| 13 March 2010
Our WTF moment may have already occurred on the WTA side of life at this year's bash in the desert near Palm Springs. The other day when I saw the women's draw I nearly did a double take when I saw the Number One seed. It was Kuznetsova. Number Two was Caroline Wozniacki. Both women had pretty decent years last year, but seeded 1 and 2 at an event this big? Something's rotten in Denmark, says I, only we're not even in Denmark. How did this anomaly come to be?
It happened because the Williams sisters are not playing here, and because Safina pulled out early with her continuing back problems. This leaves the women's game in a bit of a sorry pickle, at least for the next two weeks of this event. In case you are wondering, the other women in the Top Ten - after Kuzie and Caro - are: Azarenka, Dementieva, Radwanska, Jankovic, Na Li, Stosur, Pennetta and Sharapova.
For my money, the only worthy ones now of Top Ten status are Azarenka and Dementieva, the latter who has been around forever and still going strong, the former who probably will be around forever, given how steadily her ranking as improved.
Sharapova just barely scraped into the Top Ten at Number 10, thanks to a win recently in a smaller WTA event. It doesn't help our viewing pleasure to realize that the women we really want to see also - Henin and Clijsters - aren't back into the fray enough to lift their rankings so they're back into the Top Ten and some semblance of order can be restored.
As it was, Sharapova had enough of a battle on her hands getting out of her first round match after losing the first set. Henin wasn't even that lucky. She lost in three sets to Gisella Dulko, the svelte Argentine whose game has improved a lot this past year, but enough that she could beat Henin? That is a surprise.
Kuznetsova lost in three sets to Carla Suarez-Navarro, the girl with the hyphenated name and the lovely one-handed backhand who we know has a penchant of sorts for offing Top Ten players on occasion. So this should not be a surprise either. But what does that say about the Number One seed?
Sigh. I can tell already the women are going to give us nothing but grief for the next week or so. Luckily I heard a rumor there were men present, so maybe they can take up the slack.
Onward!
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Speaking of the missing Williams sisters, I was surprised to see the promo ad on TTC this morning which actually showed a snippet of Venus playing, as if to suggest she were in the draw here too. Is this a little false advertising or what? If you came down to the desert expecting to see Venus, or Serena, and you end up with Kuzie or Caro in a match instead, why then I guess you will be rather disappointed.
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