Big Congrats to Dementieva who upset Mauresmo. True that Amélie has been off her game but still, Elena's 62 75 straight sets ain't bad. Elena D will next play either Daniela or Lucie, then Hénin.

Nadia prevailed over Malek and Serena double bageled some "lucky loser". Hey, if she'd play IIIs & IVs like her sister, she could do that in every match. Couldn't she? [;)]

[H] Paul

Yeah and she might be missing tournaments next year for her Olympic campaign so doesn't look good

And that Dementieva-Mauresmo result is pretty whipdedoo isn't it? They've both fallen off the radar and are hardly threats to any of the top players...

And that Dementieva-Mauresmo result is pretty whipdedoo isn't it? They've both fallen off the radar and are hardly threats to any of the top players...

[/quote]

What do you mean by "top"? Current number 12 and 15 in the world--when the WTA tracks 1300, not even to speak of all the ITF players and juniors. Basically you're saying they are off your radar, and it's remarks like that which tell us, for all your talk,you have no serious interest in the sport overall.

Paul, didn't the Williams sisters make an agreement with each other not to enter the same WTA Tournaments a few years back after some debacle about them playing each other in the semis at one tournament?

I think the WTA has had some influence too in that it wants to get bigger names, although not too many, at the smaller tournaments.

Paul, didn't the Williams sisters make an agreement with each other not to enter the same WTA Tournaments a few years back after some debacle about them playing each other in the semis at one tournament?

I think the WTA has had some influence too in that it wants to get bigger names, although not too many, at the smaller tournaments.

[/quote]

The incident took place at Indian Wells when they effectively refused to play each other. When the crowd took exception, the Williams clan called it a "racial incident" and have boycotted the tournament since. Now that PacLife has been designated one of the new tier of "crown jewel" events, they find themselves jammed up and are demanding that the association exempt them, alone of the entire field, from obilgatory participation in the crown jewels. Sheesh.

But I wouldn't be surprised they got away with it. Frankly, I don't much care what WTA likes. [:|] It was they who pushed the play rules to a killing pace--except of course for the Williams, who play when and where they please and nobody says a thing. No excuses; neither Williams was at Tier II Luxembourg while Venus was robbing Tier IV Seoul. There's no accomplishment or pride to be taken in such a spurious "victory".

Paul

Chaki is out of Stuttgart. Got beat by Golovin in straight sets 7-6. 6-1. She looked pretty burned out. Not surprising really.

Anyway, she said she's going home to Russia to spend some time with her boyfriend and prepare for the Kremlin Cup. 

That's what Russians do, you know, when they're not playing...go back to Russia, their home country because they are Russians and love their country and play for it because they are Russian and live there.

[/quote]

Absolutely she needs a rest before defending against Justine. Anna has made heroic efforts this year.

BTW (Cleo, if you're browsing this: there's a lengthy interview with Anna C running on Planeta Sport. Good 24-hr stream at http://livetv.ru/en/chanelinfo/246/ . I imagine it'll be rerun a couple of times anyway. Taped sometime after the Fed Cup, it has lots of clips of Anna and family around the house, etc.)

Okay, Philli, I know where you'd like to go with "what Russians do", but your thought actually bears on a larger point. At LA, Clif Drysdale cited Elena D as "one of the few" of "that Russian bunch" who hadn't come to the States or Spain, etc--to the West. [:^)] I wondered, can't Clif count? Then the refrain was picked up by the Three Witches and turned into a mantra through the USO--something like this:

They cite Maria, of course, Sveta in Spain a lot, with the clear implication that the only "good" Russians are the ones who come "over here". They've even suggested that Petrova, of all people, is an expat and no longer a "real Russian". [:O] Interestingly, they never mention the several down-list Russians in Florida, places like Allentown PA or Scottsdale AZ -- because their bull is directed to those who look only at "top players". [;)]  See, they don't want them looking down-list at all or they'd start counting Tarpischev's Muscovite legions and realize the alleged "westward migration" is a crock.

It doesn't take a doctorate to get the politicized nature of such trash-talk. Now, if you press to drive a wedge between one Russian player and her compatriots, isn't it like you're playing into the agenda of our country-club mouthpieces?

[H] Paul

it's kind of weird, in a way, Paul. After the initial Russian invasion back at the beginning of the Millenium, it seemed to slow down for a while.

Now its picked right up again and they are showing up throughout the rankings again......but still the USTA hasn't seemed to pick up the ball and run with it. 

Considering the training facilities in the USA, its surprising that they seemed to be the breeding ground for foreign tennis players, rather than the home grown variety.

I get the impression that the USTA as about as near sighted as the LTA of Great Britain.

[/quote]

Oh, has it ever picked up. Whatever I might think of Boris Yeltsin, he promoted something grand. They just keep on coming, and not only the Russian Fed but Slav'sya, from "all the Russias"--Belarus, Ukraine, ethnic Russians from the former republics. Those late Juniors I mentioned in the "other girls" thread were either champs, finalists or semifinalists. For each of them there are four more behind them and another four behind those.

And your impression is dead on, the US myopia is extreme. Like I was saying on  the US Open thread, there are unused facilities all over this country. Seems like our program is the same as we apply to Canadian skaters -- lure them in with the resources, try and entice them to take citizenship, then pretend we produce them.

See, here's the way the mentality works: Kim Clijsters married Brian Lynch, an American who plays basketball for a Belgian team -- so we call Brian "an American basketball player." Follow: Star of our San Antonio basketball team is Manu Ginóbili, an Argentine citizen. Pretty much the flip side of Brian, he's even played for the Argentine national team. Is he an "Argentine basketball player"? Not on your life--he plays for our team!

Wait! [*-)] What am I missing? Brian and Manu cannot both be "American basketball players"? They can if you're a Yankee commentator. LOL

[H] Paul in Texas

If anybody can link onto Eurosport today, (Thursday) via satellite, if you are not in Europe, todays afternoon 3 matches are Ana, JJ, and Justine.

Should be a really good demo of good tennis.

I didn't get up early enough to see Nadia, if they ran that match. Caught some of K Bondarenko trouncing Ana. (The psychology of back-to-back tourneys doesn't work well for the winner of the previous one, I suspect.)  Saw all of JJ/Peer. Looked like JJ might succumb to Shahar's increasingly clever play, but came back. Had to laugh at JJ hitting a couple of those Schiavone-type net balls at critical moments. The second one bounced on over, though.

Then the stream went to football. I'll try here directly to pull in Eurosport 2 for Elena/Daniela, but I'm not optimistic.

[8-)] Paul