http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news...c5dbfb2411c&p=2World of tennis throws CBS Sports a curveball
STEPHANIE MYLES, The Gazette
Published: Tuesday, April 03, 2007
Notes and netcords in the wake of the just-completed Sony Ericsson Open in Miami ...
The loud thuds heard late last week was the sound of the suits at CBS Sports throwing themselves out of their ivory Manhattan tower, as it became clear they would have neither Roger Federer, nor Rafael Nadal, nor even American Andy Roddick for their three hours of national coverage Sunday afternoon.
Instead, they got two very interesting players who are complete strangers to the more general network audience in Novak Djokovic and Guillermo Canas.
Imagine how much more they cursed when Serena Williams went down 6-0 in the first set of the women's final Saturday, before she rallied to win.
Speaking of Serena: Does anyone really believe the reason her knee was hurting in her semi-final match was because she "forgot" to take her anti-inflammatories? And does anyone believe, as her trainer claimed, that she was playing big-time tennis matches every day and practising twice a day?
Very few players would ever set a schedule like that during a tournament and on a hard court. For a player still struggling with pain - four years post-surgery - it doesn't even make sense.
We'll see if Serena shows up in Charleston for her next scheduled event. Her opponent Saturday, Justine Henin, already has pulled out to return home to address a breathing problem. Maria Sharapova also has pulled out of Charleston and out of an coming Fed Cup match, to treat injuries to her right (serving) shoulder and left hamstring.
Speaking of Federer: The world No. 1 rarely loses, so there isn't a huge database of intelligence on how gracious he is in defeat.
He was most ungracious in going down to Canas for the second straight week. Federer snapped at the South American fans, sniped at the umpire and generally was out of sorts. Afterward, he blamed blisters for the loss in California and said he was unlucky in Miami. He even went after the person who toted up his 54 unforced errors.
"The statistics guys have no clue what an unforced error is," Federer said. "I was checking it out. They take incredible unforced errors for forced errors. I only had about half that."
Federer won both events last year. While recent comments suggest he has been laser-focused on the coming clay-court season since he won in Australia, perhaps to the detriment of the two big American events, there might be more. It wouldn't be at all surprising during the next few weeks to hear about an injury, or perhaps even about trouble in his longtime relationship with ex-player Mirka Vavrinec.
Something's up. Canas is good, but he's not that good.
Speaking of Nadal: A report in the Spanish media had Nadal's father and uncle rushing from Mallorca to Miami unexpectedly last week. The first thing that comes to mind was they didn't want Davis Cup coach Emilio Sanchez to coerce nice-guy Nadal into changing his mind and playing in Spain's tie against the U.S. this weekend in North Carolina. Nadal cited foot pain for his decision to pull out.
Speaking of Hingis: The second year of Martina Hingis's comeback isn't going nearly as well as the first. And with her engagement announcement earlier this year, it wouldn't be shocking to see her go the way of Kim Clijsters and call it quits for good.
Hingis started from scratch after a three-year layoff and ended 2006 ranked No. 7. But after reaching the quarterfinals in her first two Grand Slam events, she lost in the third round at Wimbledon (to Ai Sugiyama) and the second round at the U.S. Open (to Virginie Razzano).
This year, she's neither the fearless player who won as a teenager nor the "nothing-to-lose" comeback kid.
Last year, she usually was beaten only by the very best. This season, all her losses but one have come at the hands of players ranked outside the top 10. In Miami, she lost to Polish teenager Agnieszka Radwanka, ranked No. 49. That's not what she came back for.
Speaking of Davis Cup: Canada's team heads to the slow, red clay courts of the Costao do Santinho Resort e Spa in Florianopolis this weekend for a matchup with Gustavo Kuerten and Brazil. The squad includes Frank Dancevic, Deauville's Frederic Niemeyer, Daniel Nestor and Peter Polansky.
Speaking of the locals: Repentigny's Marie-eve Pelletier finally had a good win last week, in the first round of a $25,000 event in Louisiana. Ranked No. 207, Pelletier beat No. 124 Hana Sromova. She then went down to 16-year-old Madison Brengle, ranked No. 339.
Pelletier, 24, is grinding it out in a major way, trying to get back a ranking dealt a severe blow by ankle problems last year. She has 33 events recorded on the rolling 52-week WTA Tour computer.
There are 1,469 players with an official WTA ranking; only three have played more weeks than Pelletier in the past year. Both she and Laval's Stephanie Dubois are playing a small tournament in Alabama this week.
Blainville's Aleksandra Wozniak lost in the second and final round of qualifying at Amelia Island last weekend. Wozniak beat No. 75 Camille Pin, then lost a deciding tiebreaker to Croatia's Karolina Sprem after blowing a 5-2 third-set lead (and committing 12 double faults).