Roddick Pulls From Masters Cup, Courier Launches Competing Senior Tour
Posted on November 9, 2005
Clijsters, Sharapova Mentally Shaky at WTA ChampionshipsHeavy pre-tournament favorite Kim Clijsters was shocked in her opening-round match Tuesday at the WTA Championships in L.A., with France's resurgent Mary Pierce outlasting the Belgian in an erratic 6-1, 4-6, 7-6(2) turn-around of this year's US Open final.
Clijsters began the match sluggishly, appearing to still be suffering from jet lag after arriving in L.A. from Belgium on Friday.
"I never felt like I was quite there," said Clijsters who tossed in 11 double faults. "I felt really tired. The only thing I want to do is go to the hotel and go to sleep."
Pierce said she felt similarly tired earlier in the day but wisely went to the veteran nap card.
"I had a nap and I didn't want to get out of bed," Pierce said. "What motivated me is next week I'll be on vacation...In the first set, Kim wasn't playing well. Something was bothering her and she wasn't moving. I was surprised how I won the first set quickly and easily."
The Belgian looked in control after fighting off a match point in the second set and going up a break 3-1 with triple break point on her opponent's serve in the third, but it was Pierce who played the more controlled baseline game in the end after admittedly getting tight.
"The third set was a battle," Pierce said. "I kept fighting and hanging in there."
Clijsters, who won the year-end championship in 2002-03 before sitting out last year with a wrist injury, is now likely a big proponent of the round-robin format.
The Belgian can ill afford to lose another match against her group mates, while wins against remaining opponents Amelie Mauresmo and Elena Dementieva can still advance her into the Saturday semifinals with a 2-1 round robin record. A combination of another loss in the round robin for Clijsters and Lindsay Davenport advancing to the semifinals would clinch the year-end No. 1 ranking for the American.
Clijsters, like Davenport, said she had a hard time seeing the ball in the Staples Center set-up, and admitted she will need to get her head together to rally for a semifinal berth.
"I was not seeing the ball at all," Clijsters said. "With the lights, it felt too bright and it was hurting my eyes. My mind was not ready to play a match. These kind of days happen."
Defending champion Maria Sharapova narrowly avoided the upset bug Tuesday in her round robin debut, rebounding from a second-set loss to defeat Swiss left-hander Patty Schnyder 6-1, 3-6, 6-3.
The Russian, who also played sparingly toward the end of the year due to injuries, was another player looking mentally unprepared to go into big-match mode.
"It was up and down," Sharapova said. "I felt a little awkward in some situations because I haven't been match tough lately. I'm absolutely exhausted."
Schnyder had won her previous meeting with Sharapova this year on clay.
"It took me a while to get into the match," Schnyder said. "She started off hitting so fast and serving well. It is very hard to play the first shot good enough that she is not really dominating the point from the start. And it was just so tough to reach for her serve. She put a lot of slice on that first serve. But I think I played a great second set. And at the end, I even had a chance to break back and even make the big point which was -- I should have made it."
The night ended with world No. 1 Lindsay Davenport improving her career record to 7-0 over Russian Nadia Petrova.
"I've always struggled a little bit here because there's no backdrop," Davenport said of the Staples Center. "I lose my depth perception...I really wanted to start off with a win here. I was able to do that last year, and I still didn't make it out of the round robin. So I know I can't take this for granted."
Davenport is on a three-tournament streak, winning all three events she contested following this year's US Open before being sidelined with the flu and skipping the last regular-season stop in Philadelphia.
Tuesday's line-up features a presumably well-napped Clijsters in a must-win vs. Mauresmo (Belgian leads head-to-head 8-2), Davenport vs. Schnyder in a must-win for the Swiss (American leads 8-2), and Pierce facing Dementieva (Russian leads 3-1).
