TENNISRULZ.com
WTA BACKSPIN
August 16, 2004

NICOLE IN 3-V
by Todd Spiker

The "10" roams the Grecian ruins of the past week gone by...

Let's begin with a well-deserved nod to the girl who helped turned what appeared to be a $50k Challenger masquerading as a WTA Tour event into a bonified happening.  She did it the old-fashioned way... she won the thing.

So, in what could have been a truly ho-hum pre-Olympic week, it was a V (as in victory) for V (as in Vaidisova) in V (as in Vancouver) that provided the 3-V headlines... all in honor of barely 15-year old Czech qualifier Nicole Vaidisova, who grabbed her first WTA singles title in just her third main draw WTA event.  But early success isn't new for the latest Bolletieri-trained pupil with her sights set on becoming a star.  In late 2003/early 2004, she made her ITF debut by reaching the finals of her first three events (winning one).  By July, Vaidisova was up to knocking off the post-Wimbledon Maria Sharapova in WTT action.

Winning eight straight matches in Vancouver, including back-to-back three-setters in the semifinal and final, bumps Vaidisova's ranking up from #180 (she's the 5th-lowest ranked player to win a WTA singles title in tour history) to #125.  But, maybe more importantly, it adds her name to 2004's lengthening list of teens-on-the-verge... but this one's nearly two full years YOUNGER than the Supernova.

Welcome, Nicole.  Welcome.

In other corners:

First, a look back at the past Olympic Gold Medal winners in women's
singles:

1900 Charlotte Cooper, GBR
1906 Esmee Simiriolu, GRE
1908 Dorothy Chambers, GBR
1908 (indoor) Gwendoline Eastlake-Smith, GBR
1912 Marguerite Broquedis, FRA
1912 (indoor) Edith Hannam, GBR
1920 Suzanne Lenglen, FRA
1924 Helen Wills, USA
1984 (DEMONSTRATION) Steffi Graf, W.Germany
1988 Steffi Graf, W.Germany
1992 Jennifer Capriati, USA
1996 Lindsay Davenport, USA
2000 Venus Williams, USA

....Meanwhile, maintaining the Olympic spirit, Eleni Daniilidou's bad pre-Athens tuneups will make her back home singles results quiteinteresting.  In 2000, local favorite Jelena Dokic made a surprise run to the SF and nearly went home with a medal.  Daniilidou doesn't seem up to similar success, although she started off this rather unique year by taking the Auckland title for the second straight year.  Of course, we've been recently told that the "Greek way" is to wait until the last possible moment to get things done.  If Eleni the Greek maintains that tradition and is the surprise of the singles draw (she could face Anastasia Myskina in the 3rd
Round), I hope she chronicled her pre-Athens workouts in diary form.  It'd make for some thrilling late summer reading.  (For the record, Daniilidou opened her home country Olympic campaign with a 1st Round win in singles.)

**SINGLES SILVER MEDALISTS**
[since 1988]
1988 Gabriela Sabatini, ARG
1992 Steffi Graf, GER
1996 Arantxa Sanchez Vicario, ESP
2000 Elena Dementieva, RUS

....Last week, both Serena Williams (knee) and Jennifer Capriati (hamstring) pulled out of the Athens draw.   But Serena gets the award for the most dramatic exit.  She notified US Olympic officials by e-mail of her decision, three hours before the American athletes flight was set to take off for Greece.  Williams was replaced in the draw by world #96 Samantha Stosur, who was the highest-ranked player in Athens not in the singles draw.  Meanwhile, #55 Anca Barna & #72 Marlene Weingartner remained, by German decree, on the outside looking in.

**SINGLES BRONZE MEDALISTS**
[since 1988]
1988 Manuela Maleeva, BUL & Zina Garrison, USA
1992 Arantxa Sanchez Vicario, ESP & Mary Joe Fernandez, USA
1996 Jana Novotna, CZE
2000 Monica Seles, USA

>>4-FOR-#1 (BY THE NUMBERS<<
1.Justine Henin-Hardenne (4515)
2.Amelie Mauresmo (4332)
3.Anastasia Myskina (4169)
4.Lindsay Davenport (4044)

....Here's the skinny on the aforementioned race for #1, which is truly heating up with the U.S. Open within sight:  After Friday's rainout in Sopot, Myskina pulled out of the potential SF/F two-fer on Saturday, blaming a "rib strain."  She played her 1st Round match in Athens on Sunday.  So, in a sense, Mother Nature is to blame for the Czarina missing out on garnering a few extra points in her quest to beat Maria Sharapova to the wire as the first #1-ranked Russian woman, for the Sopot title appeared to be her's for the taking.

