay gets her first ITF singles crown. She won her first in doubles, too.
=============================
8. $25K Wiesbaden Doubles SF - Dabrowski/Fichman d. Knoll/Krunic
...6-4/6-2. Aleksandra can't win 'em all.
=============================
9. Madrid 1st Rd. - Kvitova d. Wickmayer
...4-6/7-5/6-4. It's just never easy, is it?
=============================
10. Madrid 1st Rd. - Scheepers d. Jankovic
...6-7/6-3/6-3. Did Ricardo & Sabine put the juju jinx on JJ last week? This one prevented a 2nd Round JJ/AnaIvo match, by the way.
=============================


1. Oeiras 1st Rd. - U.Radwanska d. Cibulkova
...2-6/6-4/6-4. What do the Radwanskas have against Dominika anyway? First, Aga served her a pair of bagels in January, then Ula gives her an extra kick while she's still down following the Slovak Republic's historic Fed Cup collapse.
=============================
2. Oeiras 2nd Rd. - Morita d. U.Radwanska 6-2/6-3
Madrid 1st Rd. - Errani d. U.Radwanska 6-3/6-1
...Ayumi and Sara, expect some Radwanskian retribution later. But not when Errani ties Venus & Serena for most career weeks (8) as doubles #1 this week.
=============================
3. $50K Gifu 1st Rd. - E.Sema d. Sanders
...6-1/6-4. Storm went 3-0 vs. the Semas over a span of two weeks about a month or so ago. I guess revenge IS a dish best served cold.
=============================


**2013 WTA TITLES**
3...Serena Williams (Brisbane, Miami, Charleston)
2...Maria Sharapova (Indian Wells, Stuttgart)
2...Victoria Azarenka (Australian Open, Doha)
2...Agnieszka Radwanska (Auckland, Sydney)
2...ANASTASIA PAVLYUCHENKOVA (Monterrey, Oeiras)

**2013 SINGLES FINALS - RUSSIANS**
3...Maria Sharapova (2-1)
3...ANASTASIA PAVLYUCHENKOVA (2-1)
1...Maria Kirilenko (1-0)
1...Elena Vesnina (1-0)
1...Oga Puchkova (0-1)

**CAREER TITLES - ACTIVE RUSSIANS**
29...Maria Sharapova
13...Svetlana Kuznetsova
13...Nadia Petrova
12...Vera Zvonareva
8...Anna Chakvetadze
6...Maria Kirilenko
5...ANASTASIA PAVLYUCHENKOVA

**MOST 2013 FINALISTS - BY NATION**
9...RUSSIA (6 wins)
5...Italy (3)
5...United States (3)
5...Germany (1)
4...Czech Republic (2)
4...SPAIN (1)
3...China (1)

**2013 CONSECUTIVE DOUBLES FINALS**
4...Errani/Vinci (January-February, 3-1)
4...Petrova/Srebotnik (2-2)
3...KRISTINA MLADENOVIC (2-1)

**2013 ITF TITLES**
4...Reka-Luca Jani, HUN
4...MELANIE KLAFFNER, AUT
3...Jovana Jaksic, SRB
3...Julia Kimmelmann, GER
3...Tara Moore, GBR
3...Aliaksandra Sasnovich, BLR





MADRID, SPAIN (Premier $4.033K/red clay outdoor)
12 Final: S.Williams d. Azarenka
12 Doubles Champions: Errani/Vinci
13 Top Seeds: S.Williams/Sharapova
=============================
=QF=
#1 S.Williams d. #6 Li Shvedova
#3 Azarenka d. #7 Errani
#4 A.Radwanska d. #11 Petrova
#2 Sharapova d. #9 Stosur
=SF=
#1 S.Williams d. #3 Azarenka
#2 Sharapova d. #4 A.Radwanska
=FINAL=
#1 S.Williams d. #2 Sharapova

...remember, Serena -- even without the blue clay -- has lost on clay to only Virginie Razzano since last spring. If Maria were to prevail over Serena, well, truthfully, it might be bad news for the Russian in Paris.... it possibly serving to focus Serena's sights on that title even more. So maybe Sharapova should just let the "natural" course of things play out in Madrid (i.e. watch Williams lift the trophy), then take the same course of action Roland Garros, where Serena's luck is rarely ever good, while Maria's was quite fantastic one year ago.


