Mauresmo Faces Clijsters in WTA Championships Final; Masters Cup Begins Today

Posted on November 11, 2003

WTA REVIEW/PREVIEW
Two three-set thrillers marked the semifinals Sunday at the WTA Championships, with Amelie Mauresmo ousting soon-to-be year-end No. 1 Justine Henin-Hardenne, and Jennifer Capriati coming up just short in her upset bid of Kim Clijsters. Clijsters rallied from a set down and a 3-2 deficit in the second to beat Capriati 4-6, 6-3, 6-0, outlasting the American who suffered from a hip injury. "I probably shouldn't have played at all," said the chunky JenCap, who led 6-4, 3-2 with a break before taking a medical time-out, then losing 10 consecutive games. "It's the last tournament of the year, it's the championships. You always think maybe there's a little bit of hope you could pull it out." Mauresmo came between yet another all-Belgian final by outlasting Henin-Hardenne 7-6(2), 3-6, 6-3. "I just gave my best," said Henin-Hardenne, who was coming off a loss to Ai Sugiyama in the round robin. "Amelie really was the aggressor. I had chances, but she always came back and broke me. Amelie can be No. 1 for sure. When she plays aggressive like she did today, she can beat everyone." A surprise semifinalist, Mauresmo posted a 1-2 record in round robin play, and only made the semifinals after Chanda Rubin choked a 6-4, 5-2 lead against Elena Dementieva in her last round robin match. The defending champion Clijsters leads the head-to-head over Mauresmo 6-2, including all four of their meetings in 2003.

In WTA doubles championship play, the top two seeds advanced to the final when (1)Clijsters/Sugiyama beat Black/Likhovtseva in straights sets, and (2)Ruano Pascual/Suarez eased by crowd favorites Kuznetsova/Navratilova in straights. Tonight the doubles championship will follow the singles final.

In the Sunday final at the WTA Pattaya City stop, Henrieta Nagyova beat fellow Slovak Lubomira Kurhajcova 6-4, 6-2 in the all-unseeded final. It was Nagyova's ninth career title, and first since Warsaw in 2000. It was the career-first WTA final for Kurhajcova.

ATP REVIEW/PREVIEW
The race for the year-end No. 1 ranking between Andy Roddick, Juan Carlos Ferrero, and Roger Federer begins today as the Masters Cup singles begins in Houston, Texas. On court today at the Masters Cup in singles and doubles are Ferrero vs. Nalbandian (Nalbandian leads head-to-head 1-0; will the Argentine pull with the wrist injury?), Knowles/Nestor vs. Etlis/Rodriguez (K/N lead 4-1, both teams with a 1-0 record), Federer vs. Agassi (Agassi leads 3-0), and Bhupathi/Mirnyi vs. Arthurs/Hanley (tied 2-2; a must-win match for both teams). "I'm not hoping for him to play a bad match just because he hasn't played since the Open," said Federer on facing Agassi. "It's going to be a very difficult match for me."

The favorites returned to their winning ways Sunday in round robin play at the Masters Cup doubles, with last year's No. 1s Knowles/Nestor edging Aussies Arthurs/Hanley 7-6 in the third (saved two match points), and Bjorkman/Woodbridge easing by Damm/Suk in straight sets. "Obviously, it was the turning point when Arthurs double-faulted (on match point)," Nestor said. "Then we had life again. We just played solid after that. Got a little lucky on match point for us. Had a ball off the frame for a winner. It was a roller coaster match from the beginning." The Bryan brothers, who fought off four set points in their first win, also defeated Frenchmen Llodra/Santoro in three sets Sunday. "We came in here wanting to claim No. 1, but we don't want to do it the cheap way by having the other teams lose and doing it mathematically," said Bob Bryan. "We want to go out and win the tournament to cap a great year."

Masters Cup Doubles Standings
Red Group:
(1)Bryan/Bryan 2-0 win-loss (4-2 sets)
(3)Bjorkman/Woodbridge 1-1 (3-2)
(6)Llodra/Santoro 1-1 (3-3)
(7)Damm/Suk 0-2 (1-4)

Blue Group:
(8)Etlis/Rodriguez 1-0 win-loss (2-0 sets)
(4)Knowles/Nestor 1-0 (2-1)
(5)Arthurs/Hanley 0-1 (1-2)
(2)Bhupathi/Mirnyi 0-1 (0-2)

Masters Cup Singles Standings
Red Group:
(1)Andy Roddick 0-0 win-loss (0-0 sets)
(4)Guillermo Coria 0-0 (0-0)
(6)Rainer Schuettler 0-0 (0-0)
(7)Carlos Moya 0-0 (0-0)

Blue Group:
(2)Juan Carlos Ferrero 0-0 (0-0)
(3)Roger Federer 0-0 (0-0)
(5)Andre Agassi 0-0 (0-0)
(8)David Nalbandian 0-0 (0-0)

ATP YEAR-END NO. 1 SCENARIOS
Andy Roddick will clinch No. 1 at the Masters Cup if Juan Carlos Ferrero goes 0-3 regardless of Roddick's results, or Roddick reaches semifinals and Ferrero doesn't, or Roddick defeats Ferrero in the final. Ferrero will clinch No. 1 if he goes 3-0 in round robin and Roddick goes no better than 1-2 and fails to reach semifinals, or Ferrero goes 2-1 in round robin and reaches the final while Roddick fails to reach semifinals, or Ferrero defeats Roddick in the final. Roger Federer will clinch No. 1 if he is the undefeated champion, or Roddick goes 0-3 and Ferrero goes no better than 1-2 and does not reach the semifinals. Get out your calculator.

