Rios Says Players Tougher When He Was No. 1

Posted on December 5, 2006

Rios Easy, McEnroe Tough Road at Blackrock Masters

World No. 1 Marcelo Rios has it easy, while contender John McEnroe drew perhaps the most difficult draw as the four round robin groups were announced prior to the start of play at the year-end Blackrock Masters on the Merrill Lynch Tour of Champions.

Rios, in Group A with Pat Cash and Jeremy Bates, drew the clear easy road, with the top two players from each three-man group advancing to the Friday quarterfinals.

Group B is comprised of Goran Ivanisevic, Paul Haarhuis and Carl Uwe Steeb; Group C of Thomas Muster, Sergi Bruguera and the mercurial Henri Leconte; and Group D of McEnroe and the dangerous Cedric Pioline and the net-rushing Anders Jarryd.

Rios won titles in six of the seven events he participated in during his debut year on the senior circuit.

Missing out on the year-end party are senior title winners such as Jim Courier, Wayne Ferreira and Todd Martin, ranked in the Top 10 on the WORLD SENIOR RANKINGS after winning U.S. titles on the Outback Champions Tour, but the ATP-sponsored Blackrock Masters only counts points from senior tournaments in Europe.

Kicking off play Tuesday will be Ivanisevic vs. Steeb, Bruguera vs. Leconte, Bates vs. Cash, and Jarryd vs. Pioline.

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TENNIS-X NEWS, NOTES, QUOTES AND BARBS
Samantha Stosur plans to work with former French Open semifinalist Nicole Bradtke...Goran Ivanisevic says Andy Murray will reach the No. 1 ranking...Marcelo Rios speaking to The Times about not winning a Grand Slam: "It was harder then. Look at the draws, playing against Muster, Courier, Bruguera, Becker, Stich, Ivanisevic. It is easier now. I did as much as I could, played as well as I could and that was it."...From Dale Robertson writing for the Houston Chronicle on U.S. pro tennis events in jeopardy: "With the decision by Jim and Linda McIngvale to stop hosting the U.S. Men's Clay Court Championships at their Westside Tennis and Fitness Club after 2007, the USTA may not have an easy time finding a suitable new home for the event unless perhaps it were to get paired with one of the WTA's existing spring clay-court tournaments in Charleston or Amelia Island. But it's the WTA and not the McIngvales that is causing the governing body of American tennis the most heartburn at present. 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How can the USTA stand by and allow this to take place?...Please take this as a formal notice for the tournaments owned or partially owned by the USTA, we have no intention of participating in this plan as currently structured...We are at a crossroads...If the WTA is unwilling to re-evaluate the plan based on the concerns expressed in this letter, the USTA will have no option but to re-evaluate its existing relationship with the WTA and explore other alternatives. The last part of that suggests the USTA might consider launching a rival U.S.-based tour, which could turn Jim McIngvale, a big believer in that concept, into a player again. He has said previously that would be the only way he'd consider bringing an annual tournament back to Westside in the future." Also regarding the ATP senior tour: "Notably missing from the Merrill Lynch rankings altogether is Jim Courier, who won the inaugural Outback Champions Series that included River Oaks plus four others in the U.S. Courier's company, InsideOut Sports and Entertainment, founded the Outback Series and, although he was the dominant player on the Merrill Lynch circuit in 2005, he received not a single invitation to play any of its events this year. A coincidence? Hardly."...From Tennisnews.com: "Celebs such as Paris and Nikki Hilton, Mandy Moore, Andre Agassi, Alex Rodriguez, and Barry Sanders will join forces December 8 to shuffle the deck at the 1st Annual Andy Roddick Texas Hold 'Em Charity Tournament at the Hard Rock Seminole Casino in Hollywood, FL, to raise money for the Andy Roddick Foundation (ARF). Can't afford to shell out $1,000 bucks for the VIP treatment? Witness the action through the Xbox Live Vision Cam, which will be stationed in the VIP room, or challenge the tennis star himself to a game of poker over Xbox Live as part of the latest Xbox Live Game with Fame session. Fans interested in going 'all in' with Roddick in Activision's World Series of Poker: Tournament of Champions for Xbox 360 should be on the lookout for the Xbox Live 'gamertag' AndyGWF one hour before the party kicks off on Friday, December 8 from 5:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. EST."...From press release: "In support of Nike athlete Serena Williams' "Williams Sisters Tour," NikeGO, Nike's signature community affairs program, will donate $50,000 worth of children's footwear (approximately 500 pairs) to the New Orleans Recreation Department to help kids get and stay active. The Williams Sisters Tour visits cities that do not otherwise have professional women's tennis events. Each stop combines tennis competition with celebrity musical performances."...From The Australian: "The parlous state of Australian tennis was underlined when the launch of the year-opening Next Generation Adelaide International revealed just one local in the main draw -- world No.20 Lleyton Hewitt. Other Australians may yet join Hewitt at Memorial Drive via wild cards or pre-qualifying but without anyone else in the world's top 100, none could be considered automatically. 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