The Return of Anna?

It's easy to forget that back in the day, Anna Chakvetadze was the number-five player in the world. In 2007 she'd earned herself four titles -- including two big ones in Cincinnati and Stanford -- beating the likes of Daniela Hantuchova, Jelena Jankovic and Venus Williams in the process. But if you happened to blink during that run, you might have missed her.

After making the finals in New Haven in 2008, Anna hasn't really been able to make a dent at another tournament. Last year she never won more than three matches at any event, and this year she's missed out on even qualifying for a number of others. She suffered a first round loss in Miami in March and subsequently fell out of the top hundred, her lowest ranking in nearly six years. At only twenty-three years of age, it looked like she was already well past the prime of her career.

But then came this week's action in Portoroz, Slovenia, a small tournament which nonetheless attracted top talent like Jankovic and feisty teenager Anatastia Pavlyuchenkova. Chakvetadze, now ranked #103 in the world, was not seeded and so was faced with the prospect of one opponent after another ranked higher than her. In the first round she made surprisingly quick work of Ekaterina Makarova, a fellow Russian who won her first career title in Eastbourne this year. She was similarly impressive against fourth-seeded Sara Errani, taking advantage of the Italian's pathetic service game -- she won barely one in three of her first attempts and one in five of her second -- for another straight-set win.

In the quarterfinals, Anna faced stiffer competition. She'd beaten Vera Dushevina in their only previous meeting, but that was four years ago, and she found herself down early when her compatriot took the first set 6-2. But Anna was able to steady herself and came back to take the next two, making her first semifinal since that run at the Pilot Pen. There she faced Polona Hercog, one of my favorite newcomers this year, who got off too a quick start, bagelling Anna to take the first set in twenty-four minutes. But again, signs of the Russian's champion self began to shine through, and she broke her opponent twice to even the score and got off to a quick lead in the decider.

On Sunday Anna never had to look back -- against Sweden's Johanna Larsson, the seven-time titleist never let herself get behind. Larsson didn't get a break opportunity in the first set and couldn't convert on any of her three chances in the second. After just over an hour Chakvetadze had won her first title in more than two years, beating five better-ranked players in a row to do it.

Does this mean we can expect Anna to continue her momentum in the weeks leading up to the U.S. Open? It's probably too early to tell, but now on her strongest surface, it sure looks like she's back in form. Considering the amount of success she's had before during the American road trip, she's certainly capable of making an impact, but it'll take more than one title win to do it. I've always had a soft spot for Chakvetadze, so I'd love to see her making another run for the top-ten.

And now that she knows she still has it, she just needs to keep it going!

Things Are Heating Up

There were signs of spring in the New York air this week, but a little further west the action is getting really hot.

The BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells is the first Masters event of the year and, more importantly, marks the return of Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal. After injury-induced absences they'll both be back in action in tonight's Hit for Haiti charity exhibition before getting ready for their main draws. And they've chosen quite the stage on which to make their debuts. Eight of the top ten men pepper the field and some are coming off big wins in the last few weeks. And that could be a bit intimidating for someone a little out of practice.

Rafa is the defending champion here, but he seems like a whole other person than he did in 2009. Last year's trophy came in the middle of a five-title run, but the now-#3 hasn't won another tournament since that streak ended. He tumbled out of the Australian Open quaterfinals after re-aggravating his knee and hasn't yet been back on court. Though he still hits hard as always, when I watch him now I often find myself wincing in anticipation of pain.

Roger, on the other hand, should be a a bit fitter, though a lung infection late in the winter caused him to pull out of Dubai. But he's got some hot players in his section -- Marcos Baghdatis, Gael Monfils and Janko Tipsarevic have all put together a string of wins in the time since Melbourne and any could face Roger before the semis.

The women's draw is no less formidable. Though missing Serena & Venus Williams as well as Dinara Safina, past champions like Vera Zvonareva, Maria Sharapova and a still-unseeded Justine Henin pose real threats. A different woman has won Indian Wells in each of the past six years, though, so the tournament is really wide open. While there is, again, the possibility of a Henin-Kim Clijsters final, this time I won't hold my breath. In fact I wouldn't be surprised to see someone like Victoria Azarenka or even Alona Bondarenko advance far into the bracket.

Of course, you don't have to win to make a statement at Indian Wells. With such an impressive field, this tournament is a great opportunity for players like James Blake or Anna Chakvetadze -- both in action today -- to turn their spate of bad luck around. And newbies like sixteen-year-old Sloane Stephens and Ryan Harrison, just a year her senior, can both put their names on the map if they can follow up on the upsets they scored in their first rounds.