The yellow jersey, if you will, enters the course once again this week in Greece, as JHH returns from her viral infection-related absence to begin her trek toward a defense of her U.S. Open title.  Will the Olympic field use this week to deliver a little divine justice, or will the Queen manage to put together an unexpectedly early version of "divine Justine?"  It seems a long shot that she'll take home a Gold Medal, but maybe that's just the absence of any recent JHH heroics coloring Backspin's judgment.

What to make of Lindsay Davenport showing up in Cincinnati?  Why is she there?  Sure, she's in the middle of this #1 race, but why go to a Tier III?  She skipped Athens and stated a desire to rest up for New Haven and Flushing Meadow, but now she's risking injury (and Open success) for a lower tier event?  She could be doing the WTA a favor in the wake of so many high-profile pullouts (Dokic, Bovina, etc.) in this return to the tour schedule by Cincy, but one wonders if she might rue the last minute decision if she ends up limping away from the court. She'll be keeping her fingers crossed.

In Athens, Amelie Mauresmo tries to build upon her successful run in Montreal.  For all the talk about the importance of the Olympics, Athens is still not a MAJOR.  That being the case, maybe Mauresmo won't feel the same pressure there.  She's always played well for France in international competition, so if she just treats the Olympics in the same fashion she might stumble onto the desired result and #1 could be right around the corner for her.  Speaking of, after all the 3-V stuff earlier, this is quite the alliteration-packed edition of Backpin (but more on that later).

**DOUBLES GOLDS**
[since 1988]
1988 Shriver/Garrison, USA
1992 MJ Fernandez/G.Fernandez, USA
1996 MJ Fernandez/G.Fernandez, USA
2000 Williams/Williams, USA

....Well, Olympic play is underway.  I'll save the results/awards for next Backspin, but there was one result worth mentioning on the men's side on Monday.  In the 1st Round, Tomas Berdych defeated Florian Mayer, the German player given an "exception to the German rule" and deigned fit to play in Athens by the GOC.  On the same day, Marlene Weingarnter won her 1st Round match in Cincinnati against Emmanuelle Gagliardi.  Can you say "karma?"  The tennis gods are smiling down upon the Blue Angel, not the GOC.

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>>WEEK 32 CHAMPIONS<<

SOPOT, POLAND (III-Red Clay)
S: Flavia Pennetta d. Klara Koukalova 7-5/3-6/6-3
D: Llagostera-Vives/Marrero d. Jens/Rosolska
----------------------------
VANCOUVER, B.C. CAN (V-Hard)
S: Nicole Vaidisova d. Laura Granville 2-6/6-4/6-2
D: Mattek/Spears d. Callens/Groenefeld

>>PLAYER AWARDS<<

PLAYER OF THE WEEK: Nicole Vaidisova
....the 15-year old knocked off Milagros Sequera, Alina Jidkova and Laura Granville to claim her initial WTA singles title just eight months after she played (and lost) the Australian Open junior girls final in Melbourne.  It wasn't exactly a murderer's row of opponents in Vancouver, but she survived...and no one will remember the details after today.
----------------------------
RISER: Flavia Pennetta
....the third time in a final in 2004 was the charm for Flavia (maybe now we know the reason for that mischievous smile in her WTA bio photo).  In winning her first WTA title, she only dropped one set in Sopot.
----------------------------
SURPRISES: Laura Granville & Camille Pin
....Granville entered Vancouver on a six-match losing streak and with a 1-11 mark in her last twelve matches, so who could have foreseen a run to the final (maybe there's hope for Jelena Dokic yet)?  22-year old Frenchie Pin had the most impressive wins of the event (Bartoli, Karatancheva), but the world #115 "only" managed a SF and got lost in Vaidisova's headlines.
----------------------------
VETERAN: Arantxa Sanchez Vicario
....there's really no one to choose this week -- maybe Els Callens for a doubles RU in Vancouver? -- so I'll cheat a little and honor ASV for becoming the first five-time tennis Olympian over the weekend.  She and Anabel Medina Garrigues lost their 1st Round doubles match in Athens on Sunday, but the 32-year old is the only player -- male or female -- to have
played in each Games since tennis was reinstated as a medal sport in Seoul '88.
----------------------------
FRESH FACES: Nicole Vaidisova & Marta Domachowska
....Vaidisova was the star of the week, but 18-year old Poland's Pride Domachowska defeated Martina Sucha, Anna Smashnova-Pistolesi and Marta Marrero en route to her first career WTA SF in her home country.
----------------------------
DOWN: Serena Williams
....you'd think she could have sent the e-mail FOUR hours before the plane was to take off.  I mean, come on!

