Federer, Ivanovic Capture Titles

"He's an up and coming youngster who is improving almost by the day," said Federer, who last year commented he was initially unimpressed with Djokovic's game, but that has changed. "He's been able to back it up for basically a year now. If he keeps this up, he's going to create some chances at the Grand Slams because he's been to two semifinals already. This might be a breakthrough tournament for him."

Federer floundered in un-Federer ways during the final, failing to serve out the first set at 6-5, 40-0, dropping six set points in all. The Swiss won four straight games in the second from 2-2 to clinch the set, then dropped his opening serve in the third. Federer broke back for 4-4, eventually sending the decider into a tiebreak where the Serb ran away with it.

"I can't describe the feeling I have right now," Djokovic said. "It's like a dream come true. Especially against Federer in the final, to win those tiebreaks was incredible. I managed to win these tiebreaks against a player who probably has the best record in tiebreaks, who is the strongest player mentally in the world right now."

Djokovic also beat No. 3 Andy Roddick en route, and became the first player since Boris Becker at Stockholm in 1994 to defeat the Top 3 players on the ATP Rankings at the same tournament.

Federer fell to 4-3 in finals this year, losing to Nadal at Monte Carlo and the French Open.

Ivanovic Takes WTA LA Title

Ana Ivanovic beat Nadia Petrova 7-5, 6-4 Sunday to win the East West Bank Classic in LA/Carson.

Ivanovic said she was motivated by Serbian countryman Novak Djokovic's win over world No. 1 Roger Federer in the Montreal final.

"I saw some of his match," Ivanovic said. "He played amazing tennis, so I was motivated to do the same thing."

The 19 year old will rise to a career-high No. 4 on the WTA Tour Rankings.

Petrova advanced to the final when top-seeded Maria Sharapova defaulted with a lower left leg strain in the semifinals.

Bruguera Wins Senior Title at Algarve

Sergi Bruguera beat Fernando Meligeni 6-1, 6-4 in the Algarve final to win his fourth consecutive title on the BlackRock Tour of Champions in 2007. He remains unbeaten this year at 16-0.

"It feels great -- I'm playing even better than when I retired," Bruguera said. "I have no idea where this form has come from, but I'm hitting with a lot of confidence. You could not get a nicer to place to play than here at Vale Do Lobo, so that helps as well."

In the third/fourth place playoff, Cedric Pioline beat Thomas Muster 6-4, 2-6, 10-7.

The tour next moves to Graz with Goran Ivanisevic and Pat Cash set to take on Muster, Bruguera and Michael Stich.

"I played my best tennis of the week against Pioline today, and it puts me in good form ahead of Graz, which is the most important event of the year for me," Muster said.

WTA Toronto Preview: Short on Star Power

Owners of "Tier I" designated tournaments on the WTA Tour frequently have plenty to grumble about regarding top player no-shows. Unlike the ATP's "Masters Series" which nine times a year brings the elite Top 50-60 players together, the WTA's Tier I events, like this week in Toronto, in the end become hit-and-miss prospects just like any other event.

As George Gross of the Toronto Sun put it, "Maria Sharapova is not coming. Neither are sisters Venus and Serena Williams, nor Amelie Mauresmo, Nicole Valdisova or Martina Hingis. What is going on? Are Tennis Canada officials using the wrong deodorant for this week's Rogers Cup tennis tournament? I don't think so. And this is not the first time there has been a mass withdrawal of top-seeded players from the Canadian women's open tennis event. Numerous explanations have been offered this time and in the past -- some with conspiracy-theory overtones...A little bird tells me that if Tennis Canada had offered Sharapova a substantial appearance fee, the grunting and money-loving queen of the over-the-webbing set, would suddenly reach for the magical medical sponge..."

Ouch, but that's the current reality of women's tennis. It remains to be seen whether the WTA's new calendar and rules revisions can get their top players on the court consistently.

Meanwhile Toronto this week attracts top seeds Justine Henin, Jelena Jankovic, Svetlana Kuznetsova, last week's LA winner Ana Ivanovic, Anna Chakvetadze, Nadia Petrova, Marion Bartoli, Elena Dementieva, and eight other seeds of various fall-off.

Where the men's Masters Series events feature blockbuster match-ups from the first round on, in Toronto you'll have to wait until the third round or quarterfinals before the excitement starts.