All for now.

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Wk.17- April's No Place for Fools

April is almost over. Do you know where your WTA leading ladies are?

**APRIL's TOP PLAYERS**
1. Roberta Vinci, ITA
...dominated Petra Kvitova in the Katowice final, then did it again (and even better) in Fed Cup
=============================
2. Serena Williams, USA
...a title in Charleston began her clay court season. Can she end it with an even bigger, eleven-years-in-the-making second crown in Paris?
=============================
3. Ekaterina Makarova, RUS
...2013's Russian Fed Cup star. Of course, this doesn't mean she'll be honored with anything other than a possible doubles role in the final when the "bigger name" Hordettes are more likely to show up.
=============================
4. Italian Fed Cup Team
...five finals in eight years
=============================
5. Russian Fed Cup Team
...back from a 0-2 hole against the Slovaks in the FC semis to reach their eighth final since 1999
=============================
6. Maria Sharapova, RUS
...is Stuttgart just the start of another Sharapova Spring?
=============================
7. Makarova/Vesnina, RUS
...two deciding doubles FC matches down, one more to go?
=============================
8. Francesca Schiavone, ITA
...proving her worth once again on clay, one good week in Marrakech just put her 2013 record over .500
=============================
9. Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, RUS
...Monterrey makes you wonder, "Why doesn't she do this more often?"
=============================
10. Angelique Kerber, GER
...a runner-up in Monterrey, and a semifinalist in Stuttgart
=============================

COMEBACK: Jelena Jankovic, SRB
SURPRISE: Stefanie Voegele, SUI
FRESH FACE: Annika Beck, GER
JUNIOR STAR: Jelena Ostapenko, LAT
DOWN: Slovakian Fed Cup Team
ITF PLAYER: Mariana Duque-Marino, COL



*WEEK 17 CHAMPIONS*
STUTTGART, GERMANY (Premier $794K/RCI)
S: Maria Sharapova/RUS def. Li Na/CHN 6-4/6-3
D: Barthel/Lisicki (GER/GER) d. Mattek-Sands/Mirza (USA/IND)
MARRAKECH, MOROCCO (Int'l $235K/RCO)
S: Francesca Schiavone/ITA def. Lourdes Dominguez-Lino/ESP 6-1/6-3
D: Babos/Minella (HUN/LUX) d. Martic/Mladenovic (CRO/FRA)


