WTA YECs - Day 2
Last night's matches were sort of hum-drum, even though Mauresmo got herself a good win against Clijsters, whom she hadn't beaten since the US Open R4 2002. Clijsters led their head-to-head 8-2. Pierce and Davenport had straightforward and (now) expected victories over Dementieva and Schnyder respectively.
My revised prediction is that Davenport will win all three of her round-robin matches and will probably play Mauresmo in the semis, and that Pierce will go through to play...well, probably Sharapova in her semis. And the final now looks like Davenport - Pierce. Though we've seen little of Sharapova or Petrova so far.
Tonight's matches:
- Schnyder vs Petrova (Petrova - Schnyder is playing well, but can be overpowered. Although she may want revenge for her loss to Petrova in the Linz final)
- Davenport vs Sharapova (Davenport - when she's playing well, Davenport is just too good and too experienced for Sharapova, who's had a good and consistent year but not a great one)
- Mauresmo vs Dementieva (Mauresmo - a rerun of the Philadelphia final, where Dementieva threatened but Mauresmo triumphed with a more consistent serve and more variety)
btw, if there is a Web site worse than the WTATour Championships one, I hope never to see it. For a site promoting an event it's utterly dismal: everything's in Flash with no alternative, the event's history is nowhere to be found (past champions?), the standings are not completely shown (if you look at the main pages, it looks like only match wins count -- but sets count, too, if it comes down to the wire), and the promoterst take so little interest in doubles that they haven't even bothered to list the four teams that have qualified. It is truly dismal even as pure marketing (although of a piece with the WTA tournament held in LA in the summer), and it's no surprise that the event in its three-year run in LA has never gotten any traction or become the magnitude even it shoudl be (as Mauresmo said last week in Philly). What a continuingly dismal shame it is that the Championships (which, btw, the players call simply "the Masters") was forced to move from Madison Square Garden, where it had all those things and atmosphere besides.
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