End With a Bang

The women's tennis season officially wrapped up today as the final balls were hit at the Commonwealth Bank Tournament of Champions. And while the field contesting the title boasted some of the most impressive records on Tour, the ultimate outcome was probably not what many expected.

The top seeds in Bali were mostly occupied with some of the most successful athletes. Marion Bartoli just missed gaining full entry to the year-end championships held last week in Istanbul, but got in one round robin win as a wildcard. Sabine Lisicki came back from an injury-filled 2010 to take two titles and put up career-best showings at Wimbledon and the U.S. Open. And twenty-eight year old Roberta Vinci put together her most trophy-filled year, capturing a career-best three crowns herself. But only Lisicki made it out of the first round, and a low back injury forced her to retire late in her semifinal match.

Taking advantage of the German's bad luck -- and, incidentally, Bartoli's a round earlier -- was Anabel Medina Garrigues, the surprise winner in both Estoril and Palermo. They were the first events she'd won since 2009 and helped her climb back into the top thirty. She's been a little quiet in the second half of the year, but by hanging in just a little longer than her opponents this weekend, she made her first final since July.

The bottom half of the draw had a few more surprises, but at least all the matches were fully played out. College Park champion Nadia Petrova, once ranked #3 in the world, avenged previous losses to second-seeded wildcard Shuai Peng this year, and defending titleist Ana Ivanovic reversed her recent losses to Vinci to score the win in just over an hour. The semifinal match on Saturday was similarly straightforward as the Serb got the better of her long-time rival, further improving her slight head-to-head lead over the Russian.

It was the first final Ivanovic had reached this year, and though she had dropped a few spots from her high ranking of 2011, she was nevertheless hanging with the big girls again. She'd beating Jelena Jankovic in Indian Wells and took Kim Clijsters to a third set tiebreak in Miami -- just a few weeks back in Beijing she beat both Svetlana Kuznetsova and Vera Zvonareva to make the semis. And she brought that momentum with her to Sunday's championship match, dominating her service games and breaking Medina Garrigues four times during the match. With the win, her only title of the year, she may not make a big move up the rankings, but she will at least gain confidence to play even better when she kicks of 2012.

And with the way her competition is playing these days, that confidence can only be to her advantage.

An End to the Dry Spell

We're just about ready to make the full shift to the summer hardcourt season, and as the dust from the soon-to-be abandoned clay settles, a couple players brushed the cobwebs off themselves as they made the return to the winner's circle this weekend.

Two-time French Open finalist Robin Soderling has been a little quiet on Tour since the early part of the year, when he captured three titles in four events. And though he was the top seed in Bastad, he had a tough road with players like Potito Starace and Tomas Berdych in his path. Still he was able to advance to the final without dropping a set and made surprisingly quick work of David Ferrer in Sunday's championship. Only dropping three points on his first serve and limiting his opponent to less than thirty percent on the return, he was able to lift the trophy in his homeland for the second time and claim his first title since February -- not exactly a drought, but a bit of a relief given how absent he was from the winner's podium during his best part of the year.

Anabel Medina Garrigues had been mired in a slightly longer dry spell, losing a slew of first round matches over the last eighteen months, but she finally won her first title in almost two years this past April in Estoril. She's climbed her way back into the top forty since then and earned the fifth seed in Palermo, where she avenged a semifinal loss to Irina-Camelia Begu in the third round. With many of the higher-ranked players eliminated for her, she marched to the final without much drama and summarily ended Bastad champion Polona Hercog's nine-match win streak in about eighty minutes. The victory -- her fifth in Palermo -- made Anabel the winning-est clay court player still active on Tour, surpassing Venus Williams with her tenth title on the dirt. Not a bad way to remind us all she's still a force to be reckoned with.

The same can be said for the action in Stuttgart last week, where uber-veteran Juan Carlos Ferrero was trying to make his latest career comeback. Since knee and wrist surgery late last year, he's only played a handful of matches in 2011, making a nice run in Barcelona, but skipping the Majors, and has seen his ranking fall back out of the top eighty. JCF is not a man to be ignored, however, and though he was unseeded in Germany, he handled his biggest challenge in world #17 Mikhail Youzhny and never looked back. Against quickly rising Pablo Andujar in the final, Ferrero took advantage of weak serving and seven double faults, blanking his countryman in the second set. It was his first crown since last July and, at thirty-one years of age, the latest announcement that the Spaniard is still relevant.