And with more than a week of play left, it certainly looks like just about anything can happen!

Setting the Course

The women are following up last week's exciting men's tournament in Rome with their own round of battles at the Internazionali BNL D'Italia, and it could prove to be a solid test for some of the sport's best athletes.

Defending champion Jelena Jankovic faced a bit of a scare in her second round match when Gisela Dulko took her to a tiebreak, but eventually advanced in straight sets. But a rematch of last year's final was precluded when 2008 runner-up Alize Cornet, who's had trouble gaining her footing this year, was demolished by Kateryna Bondarenko.



The tournament also marks the return of Ana Ivanovic as she seeks to defend her French Open crown later this month. She's been pretty quiet so far this year, making it to the finals in Indian Wells, but then losing in the third round in Miami. Current #1 Dinara Safina took nearly two hours to get past Virginie Razzano, and Serena Williams, out to prove she's a force to be reckoned with on clay, hopes to imporove on her first round exit in Marbella last month.



Former top-ten player Anna Chakvetadze put together back-to-back wins for the first time this year as she followed up an upset of sixteenth seen Anabel Medina Garrigues with a tight three-setter against Ponte Vedra Beach finalist Aleksandra Wozniak. And though Elena Vesnina tried to stage her second comeback of the tournament, she ultimately succumbed to China's Jie Zheng, who's finanlly broken into the top twenty.



It's obviously important for all these players to have a strong showing in Rome -- with just a few weeks left until Roland Garros, everyone is trying to make a case for themselves. As it stands, the door leading to the top spot is as wide open as it has been for some time and a couple of big wins could shake up the top-five pretty substantially.

And for those trying to make their first mark of the season, there's never any better time to score an upset than on the red clay of Europe!

Politics & Tennis Don't Mix

The Middle East is a hotbed of all sorts of tension -- religious, political, and now apparently athletic.

The Barclays Tennis Championship in Dubai hadn't even begun when controversy sprang up. Officials at the United Arab Emirates denied Shahar Peer, a native of Israel, a visa to enter the country one day before she was to begin competing in the fifty-six player draw. While no reason was given for the refusal, officials speculated it was due to anti-Israel sentiments in the Gulf State.

It wasn't the first time Peer faced the weight of political pressure. Last month in New Zealand protesters stormed her third round match against Elena Dementieva, days after Israel invaded Gaza. And in 2006 she was forced to split from her doubles partner Sania Mirza amid objections from Indian Muslims.

But this time the UAE's decision sparked the interest of WTA chairman Larry Scott, who said the Dubai tournament could be stricken from the women's tennis calendar as a result of their treatment of Peer -- and for a contest that attracted every one of the sport's top ten players, and eighteen of the top twenty-five, that could mean a big loss of revenue for the state. A recent New York Times article told of how the spreading global recession is beginning to hit even this once-hot mecca -- I wonder how these latest developments could stain Dubai's reputation. It just doesn't seem to me that such external factors should influence how the sport is played.

Meanwhile Japan's Ayumi Morita, who was given entrée to the tournament after Peer was forced to pull out, won her first round match against a still-struggling Anna Chakvetadze. And that wasn't the only upset in early round action -- qualifier Urszula Radwanska beat out her ninth-seeded older sister Aggie in the first round while Auckland finalist Elena Vesnina took out compatriot Svetlana Kuznetsova in the second.

If these results are any indication there will certainly be a lot more excitement in Dubai over the next week, and maybe even more controversy -- but here's hoping all the action is kept on the courts, and out of politics.

The Match(es) of the Moment

I was originally planning to dedicate this morning's post to what I considered the most memorable match of the second round, but man were there a lot to choose from.

I'll start with the one that made my jaw drop this morning.

Venus Williams hasn't been the biggest threat on hard courts in several years. Even though she won the Sony-Ericsson WTA Championships on the surface last year, she did so almost as the underdog with an eighth seed. In the Majors she hasn't made it to a final on anything other than grass since 2003. Even still you know opponents were terrified to see her in their side of the draw in Melbourne this week. And pundits were talking about the potential semifinal matchup between her and her sister as soon as the bracket was released.

But all those players can breathe a sigh of relief this morning -- on Thursday Carla Suárez Navarro, playing in her very first Australian Open, took Venus out of contention in three sets.

The match started predictably enough, with Williams winning the first set 6-2 in less than half an hour. She won all eleven points on her first serve and almost half the points on Carla's serve. But in the second set Suárez Navarro amped up her game -- she served more winners and fewer errors than she had in the first and converted both of her break opportunities. The third set went the distance -- sixty-three minutes and eighty points played. Venus couldn't capitalize on match point with Carla serving at 4-5, and a double fault in the subsequent service game handed the match to the forty-sixth ranked Suárez Spaniard.

