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The 2010 Sony Ericsson Miami women’s championships will be decided today at 12:30pm local time in Miami. The match will feature two Grand Slam champions and former World No. 1s, Venus Williams and Kim Clijsters. ADHEREL
Venus has won six of the pairs 11 meetings but has dropped the last three including 6-0, 0-6, 6-4 loss to Clijsters in the US Open semifinals last year.
The match will be televised live on CBS starting at 12:30pm ET.
Notes below courtesy of the WTA:
* Clijsters (2005) and V.Williams (1998, 1999, 2001) are both former champions at Miami; and have both already won singles titles this year: Clijsters (Brisbane) and V.Williams (Dubai, Acapulco).
* V.Williams and Clijsters have both been ranked No.1.
* V.Williams (95%) and Clijsters (86.7%) are among the three leading players in terms of win-loss percentage in 2010 (the other one being S.Williams (90.9%)).
* V.Williams leads the Tour for most main draw match wins (19) this year.
* V.Williams holds a 6-5 win-loss record over Clijsters; they are split at 3-3 apiece for matches on hard court; 4 of their matches have been finals, with the honours split evenly 2-2.
* Both players have similar win-loss records in finals: Clijsters winning 36 of the 53 she’s contested (67.9%), while V.Williams has won 43 of the 68 she’s played (63.2%).
* Winning the title would take V.Williams past the $26m prize money mark, and $17m prize money mark for Clijsters.
WILLIAMS QUICK HITS
* V.Williams is playing her 4th final at Miami, and first since 2001, when she won the last of her 3 Miami titles; prior to Thursday’s SF win over Bartoli, she had lost 3 SF matches since 2001.
* V.Williams is on a 15-match winning streak, coming into the final having won her last 2 tournaments (Dubai and Acapulco). The last time that she won 15 consecutive matches was in 2004; if she wins the final, she would have her longest winning streak since winning 19 matches in 2002, when she won 3 consecutive tournaments (Stanford, San Diego and New Haven) and reached the final of the US Open.
* V.Williams last won 3 consecutive tournaments in 2002 (Stanford, San Diego and New Haven); the last player to win 3 consecutive tournaments was Jankovic in 2008 (Beijing, Stuttgart, Moscow), although she also accomplished the feat in successive weeks.
* V.Williams’ semifinal victory was her 47th at Miami, and she now lies third on the list of most number of wins here (after Graf and S.Williams).
CLIJSTERS QUICK HITS
* Clijsters is through to her 2nd final at Miami, having won the title in 2005.
* Clijsters had conceded only 15 games en route to her SF match against Henin, following that match, the number of games conceded doubled to 30
* Clijsters is 28-42 vs. Top 5 players, but has won her last 2 such matches (V.Williams and S.Williams at 2009 US Open).
* Clijsters is the leading active player for hardcourt titles with 27. If she wins the Miami title she would move into joint-4th with Seles (see table below).
* Clijsters and fellow Belgian Kirsten Flipkens played doubles at Miami; the wildcard pair reached the 2r (l. Kirilenko/A.Radwanska).
RANKING PROJECTIONS
* By reaching the final, V.Williams will rise to No.4 (overtaking Kuznetsova); she is projected to rise to No.3 (overtaking Safina) if she wins the title.
* By reaching the final, Clijsters is projected to have her highest ranking since returning to the Tour at No.11: she could rise to No.10 if she wins the title.
* By reaching SF, Henin is expected to rise to No.23.
* With Henin failing to reach the final, Aravane Rezai is projected to make her Top 20 debut.
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