“I felt a pain on the court, but I didn’t have time to check it,” said Halep after tweaking her ankle during the match. “I feel that nothing is broken, but the pain is big. I have to see the doctors…My ankles are not good. That’s why I tape all the time.”

The problem is, these aren’t “tour” umpires. They’re nobody Futures-level or ITF-circuit or Crap-stanistak Challenger umpires.

The tennis center is reportedly 90 percent complete, but Rio City Hall, which is responsible for the construction, had no comment as to how the center would be completed.

Who ZERO entrants had in their Top 10. How about showing the Frenchman some love? Geez people, that borders on downright meanness.

It’s a battle on the men’s side. And it’s not going to change to taking spa breaks in the middle of matches. It’s not going to change to having your coach run on to court to help you because you can’t figure out how to change strategy or take advantage of weaknesses or formulate a plan.

“A little bit of a surprise,” he said. “You know, I had a feeling she would play.”

Notes: The Top 4 seeds receive opening-round byes…Tough openers for seeds go to (8) Struff vs. the veteran Nieminen and (5) Janowicz vs. Brown…Wildcards went to Frenchmen Laurent Lokoli, Vincent Millot and Lucas Pouille…Pulling from the event were Julien Benneteau, Andrey Golubev and Andrey Kuznetsov…In last year’s final Monfils beat Gasquet…Former champs in the field are Monfils (2014,’10), Gasquet (2013,’06), and Paul-Henri Mathieu (2002).

We thought Serena was all warm and fuzzy these days, hanging with bestie Caroline Wozniacki at the end of 2014, complimenting others, having charity events, showing her warm side, giving lollipops to children, but Evil Serena reared her head yesterday at the Hopman Cup when she choked the mixed doubles and called the chair umpire a liar! YOU’RE A LIAR! Here’s to an eventful 2015!

No one picked more than eight of the year-end Top 10 in 2014, but you can be the one this year to be touted in the winner’s story while basking in the glow of your superior tennis knowledge, or plain dumb luck.

“Grass is for the cows.”
— Ivan Lendl on skipping Wimbledon in 1982 to instead take a vacation.

If you’ve got the stuff, then show it by entering the 2012 Tennis-X Year-end Top 10 contest, where the winner will receive a fabulous, fabulous, FABULOUS prize pack, the finalists will be touted, and the suck pickers will be vilified.

Last year thirteen (13!) players tied with 7 correct of the year-end Top 10, and it came down to a positions tiebreak, where the winner had the first three spots correct (Nadal, Federer, Djokovic) to win the fabulous invaluable prize package!

In the final Stosur will face Francesca Schiavone, the first Italian woman to reach a Grand Slam final, who advanced to the championship match when opponent Elena Dementieva retired after the first set with a calf muscle injury.

“If you’re 16 or 17 years old, you need to go to college. Clearly, if you’re not in the Top 100 in the world, you aren’t making money. Anyone outside the Top 100? They’re not making money. They make expenses. I see so many of these top players turning pro and they have no business turning pro. They can’t do like Venus Williams did at 17 years old, going to the US Open and playing the finals. Those people are beyond off-the-chart talented.”

SANIA-MANIA — Sania Mirza holds a PRESS CONFERENCE in India to announce she is engaged to be married, then says “I have been in the constant glare for too long and would appreciate privacy at this very personal moment in my life.” On the schedule — another press conference next week where she will tell the media, ‘Still looking for privacy. Thanks. Will keep you guys posted.’ Her future husband, BTW, was reportedly married years back according to another women, who says he married her ‘over the phone,’ but then dumped her because she was too fat.