PLAYER OF THE WEEK: Maria Sharapova/RUS

...once more, the clay season is bringing out the best in Sharapova. Oh, it wasn't easy to defend her Stuttgart title. She had to go three sets against Lucie Safarova, Ana Ivanovic and Angelique Kerber before taking out Li Na in straights in the final, but career title #29 -- with four coming on red clay the last two seasons -- surely puts her in the driver's seat once more for Roland Garros. This was Sharapova's third straight final this season (w/ Indian Wells and Miami), and the 49th of her career. Her twenty-nine wins tie Arantxa Sanchez Vicario for 17th on the all-time WTA list, one behind Tracy Austin. On Monday, Sharapova heads to Moscow to promote the introduction of Sugarpova to the Russian market. I hope she brings some packages with her to Paris next month... they might be nice thank-you gifts for all the ball girls and boys after the women's final.
=============================
RISER: Angelique Kerber/GER
...Kerber's title drought is now nearly thirteen months, but her results continue to be consistent enough to keep her ranking comfortably nestled within the Top 10. Her week in Stuttgart was another example of a very good week -- singles wins over Anastasia Palvyuchenkova, who beat her in the Monterrey final earlier this season, and Yaroslava Shvedova, and a doubles SF run with Andrea Petkovic that featured wins over Makarova/Vesnina and Groenefeld/Peschke -- that nevertheless didn't actually produce any hardware for her trophy case.
=============================
SURPRISE: Mandy Minella/LUX
...the 27-year old from Luxembourg, after carving out a nice career on the ITF circuit, is turning out to be another of the tour's many late bloomers. Minella had her best year-end ranking (#75) last year, setting a career-high (#66) in September. Last week, she got wins over Estrella Cabeza-Candela, Kaia Kanepi and Silvia Soler-Espinosa to reach her second career semifinal (Bad Gastein '12). In doubles, where she'll soon be Top 50, Minella teamed with Timea Babos to win her second career tour doubles crown (both with Babos in '13, along with another runner-up result as a duo).
=============================
VETERANS: Li Na/CHN & Lourdes Dominguez-Lino/ESP
...in Stuttgart, just her second event back since her injury-marred Australian Open final, Li is already showing the sort of form that got her a slam title in Paris two years ago. Wins over Mirjana Lucic-Baroni, Petra Kvitova and Bethanie Mattek-Sands put Li in her third final of the season, where she lost to Maria Sharapova. Remember, though, back in '11 Li opened her campaign with a runner-up in Melbourne that morphed into a title at Roland Garros five months later. I'm just sayin'. In Marrakech, LDL advanced to her fifth career tour singles final (she's won twice) with victories over Misaki Doi, Tsvetana Pironkova, defending champ Kiki Bertens and Mandy Minella. All five of Dominguez-Lino's finals have come on red clay (three times in Bogota).
=============================
COMEBACKS: Francesca Schiavone/ITA & Bethanie Mattek-Sands/USA
...Schiavone, 32, might not have anything near the presence on the tour that she did a couple of seasons ago, but put her on the red clay and there's a shot she might weave a little magic once again. She did in Marrakech to claim her sixth career WTA singles crown (five on red clay) and become the oldest tour singles champ this season. Schiavone hadn't reached anything as good as a semifinal since she won in Strasbourg right before last year's Roland Garros, and had put up a 14-20 record (5-9 in '13) since then, before her five-match winning streak in Morocco over the likes of Petra Martic, Simona Halep, Alize Cornet, Chanelle Scheepers and Lourdes Domingues-Lino. In Stuttgart, Mattek-Sands continued her dual-threat comeback in both singles and doubles. She and Sania Mirza reached their third final of the season, while BMS qualified in singles then upset Yanina Wickmayer, Sara Errani and Sabine Lisicki to reach the semifinals.
=============================
FRESH FACES: Timea Babos/HUN & Ons Jabeur/TUN
...Babos, 19, made it through singles qualifying in Marrakech, then lost in the 1st Round. But she made up for that in doubles, teaming with Mandy Minella to reach and win her second straight tour final (she last won in Monterrey with Date-Krumm). Babos & Minella also won the title in Bogota this season, meaning the young Hungarian is tied with Sara Errani and Roberta Vinci (with 3) for the most doubles titles this season. Meanwhile, in a $25K challenger in Tunis, Tunisia's Jabeur, 18, claimed her first ITF title since 2010 -- and her biggest yet -- with wins over Renata Voracova, Yana Buchina and Sara Sorribes Torro in the final. Combined with her Fed Cup action last week, Jabeur has put together a nine-match winning streak.
=============================
DOWN: Petra Kvitova/CZE
...just when you think it might be safe to "go back into the water" -- i.e. the coast being clear enough to wonder whether Kvitova's strike-a-match comeback against Sara Errani in Fed Cup play last weekend might serve to wake up her potential for a few weeks -- Kvitova heads off to Stuttgart and barely escapes her 1st Round match against teenager Annika Beck, winning in a 3rd set after dropping a 2nd set tie-break at love to the German. Next up was another three-setter versus Julia Goerges, then a straight sets QF loss to Li Na. Clay, even indoor clay, isn't really Kvitova's best surface, but as the Czech's career continues to only occasionally resemble the one many thought she'd have by now when she won Wimbledon in '11 and earned Player of the Year honors, it's also time to wonder if Petra's career might ultimately less resemble that of a Serena (who took more than two years to win slam #2 after her surprise first major in '99) and instead look more like that of an AnaIvo (who showed great slam championship promise, until she actually won one).
=============================
ITF PLAYER: Shelby Rogers/USA
...the 20-year old Bannerette matched her biggest career title by picking up the $50K challenger in Charlottesville, Virginia. Rogers notched wins over Alison Riske, Allie Will, Patricia Mayr-Achleitner and, in the final, fellow American Allie Kiick, 17, who was looking to get by far her biggest title yet. Rogers won the match 6-3/7-5.
=============================
JUNIOR STAR: Jelena Ostapenko/LAT
...the Latvian Express that is 15-year old Ostapenko continues on without a stop for rest and refueling. One week after starring in Fed Cup zone play, she was back in junior action last week, winning the Grade 1 Beaulieu-sur-Mer event in France as the #1 seed. Never dropping a set throughout the week, Ostapenko defeated Serbian Nina Stojanovic 6-0/6-3 in the final.
=============================


