Virtuoso Federer Wins Miami, Davis Cup This Weekend

Injuries Result in Star-less Tennis Sky at WTA Amelia Island

Bausch & Lomb Championships Tournament Director John Arrix has watched his event in Amelia Island devolve during the last half-week from a crowd-appealing event featuring a former No. 1 and multiple Grand Slam winners to zero marquee names -- and he's not happy.

"I think the WTA needs to be more proactive in interfacing with the players, so they have the ability to bring (other top players) in," Arrix told the Florida Times-Union. "I think the tour needs to be more proactive in communicating to the players the responsibility they have to the game and pull them in in these types of situations."

In other injury-plagued events this year the WTA has been able to tempt marquee names such as Martina Hingis or Amelie Mauresmo into taking last-minute wildcards to save an event's ticket sales. But there has been no such love this week for Amelia Island, which heralds the beginning of the 2006 claycourt season for the women.

Arrix is not the only tournament director who has felt the sting of big-name player pull-outs this year. Marquee player pull-outs are now the norm on the women's tour, as an undetermined combination of super-racquet technology, slower courts, heavier balls, over-training, etc., has led to the top players dealing with a constant stream of injuries.

WTA officials from CEO Larry Scott on down have consistently addressed the plague of injuries as "flukes."

Lindsay Davenport and Mary Pierce were the advertised headliners this week in Amelia Island, but the American pulled out with her ongoing back problem, and Pierce with an apparently-more-serious-than-thought foot injury that also forced her out of Miami.

The pull-outs create ethical problems for tournaments, which often cross the line when it comes to fooling fans in an effort to rescue ticket sales.

Amelia Island pulls the majority of its fans from nearby Jacksonville, where billboards still enticed fans with Davenport and Pierce, even though the two had pulled out days earlier in the week. On the day before the start of the event, local television commercials in Jacksonville still deceptively touted fans to come and see Davenport and Pierce.

The WTA must pay Amelia Island event organizers $25,000 since WTA rules state that "Tier II" events will receive at least one Top 4-ranked players, two in the Top 10, and three in the Top 13. As tournament organizers stated over the weekend, they'd rather have the players.

Belgians Kim Clijsters and Justine Henin-Hardenne are oft-injured and taking a rest this week, Sharapova and Martina Hingis are resting after Miami, while the Williams are seemingly perpetually injured these days.

Amelia Island suffers this year, and will suffer from now on with thinner fields, since the WTA this year made the NASDAQ-100 Open in Miami, held the week before the B&M Championships, a mandatory event for all top players.

That won't stop Svetlana Kuznetsova, the 2004 US Open winner and champion last week in Miami over Russian countrywoman Maria Sharapova, from sliding around on the American green clay for the first time this week in Amelia Island.

"I've never played on green clay in my life before, so I'm really excited," Kuznetsova said. "I know it's similar to red clay, but it's a bit faster. The rest, I have no idea. But it's nice to try new things."

Joining Kuznetsova among the star-depleted Top 8 seeds this week in Amelia Island are Russians Nadia Petrova and Elena Likhovtseva, Swiss Patty Schnyder, Czech teen Nicole Vaidisova, German Anna-Lena Groenefeld, and Italian Flavia Pennetta.

Wildcard entries for the event went to Americans Meghann Shaughnessy and Mashona Washington, Puerto Rico's Kristina Brandi, and Czech Katerina Bohmova. Other players of note this week are rising Aussie star Sam Stosur, former Wimbledon winner Richard Krajicek's sister Michaella Krajicek, touted Chinese prospect Shuai Peng, and struggling Indian sensation Sania Mirza.

In last year's final, then-world No. 1 Lindsay Davenport held off a challenge from No. 12 seed Silvia Farina Elia 7-5, 7-5.

Federer Wins 3 Breakers, Breaking Ljubicic for Miami Title

During the Pete Sampras era it was players such as Goran Ivanisevic and Petr Korda who rose to No. 2 in the world, but were kept from the top ranking by the dominance of American legend.

Today those players in jeopardy of coming up short are Rafael Nadal, David Nalbandian, and monster-serving Croat Ivan Ljubicic, who on Sunday lost 7-6(5), 7-6(4), 7-6(6) to the dominant world No. 1 Roger Federer in the final of the Masters Series-Miami, the NASDAQ-100 Open, the Swiss' fourth title of the year.

The narrow scoreline betrayed the overall numbers -- Federer has beaten Ljubicic in their last seven meetings, ever since he ascended to the top spot on the ATP Rankings, and is 4-0 over the Croat in their career finals.

Federer trailed in all three tiebreaks, winning a three-tiebreak match for the first time in his career.

"The bigger points, he played better," Ljubicic said. "He played more relaxed and more confident than I was. When you play a tiebreaker against him, he rarely misses."

Federer, noticeably emotional during the match, yelling at himself and arguing with linespeople, improved to 28-1 overall in 2006.

"I was extremely happy with the way I played," Federer said. "The first set gave me a little cushion, and Ivan was always running uphill...To do back-to-back at Indian Wells and Key Biscayne (Miami) is unbelievable."

Other overflow notes in the Federer File: the Swiss is now 9-2 in career Masters Series finals, winning his last eight in a row; he has appeared in 11 consecutive tournament finals, drawing him within one of tying John McEnroe's 1984 mark of 12 in a row; he has won 24 straight Masters Series matches; he has won four straight Masters Series events, a record since the inception of the series in 1990; he has won 48 straight matches on U.S. soil; and he has won 26 titles in his last 37 events.

Raymond/Stosur Tie Record with Miami Win

Top seeds Lisa Raymond and Sam Stosur won their tour-leading fourth title of the year Sunday at the NASDAQ-100 Open in Miami, defeating sentimental favorite Martina Navartilova and partner Liezel Huber, the No. 7 seeds, 6-4, 7-5.

"I think we work hard as a team," said Raymond, who with Stosur became the first team to win the first three Tier I events of a year since Raymond and Rennae Stubbs accomplished the feat in 2002. "We don't just go out there and take it for granted. On our days off, we go out there, as well as our singles, if we're still in the doubles tournament we have at least 45 minutes to an hour where we practice certain things that we need to do for the next match."

Navratilova came up short in her bid for a 175th career doubles title.

"They served very well," Navratilova said. "We only had the one break point the whole match, and they only had three break points on our serve. It was real tight, tightly played. The difference was two break points, that was it."

X-CORRECT
Tatiana Golovin will be out 4-6 weeks her left ankle sprain sustained in the Miami semis.

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