A little further east in Bad Gastein, the draw had been opened early, but it was really some seasoned talent that made its way through the week. Maria Jose Martinez Sanchez, who reached a career high rank of #19 in the world after a title in Rome last year, had struggled to rebound from a knee injury and didn't progress past a second round this year until Wimbledon. In Austria she battled through a close first round against qualifier Paula Ormaechea, but saw largely smooth sailing after that. In Sunday's final against Patricia Mayr-Achleitner, she fired off nine aces and, though she missed a bunch of first serves herself, she broke her opponent six times in nine return games, securing her first championship in over a year.

As these ladies and gentlemen next move to U.S. Open prep, it's encouraging to see them each show they can still make an impact. Whether that translates into more titles this year is yet to be seen. But a return to the spotlight for each at least ensures that no one will take them lightly.

Back At It

It's been a while since either of the ladies who claimed trophies on clay this weekend were standing at the top of the champion's ring. But with one reclaiming a title that was all but stolen from her last year and another marking a pretty impressive record, both victories were more important than they might originally seem.

The draw at the Barcelona Ladies Open was opened at the get-go, with only two seeded players making it out of the second round. With little in her way then, 2009 champion and surprise 2010 runner-up Roberta Vinci was able to take advantage. Though she's lost every match she's played since Dubai in February, she found a way to turn around her luck and beat former top-thirty players like Virginie Razzano and Yaroslava Shvedova on her way to the finals.

There she met an impressive Lucie Hradecka who'd battled her way past more than a couple favorites to make her first final since 2009. But she must have been a little tired out by the time Saturday rolled around. After losing the first set to the unseeded Czech, Vinci won five games in a row to take the second and only dropped two more before finally claiming the title. It was her fourth on Tour, but the only one she's won twice, making the Italian a bit of a force in Spain.

A little further west in Portugal we saw a similar story unfold in the bracket, but in Estoril not a single seed got to the semis. More impressive, the two finalists -- veteran Anabel Medina Garrigues and journeywoman Kristina Barrois -- didn't drop a set on their road to Saturday's match. Anabel, an uber-decorated doubles champion, saw her ranking plummet last year and was close to falling into triple digits early in 2011 thanks to a ten-match losing streak. But with wins over eighth seeded Greta Arn and world #34 Klara Zakopalova in Portugal she finally seemed to be gaining her footing.

The German Barrois had been similarly unstoppable on the way to her second Tour final, ending the efforts of top seed Alisa Kleybanova in the quarters and Elena Vesnina the round before. But again the more experienced Spaniard was able to triumph when it counted -- winning nearly three of every four first serve points and breaking her opponent six times, Medina Garrigues claimed her tenth career title in just over an hour. More importantly it was her ninth on clay, tying her with Venus Williams for the most of any active player -- not bad for a player who'd been so under the radar for the better part of the last few years.

Of course these champions will only face tougher tests down the road as they make their way to Roland Garros, but they've made pretty loud statements this week, and a couple more matches in their favor and they certainly could cause some upsets in the next few weeks.

After all, this is the time of year when nothing is certain.

Gotta Have Seoul

I'd be willing to bet that many of the Pretty Young Things at the top of the WTA today hadn't even picked up a tennis racket when Kimiko Date Krumm was at the top of her game.

The thirty-eight year old Tokyo native turned pro in 1989 and cracked the top-ten in 1994 after winning the title in Sydney. She reached a career high #4 ranking the next year and had notched wins over Hall of Famers like Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario and Gabriela Sabitini, not to mention Conchita Martinez and Lindsay Davenport before retiring at the Tour Championships in 1996.

But last year Kimiko came back on the circuit, playing -- and winning -- a handful of ITF titles in Japan. In January she qualified for her first Grand Slam tournament in twelve years. And while she continues to do well in the challenger events, she hadn't won a single match in a main draw in 2009.

Until this week.

At the Hansol Korea Open in Seoul the persistent hitter may have gained late entry, but she made it to the semifinals with wins over fifth seed Alisa Kleybanova, against whom she was down match point, and tournament favorite Daniela Hantuchova, on her own comeback trail. This morning Kimiko scored her fourth straight victory with a win over an underrated Maria Kirilenko to make her first Tour final since her return.



Tomorrow (or, tonight) she'll face Anabel Medina Garrigues, the woman who ousted her in the first round of Guangzhou last week. About twelve years her junior, Kimiko's opponent will certainly be the sprier of the two -- but the veteran is clearly the sentimental favorite. In both her wins and losses this year, Date Krumm has proven that she's got some real heart and a determination few other professionals can also claim.