1. Stutt Final - Sharapova d. Li

...6-4/6-3. As Sharapova improves 2013 defending champs' combined record in finals to 5-1, she displays the open-arms victory stance that is starting to become a signature move.
=============================
2. Marr Final - Schiavone d. Dominguez-Lino
...6-1/6-3. "Luck" of the draw, these two have been drawn to meet again in the 1st Round in Oeiras this week.
=============================
3. Stutt 1st Rd - Kvitova d. Beck 7-5/6-7(0)/6-3
Oeiras Q1 - King d. Beck 6-1/7-5
...one could say that maybe Beck, with some nice recent results, is ready to make a move. But then came this weekend's qualifying in Portugal. Oh, Petra.
=============================
4. Stutt Doubles Final - Barthel/Lisicki d. Mattek-Sands/Mirza
...6-4/7-5. This is Barthel's first career tour doubles title, and Lisicki's second (the last came in this same event in '11, partnering with Sam Stosur).
=============================
5. Stutt 1st Rd - Suarez-Navarro d. Wozniacki

...7-6/6-1. Maybe Rory was still on Caro's mind? CSN held her to a "driver" and a "tee" on the scoreline.
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6. Stutt 1st Rd - Pavlyuchenkova d. Makarova 6-7/7-5/6-4
Stutt 2nd Rd - Mattek-Sands d. Errani 6-0/4-6/6-1
Stutt Doubles 1st Rd - Kerber/Petkovic d. Makarova/Vesnina 6-1/7-6
...so much for -- and likely proof of? -- a "Fed Cup hangover."
=============================
7. Marr Doubles 1st Rd - Kania/Olaru d. Pennetta/Schiavone
...4-6/6-4/10-8. Hmmm, can you have a Fed Cup hangover if you didn't actually play in FC, and only watched? After what Francesca did after this, I guess that one's already been answered.
=============================
8. Stutt 2nd Rd - Lisicki d. Jankovic
...7-6/7-5. Ricardo's revenge? JJ saved six set points in the 1st, and two match points in the 2nd... but she still lost in straight sets.
=============================
HM- $25K Tunis Doubles Final - Krunic/Piter d. Jani/Pashkova
...6-2/3-6/10-7. A week after Fed Cup disappointment, Aleksandra gets right back on the horse in a big doubles match. Bravo! (Though, I am missing being able to chant the name of a certain Hungarian with the initials RLJ three times right now.)
=============================


1. Stutt Doubles 1st Rd. - Kops-Jones/Spears d. Black/An.Rodionova
...6-1/6-0. Somehow, I doubt that Liezel -- who reached the QF with Janette Husarova -- has much sympathy. Arina may be another story, though.
=============================
2. $50K Istanbul Doubles Final - Bychkova/N.Kichenok d. Eraydin/Naydenova
...3-6/6-2/10-5. Who says Nadiya needs Lyudmyla to pick up a doubles title?
=============================


**2013 FINALS ON MOST SURFACES**
2 - Sara Errani, ITA (hard,red clay)
2 - Jelena Jankovic, SRB (red clay,green clay)
2 - Petra Kvitova , CZE (hard,red clay)
2 - LI NA, CHN (hard,red clay)
2 - MARIA SHARAPOVA, RUS (hard,red clay) *
2 - Serena Williams, USA (hard,green clay) *
--
* - won titles on both surfaces