No one expected the result. In the preview of the match posted on the Open's website before the match, Alan Trengove wrote:

"The 20-year-old Spaniard would have a better chance at Roland Garros, where she reached the quarterfinals on clay courts as a qualifier. On hardcourt, she could be overwhelmed. Williams in straight."

But I can't help feel that it's just an indication of how wide open the women's draw really is. With five different women holding the top ranking last year, the #1 spot is really up for grabs at this tournament.

Number One may still be a long shot for Amer Delic, one of only two American men to make it through the qualifying rounds in Australia, but he's certainly on the rise. In the main draw the twenty-six year old has had to fight more than most. His first round match went five sets and almost three hours against countryman Taylor Dent, but he was even more impressive in the second round against 28th-seeded Paul-Henri Mathieu.

Less than an hour into the match, he was down two sets to love, and it looked like he would soon be headed home. But he rallied in the third set with the help of six aces and won the fourth in a tiebreak. The deciding set took sixteen games and seventy-two minutes, but Delic had better first and second serve percentages. There was only one break the entire set, but it was the one that counted. Amer became the fourth U.S. man, and the only one not ranked in the top 25, to make it to the third round.

Next he faces world #3 Novak Djokovic, to whom he lost in four sets at Wimbledon two years ago. It'll be a tough task, especially after two five-set matches in sweltering heat, but stranger things have certainly happened.

The last two matches yielded results I've been looking forward to for some time. Marcos Baghdatis followed up a straight-set win in the first round by knocking out #16 Robbie Soderling with relative ease. And, in a matchup I was a bit torn over, Jelena Dokic continued her comeback with a win over a still-stuggling Anna Chakvetadze. They'll both struggle in the next round, Marcos against Mardy Fish and Jelena against Caroline Wozniacki, but whatever the results, they've both chosen to make their statements here in Australia.

See you next time!

The Importance of Being Anna

In my very first blog post I mentioned how, after every tournament, I inevitably come away with a few new favorite players -- either a resurging name like Mardy Fish who found new success on a well-trod court or someone who seemingly came out of nowhere and notched a series of upsets and shockers like Juan Martin Del Potro.

Last year that player was Anna Chakvetadze.

From a distance the tiny Russian (she stands only 5'7") resembles the other Anna of tennis -- she shares Kournikova's difficult-to-pronounce surname, cute face and blonde hair, which is so long it once got caught in her racquet on a backswing.



But Chakvetadze was quick to prove that the similarities to her namesake ended there.

While Kournikova never won a singles title, this Anna was more successful from the start. She finished 2006 with two tournament wins -- one in Guangzhou, China where she beat Jelena Jankovic in the semis, and the other at Moscow's Tier I Kremlin Cup, where she scored victories against four compatriots: Dinara Safina, Maria Sharapova, Elena Dementieva and Nadia Petrova -- and brought the momentum with her into the new year.

She started 2007 with her highest career ranking, lucky number thirteen, and won the first tournament she played in Hobart, Australia. But that was just the start of what was a winning year. She made it to the quarterfinals at the Australian and French Opens, but really hit her stride during the summer's U.S. Open Series. She won titles in Cincinnati and Stanford and even beat Venus Williams in San Diego before making it all the way to the semis in Flushing Meadows, sending her to a career high #5 ranking.



Then things took a turn for the worse. In December a robber broke into her home outside Moscow, tied up the tennis star, and walked away with hundreds of thousands of dollars in goods. Anna wasn't hurt, thankfully, but I'm sure the incident was far from pleasant. It also couldn't have helped her start 2008 on the right foot.

She lost in the first round in Sydney and was upset at the Australian Open by Maria Kirilenko. She followed up a win in Paris with first round exits in Antwerp and Doha. Since then she's lost her first match at six other tournaments this year, her second match in eight more. She's doubled her ranking from #6 to #12.

This week Anna's back on the court at Luxembourg's Fortis Championships where she was given the second seed. On Monday she made it through her first round match against France's Mathilde Johansson in straight sets, but she still faces a tough road. The draw includes Dementieva as the top seed as well as Daniela Hantuchova and Caroline Wozniacki, the Danish teenager who's already beaten Anna twice in the last two months and has had her own breakthrough year.

I'm hoping Anna's able to pull off a end-of-year surge, maybe take one or two of the few remaining titles. She has an unmistakable spunk that helps bring excitement to women's tennis, and certainly no one can argue against that.

So good luck this week! Here's to a great 2009!