Potential quarterfinal meetings are Henin vs. Petrova, Ivanovic vs. Bartoli, Dementieva vs. Kuznetsova, and Chakvetadze vs. Jankovic.

In last year's final Ivanovic beat Hingis for her first Tier I title which, considering the fields over the last couple years, shouldn't mean much.

ATP Cincinnati Preview: Federer-Nadal-Djokovic Battle Continues

Last week Serb Novak Djokovic beat the Top 3 players on the ATP Rankings, Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Andy Roddick, en route to the Masters Series-Canada title in Montreal. For the past two years Federer and Nadal had separated themselves from the pack, but now it appears their is a third man on the upper echelon of tennis.

The Top 16 seeds in Cincinnati are the Top 16 players on the ATP Rankings (at time of entry), giving the Masters Series-Cincinnati Grand Slam-like toughness, and a pre-US Open microscope to see just how fast the top players can bounce back from last week in Canada.

The Top 8 seeds in Cincinnati receive byes, an extra day of rest that Federer and Djokovic will cherish after the three-set MS-Canada final.

Federer in the top quarter of the draw will open against either a qualifier or Russian Dmitry Tursunov. In the third round the Swiss could face the winner of the opener (WC) Tim Henman vs. Juan Ignacio Chela, or (14) Andy Murray vs. Marcos Baghdatis, though Murray's wrist injury will likely make him an early-round victim. The highest seed waiting for Federer in his quarterfinal is No. 7 Tommy Robredo who hasn't been scaring anyone on hardcourts this summer.

Djokovic is the top seed in the second quarter, where a potential quarterfinal with No. 8 Richard Gasquet looms. The Serb will open again the winner of former No. 1 Carlos Moya and former Top 10er David Nalbandian. No. 15 Guillermo Canas could be a third-round opponent for Djokovic, while Gasquet has a potential meeting with former No. 1 Lleyton Hewitt in the second round, and either No. 12 Tommy Haas, Mario Ancic, or "Dr." Ivo Karlovic in the third round.

Andy Roddick, desperate to be heard in conversations of the Top 3 players, is the high seed in the third quarter of the draw where he will open against either Fernando "Hot Sauce" Verdasco or Italian Filippo Volandri. American wildcard John Isner is in Roddick's section, opening against No. 16 seed David Ferrer. No. 5 Nikolay Davydenko, under investigation by the ATP for potentially being involved in a betting scandal, is slated to meet Roddick in the quarters.

Rafael Nadal, the top dog in the bottom quarter, opens against either Argentine Juan Monaco or a qualifier. Nadal's slated quarterfinals match is against No. 6 Fernando "Gonzo" Gonzalez, but floaters in the section include former No. 1s Marat Safin and Juan Carlos Ferrero, No. 9 seed James Blake, No. 13 Mikhail Youzhny, and American bomb-dropper Sam Querrey.

In last year's final the ninth-seeded Roddick beat the unseeded Ferrero 6-3, 6-4.

