Six Seeds Dumped at Madrid, Agassi Endorses Kerry for President

Molik Beats The Crying Game at WTA Zurich

One upset at the WTA stop in Zurich Wednesday, with Aussie upstart Alicia Molik outlasting (6) Vera "The Crying Game" Zvonareva 6-2 in the third.

Seeded players into the quarterfinals were (4) Maria "Phone Mannequin" Sharapova (d. Hantuchova, upping her winning streak to 10 matches) and (9) Ai Sugiyama (d. (LL) Flavia "Of the Day" Pennetta), while unseeded winners in first-round matches were Russian Elena "Lena" Bovina (d. Schiavone), and winning the battle of qualifiers, Serbian school girl Ana Ivanovic (d. (Q) Golovin 7-6 in the third, saving two match points).

"I don't know if there's any particular reason for this winning streak," said Sharapova, who recently finished an Asian tour where she was the lone Top 30 player at two events. "I see my game as a work in progress and so I never expected that I'd be able to just win every match after Wimbledon."

On Thursday's schedule are (LL) Loit vs. Suarez, Bovina vs. (3) Dementieva, (7) Venus vs. (Q) Ivanovic, Zuluaga vs. (10) Schnyder, and Dechy vs. (8) Petrova.

Ferrero, Chileans Massu, Gonzalez Among Seeded Carnage at ATP Madrid

Defending champ Juan Carlos Ferrero. Nicolas "The Golden Child" Massu. Dominik "The Dominator" Hrbaty. Jiri Novak. Rainer "Shine" Schuettler. Fernando "Gonzo" Gonzalez.

The casualty list was long Wednesday at the ATP Masters Series-Madrid, where six seeds were ousted in second round play, opening up the draw for the top-seeded Tim Henman and No. 3 seed Marat Safin.

Digging up the seeds at Madrid were Peru's Luis "Me So" Horna (d. (6) Ferrero, losing only four games), American Taylor Dent (d. (5) Massu in three), Spain's Fernando "Hot Sauce" Verdasco (d. (10) The Dominator), former No. 2-ranked Tommy Haas (d. (11) Novak), Croatian Ivan Ljubicic (d. (13) Schuettler, baking a bagel in the second set), and Austrian (Q) Stefan Koubek (d. (15) Gonzo 7-6 in the third).

"I changed the racquet, as you know," said Ferrero, who dumped his extended-length Prince, and who will fall even further than his current No. 33 ranking after this week. "This is a racquet that hits the ball very hard. Here I've had a difficult time adapting to the altitude. Depends on the day -- sometimes I play better than others. Altitude is always a little problem."

Upholding their seedings Wednesday were (1) Henman (d. Costa), (3) Safin (d. Feliciano "F-Lo" Lopez in three), (7) Joachim "Pim-Pim" Johansson (d. Canas), (8) Tommy "The R." Robredo (d. Robby "Baby Courier" Ginepri in three), (14) Vince Spadea (d. Rafael "The Prodigy" Nadal in three), and (16) Paradorn "The Thai Fighter" Srichaphan (d. (WC) Corretja).

"It was tough to play Alex (Corretja), especially in Spain, it's always difficult to play the old man," joked the Thai Fighter. "But I'm happy to finally have a win."

Corretja had beaten The Thai Fighter in both their previous meetings.

"My stomach was a bit delicate today," Corretja said. "I was feeling weak. I wasn't as comfortable as I would like. I wasn't moving fast. I was really feeling weak. My game was worse. It wasn't a great match. It's a pity."

Safin was 0-2 career entering the match with F-Lo before turning it around.

"I lost to him in our two other matches, both on very fast surfaces," Safin said. "He serves well, he has some huge shots, it was a difficult win for me, it was really tough."

On court Thursday in Madrid, besides the ball models, are (1) Henman vs. Ljubicic, Haas vs. Dent in a race to the net, (8) Robredo vs. Hot Sauce in an all-Spanish, (14) Spadea vs. (2) Agassi in an all-American, (Q) Koubek vs. (3) Safin, (Q) Dupuis vs. (7) Pim-Pim, Horna vs. (9) Pavel, and (4) Nalbandian vs. (16) The Thai Fighter.