2003 ATP MATCH FACTS LEADERS
Here are where the Masters Cup participants figure in the Top 10 leaders among the eight ATP Match Facts categories. Andre Agassi, once the undisputed return-of-serve champion, sees himself behind in all four return categories (in the event of a percentage tie, the tiebreak is number of matches played):

ACES
1. Roddick 946, 7. Federer 639
1ST SERVE PERCENTAGE
4. Coria 67%
1ST SERVE POINTS WON
1. Roddick 81%, 5. Federer 78%
2ND SERVE POINTS WON
1. Roddick 60%, 2. Ferrero 60%, 3. Federer 59%, 8. Coria 56%
SERVICE GAMES WON
1. Roddick 92%, 2. Federer 87%, 5. Agassi 86%, 9. Ferrero 84%
BREAK POINTS SAVED
1. Roddick 69%, 5. Federer 66%, 6. Moya 66%
POINTS WON RETURNING 1ST SERVE
3. Ferrero 41%, 4. Coria 41%, 6. Federer 40%, 7. Moya 40%
POINTS WON RETURNING 2ND SERVE
2. Federer 56%, 3. Ferrero 56%, 6. Nalbandian 55%, 8. Agassi 55%
BREAK POINTS CONVERTED
2. Coria 49%, 3. Nalbandian 47%, 4. Agassi 47%, 5. Schuettler 46%
RETURN GAMES WON
1. Coria 40%, 2. Agassi 36%, 4. Nalbandian 33%, 5. Schuettler 32%, 6. Ferrero 31%

NOTES, QUOTES, AND BARBS
More than 30,000 Internet voters elected Justine Henin-Hardenne the Sanex Hero of the Year for 2003; Monica Seles received the award in 2002...Anna Kournikova is considering surgery for her ailing back in an attempt to play on the tour in 2004: "That is one of the options I'm looking at. I hate needles, but I have to look at everything."...Andy Roddick says he enjoyed getting away from the pre-Masters media circus to host Saturday Night Live: "It was a lot of fun. I definitely enjoyed myself. I think it was a good thing. It kept me away from the craziness and getting too deep into all this stuff. Now I kind of come here with a fresh head, and I'm ready to go."...Swiss Davis Cup captain Marc Rosset won the Bratislava Challenger (d. van Lottum) over the weekend...Kim Clijsters reiterated that she and countrywoman Justine Henin-Hardenne are skipping the Fed Cup semifinals later this month due to their late date on the calendar: "If you see the year that Justine and I have had, we've played a lot of matches and it's tough to go home and train for another week before you get to play Fed Cup. We just want to put out a statement towards the ITF showing that this is obviously the only reason we can maybe change the dates or the formula. It's sad that it has to come this far, but I hope for all the other players in the future that it made a difference."...Bad news for the Westside Tennis Club, host venue for the Masters Cup in Houston, with Roger Federer and Rainer Schuettler giving conditions the thumbs-down before the event has even begun: "The court is leaning a little bit," Federer said. "It's strange. There's a little bit of waves on the court and the ball bounces strange. We all have the feeling that it's going downhill sideways." Schuettler said he also was unhappy with the conditions. "The court is definitely not great," he said. "For me, it's actually surprising the condition of the court, since it's new. I didn't expect that." Fed also had some choice words for the size of the stadium court: "Center court is quite small for my tastes for a Masters, but I don't decide that kind of stuff. It looks small. It's not so high. I don't know how many people fit, but I think for a Masters, you could fit more in there. I just think that more people could come out and watch and see the best eight. You've only got Top 10 guys here, and for this I think it should be a very big event with a big stadium." Oops, maybe they should return to burying the event in Hannover or Shanghai...Today at the WTA Championships, WTA CEO Larry Scott will hold a "state of the game" press conference. That should be comprised of one sentence: 'We hope the Williams sisters come back soon.'...Andre Agassi has won the same number of career titles (58) as all the other Masters Cup participants combined...Andre Agassi says now is the time for a commissioner to oversee both pro tours: "It's sort of absurd to have so many people, so many organizations, working separately -- in some cases, arguably, even against each other -- for sponsorship dollars, for air time, for branding. The game could stand a commissioner, there's no question about it...If everybody literally put aside their own agendas and they came together and sold tennis as an entire package, worldwide, all the year, the amount of growth and progress you would see would be incredible. But that's not what we have. We have all these different groups that are sort of only interested in how their tournament does or how their tour does."...At the same time that Kim Clijsters and Amelie Mauresmo will be competing for the WTA Championships title tonight, Andre Agassi and Roger Federer will be on court at the Masters Cup competing for viewers...Kim Clijsters is playing her 15th singles final of the season at the WTA Championships, the most finals in a year since Monica Seles (16) in 1991...A Frenchwoman has never won the WTA Championships...Win or lose in the WTA Championships final, Amelie Mauresmo will equal her career-high No. 4 ranking...Martina Navratilova slammed the Williams sisters, among others including Steffi Graf, Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario and Monica Seles, for not showing up for the WTA ceremony honoring all the past No. 1s on the 30th year anniversary of the WTA Tour: "You're part of the history and the present and future. It's too bad they (the Williams sisters) didn't make it. I know Serena is in town...I don't know where Venus is. They should have been here."..Boris Becker's upcoming tell-all book also reveals he almost slept through a Wimbledon final due to sleeping pills, thinks men weren't created to be monogamous, and stayed in a hotel and drank after his wife went into labor: "I thought it was time to set the record straight about my life. It wasn't always good. The way to the top is brutal. But I'd do it the same all over again because I'm a fighter and love a challenge." Apparently Boris is a lover AND a fighter...The US Open and CBS Sports agreed to a five-year contract through 2008 that could include live coverage of U.S. summer hardcourt events leading up to the Open.