>>MATCHES<<
1.Vanc Final - Vaidisova d. Granville
....2-6/6-4/6-2.  Well, I was right about a 15-year old qualifier winning the Vancouver title -- I just picked the wrong teenager.  At least Vaidisova was my "alternate" prediction.
----------------------------
2.Sopot Final - Pennetta d. Koukalova
....7-5/3-6/6-3.   Without rain and a "rib strain" to help, Klara's luck ran out in the final.
----------------------------
3.Vanc QF - Pin d. Karatancheva
....6-2/1-6/6-1.  Nevertheless, the "other" 15-year old qualifier's ranking jumped from #210 to #176.

============================
============================

>>WTA LISTS<<

**LOW-RANKED TO WIN WTA TITLE**
[all-time]
#579 Angelique Widjaja (Bali '01)
#285 Fabiola Zuluaga (Bogota '02)
#205 Kumiko Okamoto (Tokyo '89)
#201 Petra Langrova (Paris '88)
#180 Nicole Vaidisova (Vancouver '04)

**2004 YOUNGEST CHAMPIONS**
Vaidisova (Vancouver, 15y3m3w)
Sharapova (Birmingham, 17y2m)
Sharapova (Wimbledon, 17y2m2w)

**2004 QUALIFIERS WIN TITLE**
Iveta Benesova (Acapulco)
Nicole Vaidisova (Vancouver)

**WTA/CHALLENGER TITLES IN '04**
Benesova - Acapulo/Ortisei
Medina Garrigues - Palermo/Marseille
Pennetta - Sopot/Cuneo
Vaidisova - Vancouver/Columbus

**2004 LOW-RANKED CHAMPS**
#180 Vaidisova (Vancouver)
#99 Benesova (Acapulco)
#68 Pennetta (Sopot)
#66 Schaul (Strasbourg)
#60 Frazier (Hobart)

===========================
===========================

>>WEEK 33 PREDICTIONS<<

ATHENS, GREECE (Olympics-Hard)
00 Gold: Venus d. Dementieva
00 Bronze: Seles d. Dokic
04 TOP: JHH/Mauresmo
=====================
SF: Myskina d. Venus; Mauresmo d. Sprem
Bronze: Venus d. Sprem
Gold: Mauresmo d. Myskina

....in Athens, on the hill of the Acropolis rests the Parthenon, dedicated to the Goddess Athena.  With all these A's on everyone's mind, could something be in the air as the battle for #1 goes Olympic this week?  Venus Williams is defending her Sydney Gold; while Dementieva's already made like a ghost in her attempt to defense Silver (she lost in the 1st Round to Molik).
Hmmm, no A's there yet.  Sprem has a draw that could make her the Athens version of Miss Opportunity.  But there's no A there, either.  In the end, I'll go with the two most prominant A-named women in the draw:  Amelia and Anastasia, meeting to become the first official challenger to QueenJustine's throne.  I'll go with the Frenchwoman to be Golden, if only  because she might have a slightly easier road through the draw than the Russian.  Plus, as I said before, this isn't a major.  Mauresmo likely won't have the intestinal/mental/emotional fortitude to hold up the big cup in Flushing Meadow, but she has enough inside to stand on the top level of the medal platform as long she can convince herself that it's "only" the Olympics.

CINCINNATI, OHIO USA (III-Hard)
[new event]
TOP: Davenport/Zvonareva
=====================
SF: Davenport d. Bartoli; Frazier d. Zvonareva
FINAL: Davenport d. Frazier

....Zvonareva pulled out of New Haven, making this her final tuneup before the U.S. Open.  Before Davenport entered Cincy, this looked like the Russian's title to win.  Zvonareva's been playing better than just about anyone other than, well, Davenport... so this is no longer "her" tournament.  Now, I'll theorize that her momentum has slowed and she'll keep up her woeful SF results (1-5) this season, sending Frazier off to test her will against her fellow American.  Barring a recurrence of injury, it would seem that the trophy is already being engraved with Davenport's name.  Of course, that was the case in Sopot with Myskina, too.

All for now