**MOST IN WTA IN 2013**
[finals]
4...Serena Williams (3-1)
3...MARIA SHARAPOVA (2-1)
3...Sara Errani (1-2)
3...LI NA (1-2)
[semifinals]
5...MARIA SHARAPOVA (3-2)
4...Serena Williams (3-0+W)
4...LI NA (3-1)
4...Agnieszka Radwanska (2-2)
4...ANGELIQUE KERBER (1-3)
[semifinals - North Americans]
4...Serena Williams (3-0+W)
2...BETHANIE MATTEK-SANDS (1-1)
2...Sloane Stephens (0-2)
2...Venus Williams (0-2)

**MOST CONSECUTIVE WEEKS IN TOP 10**
[active streaks]
135...Victoria Azarenka
109...Maria Sharapova
103...Petra Kvitova
90...Samantha Stosur
82...Agnieszka Radwanska
56...Serena Williams
50...Angelique Kerber
47...Sara Errani
38...Li Na
12...Caroline Wozniacki

**2013 DOUBLES TITLES**
[Individuals]
3...Sara Errani, ITA
3...Roberta Vinci, ITA
3...TIMEA BABOS, HUN
[Teams]
3...Errani/Vinci, ITA/ITA
2...BABOS/MINELLA, HUN/LUX
2...Mattek-Sands/Mirza, USA/IND
2...Petrova/Srebotnik, RUS/SLO

**OLDEST 2013 CHAMPIONS**
32y10m1w - FRANCESCA SCHIAVONE, ITA (Marrakech)
31y6m1w - Serena Williams, USA (Charleston)
31y6m - Serena Williams, USA (Miami)
31y3m2w - Serena Williams, USA (Brisbane)
30y10m1w - Li Na, CHN (Shenzhen)
30y1m - Roberta Vinci, ITA (Katowice)

**SHARAPOVA CAREER SINGLES TITLES BY SURFACE**
17...Hard Court
7...Red Clay
3...Grass
2...Carpet
--
NOTE: 2012-13 - 4 red clay, 1 hard court

**KVITOVA RECENT INDOOR RESULTS NOTES**
[2011]
21-0 season indoor record
[2012]
Extended official indoor streak to 27 con. wins (31 con. "unofficial" wins w/ Hopman Cup)
Sharapova ends indoor win streak in Stuttgart (red clay)
Loses Wimbledon match to S.Williams under roof
A.Radwanska hands first indoor hard court loss since 2010 (WTA Championships)
Goes 1-1 in Fed Cup final, indoors in Prague
[2013]
7-3 indoor record for season (1-1 hard court w/ loss to Mladenovic, 6-2 on red clay)

**ALL-TIME WTA TITLE LEADERS**
167...Martina Navratilova
154...Chris Evert
107...Steffi Graf
92...Margaret Court
68...Evonne Goolagong
67...Billie Jean King
55...Lindsay Davenport
55...Virginia Wade
53...Monica Seles
49...Serena Williams
44...Venus Williams
43...Justine Henin
43...Martina Hingis
41...Kim Clijsters
33...Conchita Martinez
30...Tracy Austin
29...MARIA SHARAPOVA
29...Arantxa Sanchez Vicario


Whoa! Let's not get ahead of ourselves, Maria.





OEIRAS, PORTUGAL (Int'l $235K/red clay outdoor)
12 Final (Estoril): Kanepi d. Suarez-Navarro
12 Doubles Champions (Estoril): Chuang/Zhang
13 Top Seeds: Bartoli/Cibulkova
=============================
=SF=
#3 Pavlyuchenkova d. #1 Bartoli
Schiavone d. Kanepi
=FINAL=
#3 Pavlyuchenkova d. Schiavone

...will it be either the Russian or Italian momentum that continues? Don't rule out Kuznetsova here, either, because, well, just because she's Sveta and you never know.


All for now.

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