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Andy Roddick, who confounded critics by playing an exhibition Monday after injuring his back last week in Paris, has now pulled from the Masters Cup: "Though I have continued to practice, train and play, the lower back spasms continue. After being evaluated by medical staff upon my return to the United States, it is now clear that I am not able to resume tennis activities for 10-14 days. I apologize to the loyal fans and sponsors that have expected my participation in the Tennis Masters Cup. It is an honor for me to have qualified for this event for the third straight year. I realize the tremendous amount of time and effort the ATP and the Chinese government have spent on the event, and know it will be a huge success. I look forward to getting healthy, starting my off-season workouts for the 2006 season, and working towards qualifying for Shanghai next year." With the cash-poor ATP unable to put together a bonus pool that in past years rewarded players for completing the season at the Masters Cup, Roddick joins the growing list of pull-outs that so far includes Marat Safin and Lleyton Hewitt, with the verbally-committed Andre Agassi still making organizers anxious. David Nalbandian takes Roddick's place in the eight-man field...Maria Sharapova on jamming her thumb and pulling out of Philly last week: "Great story," she laughed. "I was just so tired. It was totally my own fault. I hit myself right in the leg and I jammed my thumb. It was all blue and black. It was not pretty. I couldn't hold the racket the next day. There's always something that's happening, just one after the other."...T.J. Simers covering the WTA Championships for the LA Times: "Three of the four Grand Slam winners -- Serena and Venus Williams and the Watch Girl, also known as Justin Henin-Hardenne -- won't be competing in this week's WTA Championships in Staples Center. I asked Mary Pierce about that at Monday's media gathering, got some politically correct answer like "life is good," and then the journalist sitting next to her told her, "what a wonderful answer." I tried again, and a female journalist from tenniswire.org, explaining later she was trying to protect the 30-year-old Pierce, answered for her. I asked Pierce another question, and this time a male journalist, Don Sand, spoke for her. I asked Sand what news organization he represented, and he said, "I work for God." I work for Dwyre, so I know what's that like. I never did get a straight answer out of Pierce and feel badly about that because this is the last year for this tennis championship sham in L.A., and I hate to end our run together on such an empty note." Simers goes head-to-head with the blogging Sandman, we'll have to call that one a draw...The LA Times' Lisa Dillman on the WTA implementing a line-calling system in 2006: "Interestingly, [WTA CEO Larry] Scott said the tour would be using the "clay-court system" in handling challenges. "What is tried and true and tested in tennis, a player would be free to challenge on any call," he said. "Any call they thought was questionable. Then it's up to the chair umpire. There's no limit to how many times a player can ask a chair umpire to check out a mark. But it doesn't mean the chair umpire is obliged to get out of the chair." Scott didn't seem worried the system could be abused by players. "We want to keep vesting in the chair umpire the master control for the match," he said."...Jim Courier has announced he will sponsor a four-event U.S. senior tour in 2006, apparently not sanctioned by the ATP's senior tour...Last year's WTA Championships final between Maria Sharapova and Serena Williams filled less than 60 percent of the Staples Center in L.A.: "It will be a great success in Madrid (in 2006), I'm sure, because there's so many European players," said WTA CEO Larry Scott. "I think tennis is probably bigger in Europe right now." Ya think? That's why you get those CEO-dollars. Wait until you see the numbers from L.A. this week, not going to be pretty...Maria Sharapova lapsing into some sweet third-person verbage: "It's been a pretty injured Maria this year. It's been really frustrating. But I've been telling myself that no one is going to be injury free for their whole career. I've been working hard and I took all the negative things out of myself and I believe in myself."...The La Jolla Beach and Tennis Club in California will host the U.S. vs. Romania Davis Cup tie on Feb. 10-12, 2006...From The Telegraph: "Roger Federer, the winner of the past two Masters Cups, is said to have been experiencing "a strange feeling" in practice as he returns from an ankle injury, and Spain's Rafael Nadal is concerned about his tender left knee..." No injury worries here ATP or WTA! Just keep driving your product into the ground...From Tennis.com's blogging Stephen Tignor: "The clown prince of Paris, whether he meant to be or not, was the Czech Republic's Radek Stepanek, who reached the semis. Stepanek is an unreconstructed geek, Ivan Lendl look-alike, and a proverbial breath of fresh air on the men's side. He plays with a tucked-in shirt and high-riding shorts, walks on his toes, uses a near-Continental grip on his forehand, and serves and volleys. He also shows up every single week and rounds out his game by playing doubles. It's his variety that makes any Stepanek match interesting. He can blunt a slugger's power with his volleying skills and change pace by switching from a two-handed backhand drive to a one-handed slice in mid-point. His serve is strong and useful, but he won't bore a crowd with aces. Best are his celebrations. He begins with a quick shriek and a half-embarrassed, Tim Henman-esque fist-pump..."...From ESPN: "Jim Courier might be out of the spotlight these days, but the former No. 1 tennis player in the world might have an idea that could change the tennis sponsorship industry. This week, Courier will be playing in Houston -- along with the likes of Aaron Krickstein, John McEnroe and Todd Martin -- at the Stanford Financial Champions Cup. With the rules of the senior tour much more relaxed than the rules of the ATP and the WTA, Courier will be stenciling the logo of the sponsor, Stanford Financial, on his racket strings. "I don't think anyone has ever done it before," Courier said. "About 10 years ago, I approached the ATP and told them that I wanted to brand my racket with a tech or express shipping company and they rejected my request to do so."...Marat Safin speaking to L'Equipe on his bum knee: "It is fairly common with basketball players called "jumper's knee." It is not very serious but, unfortunately, I stopped playing too late. I started to have problems in Indian Wells and Miami. I continued to play on clay as I was hoping that the problem was related to hard surfaces. But that did nothing else but worsen the injury. At Roland Garros, I had to take pain killers and to undergo injections around the knee. After Wimbledon, I decided to go for consultation at a private clinic. One advised me to stop for two or three months, but I did not take the advice. I really wanted to play at the US Open. It is over there that I caused the problem to worsen. The American doctors had already given me indications of what should happen, but I wanted to have treatment at home. One again repeated the advice to stop playing for two to three months. I could have had an operation. But the price to be paid was too high: one year of staying away. For the moment, all is going well."...During her win over Kim Clijsters Monday, Mary Pierce leaned on the net and it collapsed: "It almost took me out," a smiling Pierce said. "I scraped my knees a little bit. I didn't expect it to go over that easily. I was pretty surprised."
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