Hewitt Having a Baby, Sharapova Denied Top Spot at Berlin

Posted on May 7, 2005

Agassi, Nadal, Coria Advance to ATP Rome Semifinals

No. 5 seed and favorite Rafael Nadal led the seeds into the semifinals Friday at the ATP stop in Rome, coming from a set down to storm back against No. 15 seed Radek Stepanek 5-7, 6-1, 6-1.

"I can't play well every day," Nadal said. "There was a lot of wind and he attacked the net a lot. At 5-4, when I was serving for the (first) set, I didn't play a good game."

Also into the semis were No. 6 Andre Agassi (d. Hrbaty), (9) Guillermo Coria (d. Verdasco from a set down), and unseeded Dave Ferrer (d. (LL) A.Martin, fighting off four match points).

"The conditions were difficult out there today -- the wind was moving everything," said Agassi after downing "The Dominator." "It was important to make as few mistakes as possible."

Ferrer became the only unseeded player in the semis after coming back from a break down in the third against his countryman Martin.

"This year has been very good," Ferrer said. "Now I've got to take advantage of this opportunity."

Lining up in the semifinals will be Ferrer vs. (5) Rafael "The Prodigy" Nadal in an all-Spanish (career series tied 1-1), and (9) Guillermo "El Mago" Coria vs. (6) Agassi (Agassi leads 5-1), and in the doubles (3) Bryan/Bryan vs. (2) Bjorkman/Mirnyi, and Frenchmen (8) Llodra/Santoro vs. (5) Bhupathi/Woodbridge. 

Sharapova Stopped by Henin at WTA Berlin

Top-seeded Maria Sharpova's dream of attaining the No. 1 ranking was put off for a week by No. 12 seed Justine Henin-Hardenne, who stopped the Russian 6-2, 6-4 Friday at the WTA stop in Berlin.

"It's not like I'm going to go home and cry. I'm not disappointed at not being No. 1," said the top-seeded Sharapova, who again went to the "only 18" card. "I'm only 18, I'm No. 2 and I'm pretty satisfied at the moment."

Henin-Hardenne beat Sharapova on the heels of winning two three-set matches in the same day on Thursday due to rain.

"It was great that I pulled out my best tennis today against the No. 2," Henin-Hardenne said. "I played smart today. The slow courts helped me. I had a lot of time to plan my strategy."

Sharapova has yet to reach a WTA claycourt semifinal.

Also into the semifinals were (6) Nadia Petrova (d. (2) Mauresmo), (7) Patty Schnyder (d. (4) Kuznetsova), and the winner of  (8) Elena Bovina vs. (13) Jelena Jankovic, at one-set all to be finished Saturday due to rain.

"I was really happy with the weather today," said Petrova after ousting Mauresmo in the heavy wet conditions. "She hardly came to the net and couldn't play her favorite game. I think the slow courts were to my advantage."

Saturday's semifinal match-ups are (8) Bovina vs. (13) Jankovic to finish, (12) Henin-Hardenne vs. (7) Schnyder, and (8) Bovina or (13) Jankovic vs. (6) Petrova. The doubles semis will be Hantuchova/Sugiyama vs. Black/Huber, and Dulko/Vento-Kabchi vs. Likhovtseva/Zvonareva.

DAILY TENNIS-X E-NEWSLETTER
Read what tennis industry insiders read each morning to get the latest news, insight and opinion on pro tennis. Get the Tennis-X Daily Dish in your e-mail in-box, even before it's posted on the web, by signing up for the net's most complete daily e-newsletter at http://www.tennis-x.com/subscribe.php