TENNIS DISCUSSIONS
See what all the chatter is about, the talk, the walk, don't balk on the latest issues in pro tennis at http://www.tennis-x.com/discussions.php

FREE DAILY TENNIS-X NEWSLETTER
Our free gift to you. Make it a gift to yourself. Go to www.Tennis-X.com. Sign up today and we'll attach the Anna Kournikova virus, free of charge.

TENNIS-X NEWS, NOTES, QUOTES AND BARBS
Geoff Grant of "The Journeymen" fame has left his play-by-play position with The Tennis Channel for a job in commercial real estate management in Baltimore, upping the job-excitement factor...Lindsay Davenport likes the eight-woman round robin WTA Championships format over the 16-player singles elimination: "I think that the tour made the right step a few years ago when they went to the round-robin format. Last year I think was the first year and I actually have not competed in the tour championships with it being in that format and I think having just the top eight and not the Top 16 makes it a lot more special and a lot more difficult to try and win that tournament. I think it would be interesting to see it combined with the men."...Chilean Nicolas "The Golden Child" Massu suffered a hip injury Wednesday at Madrid and was forced to retire from his doubles with countryman Fernando "Gonzo" Gonzalez...Bob Bryan on the Davis Cup final again Spain: "I think everyone on the American team is definitely really excited for the Davis Cup. You know, it's hard not to think about it every day. Even this indoor season, the rest of the year, it's kind of just a lead up to the big event at the end of the year for us. We want to finish No. 1 (in doubles). But that's our last big goal, is Davis Cup."...Query: You think if Juan Carlos Ferrero were injured most of the year, missing Davis Cup matches, but then came back at the end of the year winning tournaments and kicking ass, the Spanish coaches would tell him "Sorry, we're not going to play you in the Davis Cup final, you'd be taking the spot of another player who 'earned it.'?" Answer: Hell no. That's why Spain is going to win the Davis Cup in December, with French Open champ Andre Agassi mind-bogglingly sitting on the sidelines. What is this uniquely American attitude of not putting your best players on the court, but using the players who have "earned it"? When the U.S. is getting shellacked on the red dirt in December, for us it will bring to mind the words of former Raider's coach Al Davis: "Just win, baby." The U.S. is not doing what it needs to win, putting the best players on the court...Juan Carlos Ferrero says he will skip next week and the Masters Series-Paris the following week to rest up...Mardy Fish says the U.S. beating Spain on red clay in the Davis Cup final is not only a possibility but a reality: "Andy (Roddick) and the Bryan brothers haven't even lost a set yet (in a Davis Cup match) this year. We're extremely confident in that aspect. We don't have to beat them in an entire tournament. We don't even have to win five times...all you need is three points."...From Neil Harman in Britain's The Times: "Could be an extremely interesting Masters Cup final in Houston next month if Andre Agassi makes it back there. Deep in Texas, they could not do enough for Agassi last year. Indeed, short of tying Roger Federer's shoelaces together and tipping water on his racket strings before the final, Jim McIngvale, the tournament director and a personal friend of the Bush family, could not have made his favoritism any more clear. How does Agassi repay this kindness? By telling anyone who wants to know that he will be voting for John Kerry, the Democrat challenger, on November 2, "and I wish everyone else would do the same." As endorsements go, it is about as compelling as that of the local paper in the president's home town of Crawford, which has urged its residents to punch their names in the Kerry corner. Agassi could find it difficult to find a courtesy car driver willing to pick him up from the George Bush International airport..."..."Our Tim" Henman weighing in on the ball-models controversy: "It's something different, isn't it. They certainly look good from where I've been sitting." Lucy must have stayed home for this one...Gerard Tsobanian, the head of the firm running the Madrid tournament, said they would see the models through the controversy to the end of the event. "We will continue with our project until the end," he told The Telegraph. "We want to do something new. This is not machista, we want a women's tournament here, too, and for that we would use male models."