Aces
Dinara Safina is glad to be back on court after spending the fall and off-season battling fatigue syndrome. (Safina finding stamina to take her all way)
Winning Roland Garros is high on Maria Sharapova’s New Year’s resolution list for the 2007 season. (Sharapova eyes French Open in 2007)
Ana Ivanovic’s website has a preview of her 2007 tennis outfits by adidas. (Updated: New adidas outfits)
American Jill Craybas became the first player to reach the quarterfinals at this year’s ASB Classic in Auckland. (Craybas first player into quarterfinals)
Martina Navratilova and Steffi Graf came in second and third place respectively in Spanish newspaper El Mundo Deportivo’s athlete of the century poll. Gymnast Nadia Comaneci came in first place. (Nadia Comaneci Voted Athlete Of The Century In El Mundo Deportivo Poll)
Australia’s Samantha Stosur is enjoying the home crowd support at the Mondial Australian Women’s Hardcourts. (Sam urges crowd to be loud and proud)
Nicole Pratt thinks that Martina Hingis is a legitimate contender for the Australian Open title later this month. (Hingis can win fourth Open title, predicts Pratt)
Tennis Week announced yesterday that they have been acquired by IMG. (IMG Acquires Tennis Week and TennisWeek.com)
Faults
Nicole Pratt may have talked big before facing Martina Hingis, but she definitely did not play big yesterday. Martina blitzed past her 6-0, 6-1 at the Mondial Australian Women’s Hardcourts at Gold Coast. (Pratt loses to Hingis in 46 min)
Dinara Safina knocked out Elena Likhovtseva 6-3, 6-2 also yesterday at Gold Coast, but not without taking swipes at her opponent during her post-match press conference over Likhovtseva’s injury timeouts. (Hingis, angry Safina through in Perth)
The United States has lost all hope of repeating their 2006 title at the Hopman Cup after the Russian team defeated them 2-1. (U.S. suffers Hopman Cup loss; Philippoussis hurt)
Defending champion Marion Bartoli has been bundled out of the ASB Classic by Emilie Loit in straight sets 7-5, 6-4.
On Court
Because of the time difference, many of today’s featured matches may have already been completed in Australia and New Zealand. Be sure to check out the full schedule at the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour for the rest of today’s matches.
Gold Coast: Shahar Peer vs. Olga Poutchkova, Ana Ivanovic vs. Milagros Sequera, Dinara Safina vs. Maria Kirilenko
Auckland: Marion Bartoli vs. Emilie Loit, Jelena Jankovic vs. Emma Laine, Daniela Hantuchova vs. Virginie Razzano, Vera Zvonareva vs. Laura Granville
Bad news: Patrice Dominiguez, one of the french responsibles of the Fremch Federartion said that Amelie went to Syndney with a 5cm cut(i don’t know if we can say that in english;i’m sorry)in her back (i think) but that it was very small…
Is 5 cm small?? :o
I thik it should be 5 mm…let’s wait and see
Ouch – well, five cm is about 50 millimeters on the metric system – or about 2 inches in US measurement.
Hopefully the cut is not affecting her performance, but if it is, we should hear more about it in the next few days before Sydney starts.
More bad news:
JHH withdrew from Sydney for “personal reasons”:
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/01/04/sports/AS_SPT_TEN_Henin_Hardenne_Withdraws.php
Hope she’s alright.
And I hope my dear Amelie is alright, too! :(
Not a good start for 2007 for either of them! I hope that an announcement from Justine is forthcoming soon – especially as it could be any of several things affecting her game.
Thanks momofan for the heads up!