TENNIS-X NEWS, NOTES, QUOTES AND BARBS
Worst attempt at writing Friday came from Bud Collins at the Boston Globe: "Though the storied pines of Rome, fluffy and billowing, have been sentinels at a tennis pit called Il Foro Italico for seven decades, they may never have overseen such a bizarre reversal of fortune as overtook Andy Roddick in the gloaming yesterday."...Lleyton Hewitt and fiancee Bec Cartwright announced Friday they will be having a baby. Hewitt, who was due to marry Kim Clijsters next month before the relationship was nixed, says Cartwright is three months pregnant...Here's The New Haven Register playing super-advocate for New Haven's bid for the open week on the ATP calendar right before the US Open: "Negotiations between the ATP and Pilot Pen tennis should last all of five words today. Take it or leave it. Every rational piece of evidence in the bidding war between New Haven and Chicago for the defunct TD Waterhouse Cup men's tennis tournament suggests that the Chicago bid has more holes than a stadium net. Every clue screams bluff -- from the mystery tournament site to the fact that the ATP keeps coming back to the USTA/Pilot Pen. The ATP is playing the USTA and Pilot Pen tennis, trying to squeeze every last dollar -- until a worst case scenario threatens. Until, that is, the successful Pilot Pen women?s tournament has to start digging out from the debt caused by the ATP's greed. The three principals, the ATP, USTA and Pilot Pen, have all acknowledged, publicly or privately, that when the process began, the Chicago bid was the heavy favorite of the ATP board. If Chicago's bid was so terrific, why did the ATP even bother to coerce the Pilot Pen into raising its draw to 48 and its purse to $585,000? And why is the ATP still leaning on the USTA and Pilot Pen to increase both its sanction fee (upward of an additional $200,000) and its purse ($65,000 to $650,000)? Why does the ATP, once so gung-ho to put an ATP event in the third-largest market in America, keep coming back to New Haven? The conclusion ought to be self evident, but since the USTA and Pilot Pen are apparently unwilling or unable to call the ATP's bluff, we'll spell it out. Little ol' New Haven has the best offer on the table, and we suspect that they've had it for the last couple of weeks." The ATP in a money-leverage scam? Say it ain't so. And "more holes than a stadium net"? Say that writing ain't so...Some oddly non-objective writing from the ATP Rome official website: "The tournament number five seed (Rafael Nadal) will play unseeded David Ferrer in the semifinal on Saturday, a match he should win. In the other half of the draw, Andre Agassi will play the winner of tonight's floodlit match between Fernando Verdasco and Guillermo Coria. A Nadal-Agassi final in Rome would be a match to savour."...From the AP on Nazi Germany rearing its ugly head this week at the WTA stop in Berlin: "The director of the tennis club hosting the German Open was suspended Friday because of a story in the tournament program that described the club as having its "golden years" after Jewish members were expelled by Nazis. Lars Rehmann, director of the LTTC Rot-Weiss Berlin, was suspended after club president Hans-Juergen Jobski promised to take action over the story in response to criticism. "This article is a catastrophe that there's no excuse for -- it's an indescribably insensitive text," Jobski said. In 1933, when the Nazis took power, they expelled Jewish members of LTTC Rot-Weiss Berlin, half the membership of one of the country's most famous clubs. "Sportswise, this change wasn't a demolition for the club and the cream of German tennis -- to the contrary," the guide said. The following years, in which many Nazis joined the club, were called "golden years" in the guide. During that time, one of the club's players, Gottfried von Cramm, won the French Open in 1934 and 1936. "The question is, if there's enough shame among the people responsible for this scandalous publication," Jewish German film producer Artur Brauner told Berlin daily B.Z. in comments published Friday. Brauner's wife and daughter walked out of a match Wednesday after looking through the guide. B.Z. said they were joined by other spectators."...Mark Philippoussis has passed on a wildcard offered to him for the French Open to concentrate on the grasscourt season...See how bored SI.com's Jon Wertheim is in Rome: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2005/writers/jon_wertheim/05/05/best.court/index.html...How sweet is that Dominik "The Dominator" Hrbaty pink shirt with the air vents at Rome? So ugly it is cool...Kim Clijsters has strained a ligament in he right knee, and may not be able to play at Roland Garros...Defending French Open champ Anastasia Myskina is deciding whether or not to pull out of Roland Garros with her chronic shoulder injury.