A win on Sunday will certainly give Kimiko some great momentum going into next week's Pan Pacific Open in her hometown, a title she won back in 1995. A wildcard in Tokyo, she'll face another youngster Aleksandra Wozniak in her opening round, and potentially U.S. Open runner-up Caroline Wozniacki -- who, incidentally, wasn't even alive in 1989, when Date Krumm went pro -- in the second.

There's a daunting road ahead of her, but Kimiko has already proven just how strong she can be amid adversity. And I'm sure going to love watching her!

Doubles, Doubles, Toil & Trouble

Halloween is fast approaching, and the ghouls and goblins are haunting the eerily quiet doubles' courts as paired players make their own bid to play for the year-end championships next week.

Both the women's Bell Challenge in Quebec and the men's BNP Masters in Paris feature some of the best talent in doubles -- even if they are overshadowed by their solo counterparts.

I've long been of the opinion that doubles tennis never gets the attention it deserves. To some extent it makes sense that the top players would eschew the doubles bracket in an effort to avoid potential injury and focus on their singles game. It's rare to see the matches broadcast, even during the major tournaments, unless it's the championship or there's a rain delay. Even at the high school level, doubles is relegated to the back courts while the "star" singles athletes get top billing.

But watching a real high-quality match can often be more dramatic and entertaining than anything two solo players can pull off on the court.

This year at the U.S. Open, I was able to watch Virginia Ruano Pascual and her partner Anabel Medina Garrigues take on Americans Raquel Kops-Jones and Abigail Spears. The Spaniards, seeded fifth at the tournament, were given a run for their money by the hometown -- or home-country -- favorites, losing the first set and being forced into a third set tiebreak before pulling out the win. But with hard-hitting volleys, multiple heart-pounding gets and reaction times that would rival the most skilled marksmen, there was no doubt that these ladies were working for their buck.

And while the very top singles players seldom make any real effort in doubles, usually happily languishing in the triple-digits for rankings, the opposite isn't always true. Katarina Srebotnik is currently ranked #3 in doubles and #21 in singles while Ai Sugiayama is #4 and #31 respectively. Jonas Bjorkman, currently part of the fifth best doubles team in the world, was once ranked as high as #4 on his own.

At the top of the women's game right now are Zimbabwe's Cara Black and the U.S.'s Liezel Huber. Together they've won a jaw-dropping nine title matches since January, including the U.S. Open -- Cara also took the mixed doubles championship in Flushing Meadows, beating her partner Liezel in straight sets. Incidentally, the #1 women's singles player, Jelena Jankovic, has won a relatively paltry four tournaments in 2008.



On the men's side all eyes are on the Bryan brothers, Mike and Bob, the twins who regained their #1 ranking after winning the U.S. Open in September. Bob pulled out of the Davis Cup semifinal match against Spain with a shoulder injury, but the two are back in top form in Paris this week, looking to capture their sixth title of the year.



Despite the dominance of both pairs in their respective fields, there is unfortunately a huge discrepancy in the rewards of both games. Jelena, for her four titles and no majors, has taken home $2.7 million this year just in prize money; Cara Black, including her take from the U.S. Open, has made only $730K. The Bryans together have earned a combined $1.5 million, less than a fourth of what Rafael Nadal has won. Sponsorships and endorsements, of course, add even more to the purse of singles players.

Every now and then you begin to hear rumblings that singles players should be required to enter the doubles draws at major tournaments. To an extent that happens at the Olympics, where Roger Federer won gold with Stanislas Wawrinka, and at Davis Cup and Fed Cup matches -- Mardy Fish stepped in for Bob Bryan against Spain, and actually won. And you occassionally see a pairing like Nadal and Argentina's Juan Monaco, who've already notched a first round win this week in Paris.



But what about the rest of the year?

Purely for the entertainment value I think there's a great argument for it -- imagine watching heavy hitters like Federer and Andy Roddick pounding down Nadal and James Blake. But even from a strategic standpoint I feel there is a benefit, forcing players who are traditionally content to wear down the baseline to develop a real serve-and-volley game and ultimately improve their overall play. Yes, the potential for injury or exhaustion is a concern, but isn't that just time they'd be spending on the court anyway?

And maybe a few recognizable names in the doubles draw is all the sport needs to get people interested.

So drive the ghosts off the courts, grab a couple of friends and get out there and play!

'Til then, I'm off to find myself a Halloween costume!

Happy Haunting!