Tennis-X News, Notes, Quotes and Barbs
Amelie Mauresmo has pulled from New Haven, saying she needs more time to recover from an appendectomy in March, and will not have played a U.S. hardcourt event before the US Open...Sania Mirza pulled from Toronto citing "personal reasons"...From Jerry Magee of the San Diego Union-Tribune on San Diego losing their WTA Tour event to Beijing: "One of the great inequities of how the WTA Tour is being rearranged is that an event in Carson is remaining on the schedule and San Diego is not. File that under pure folly. Tennis tournaments have to be played where there are tennis players. The WTA Tour discovered this when it scheduled its season-ending championships in the urban atmosphere of the Staples Center in Los Angeles and saw it played to row on row of empty seats. There must be a great many tennis players in Beijing, China, because the Acura's Tier I classification is going to be attached to a tournament there, or so we are told. The tour can deal with the Tier I matter as it would, having purchased it from the Giscafre/Stratton amalgam. The tour's CEO is Larry Scott, who is a visionary. I would suggest he pay a bit more attention to what Sunday was right under his nose, Scott having attended the Acura's 24th and last final."...From X-Reader Zeg: "The pinnacle of ignorance is the incessant touting of the "thirty million dollars on the line" in the idiotic "traveling circus" commercial for the U.S. Open Series. Do they really think ANYONE in the world gives a hoot about how much more money these millionaires are going to make? And all that cartoonish hype is going to compel me to watch a tape-delayed match on the ESPN's busy TV screen at midnight?"...From the Boston Globe: "It didn't take long for Bud Collins to get back into the tennis broadcast scene after being dropped by NBC last month. Collins will join ESPN and will appear on ESPN2's coverage of three Grand Slam tournaments -- Australian Open, French Open, and Wimbledon -- beginning in 2008. He also will report on tennis news for "SportsCenter," ESPNews, and ESPN Radio, starting next month at the US Open."...The extroverted Novak Djokovic took to the fashion catwalk in his underwear during activities during the pre-tournament player gala on a dare from James Blake: "I just wanted to have fun. They [other players] were sorry that I didn't get a chance to go alone [players were accompanied by female models] on the catwalk because they wanted to see a little dance. Next time."...ATP officials met with investigators from the British Horseracing Authority (HRA) to help look into wagering and possible corruption at the Poland Open tennis match between Nikolay Davydenko and Martin Vassallo Arguello, according to The Guardian...While the ATP investigates Russian Nikolay Davydenko for a possible wagering abnormality during one of his matches, his countryman Marat Safin says 'keep me out of it': "I don't want to be involved in any of it. I don't want to make any comments. I don't care. The ATP can do whatever they want, I'm out of it. It's not my problem, that's for sure. I'm here more for myself than for the ATP. The ATP is full of people who get paid a lot of money, big bucks, and they're the ones who have to think, not me."...The Bryan brothers lost two more points overall in the match than their opponents but beat the Swiss team of Roger Federer and Yves Allegro in a third-set breaker at Montreal. The Bryans raised their career record to 3-2 against Federer in doubles...Bjorn Borg went 1-2 at the senior tour stop in Algarve...From the International Tennis Hall of Fame: "The International Tennis Hall of Fame today announced that television coverage of the Gibson Guitar Champions Cup, to be played August 22-26 at the Hall of Fame in Newport, Rhode Island, will include both the United States and Europe as the New England Sports Network (NESN) and Europe's ESPN Classic will provide live coverage of Saturday's final day of round-robin play as well as Sunday's third-place and Championship matches." -- So all of Europe gets to see it, while here in the States no one outside of the New England area can see it? Brilliant! And it's a mystery why tennis is the No. 17th most popular sport in the U.S. According to the press release, the match will be re-run, time TBA, on The Tennis Channel...From ESPN's Greg Garber, citing the history of illegal coaching that players like Maria Sharapova regularly get from their coaches (or fathers) in the stands: "In the 1993 U.S. Open, Todd Martin faced Spanish player Jordi Burillo in a first-round match. After losing the first two sets, an irate Martin -- convinced that Burillo was getting help from coach Pato Alvarez -- asked the tournament referee to sit next to Alvarez for the rest of the match. He did, and Martin said the coaching stopped. "I won the next three sets," Martin said. "When he was down 4-love in the fifth set, Burillo screamed something in Spanish. Later, a friend translated it: 'Give me back my hands!' He just couldn't play without coaching.""...CBS is selling out quickly its ad space for its five days of US Open broadcast coverage in the U.S.: "The tennis marketplace has been more active and healthier this year than it has been the past few years," said John Bogusz, CBS executive vp for sports sales. "Right now for the U.S. Open we are very close to our goal in terms of sales volume and are well over 90 percent sold."...From Sportingo's Vanessa Lockhart on Venus Williams and WTA Tour fashion: "No one could argue that Roger Federer was not the picture of class receiving his fifth Wimbledon crown on championship in long white pants and a customized white blazer. Federer cemented his image as fashion icon in his finery. He presented himself as a true gentleman. Championship Saturday was quite a different story. Four-times winner Venus Williams was a disgrace, accepting the trophy in her underwear. Forget about being a lady, she wasn't even acceptable. During her walk around Centre Court holding the Venus Rosewater dish aloft, she looked like one of those bikini-clad chicks at a boxing match carrying a sign saying Round 1."......Canadian John Dancevic, father of tour player Frank, speaking to the Globe and Mail: "Even now, everyone thinks Frank is so well off. Frank's broke. Really, he's renting a place and he has a car. That's all he's got. Maybe if you beat the big guys, you get more. It's a very tough road. It needs a lot of sacrifice. There's family involved, work, time. You have to be very careful how you manage things."