Hi folks... excuse my absence... it has been a hectic few weeks since the season ending champs, and I've had my fingers busy in other pies!

Anyyyyway... back to tennis... and while we wait for our fix of competetive tennis to return, there are a variety of exhibition events happening here and there, which I figured we might want to discuss a bit to keep us going (or maybe it's just me...)

I'll start off with some news from the women's event at the Austrian tele.ring Tennis Trophy... the event featured 4 players... Schnyder, Myskina, Groenefeld and home favourite Sybille Bammer. The format was straight forward... 2 semi finals with the winners meeting in the final, and the losers contesting a 3rd place play off. The matches were 2 full sets, then using the increasingly popular champions tie break if the sets were level.

The draw (not sure if it was seeded, but I guess it may have been) pitted Schnyder against Groenefeld and Myskina against Bammer. Myskina played Bammer first, and won in an error-strewn topsy turvy battle; 4-6, 7-5, (10-6). Then Schnyder took on Groenefeld and won 7-6, 6-4 against the slumping German.

Today's final saw Myskina taking on Schnyder... a player who she hadn't beaten for quite some time, and who's spinny/varied style does not suit the Russian's tastes. However, Myskina was able to put her injury woes and her poor form behind her and claim a 6-2, 2-6, 10-6 victory against the Swiss Mrs.

Soooo... it was a good day to be a Myskina fan for once in the past 4 months, which is nice. Certainly, her wins were not eye-popping and both matches required a tie breaker to decide them... but it's really great to see Anastasia showing that she hasn't thrown in the towel, and that she has the desire to compete in 2007. I didn't catch any coverage of the final, but a top 10 win is excellent at this point, when Nastya rates herself at about 80% recovered from her foot injuries.

B

Oh fine then! I'll just have to reply to myself

Not an exhibition as such... but since it's an event not part of the WTA ranking/calendar, I'll post about it here rather than in a new thread... the tennis events going on at the '06 Asian Games.

The big news seems to be Mirza playing good singles - highlighted by taking down top seed and logical heavy favourite Na Li 6-2, 6-2 in the SF of the women's singles. I didn't catch any sort of coverage from that match... but from where I'm sitting, that's a damn good result for Sania. Her final will be a second good test of form, as she takes on Jie Zheng (a 6-3, 6-2 winner against Aiko Nakamura) in the gold medal showdown.

Could give Miss Mirza the confidence boost she must be in need of.. sure many of the unranked players in the Asian Games field are players of low tour status with much less experience than Mirza of high-level competition... but the field had quite a few very capable contenders in it from the start (Na, Zheng, Peng, Tanasugarn, Tulyaganova and Nakamura come to mind) - and it would be a very nice event for her to win, and arguably her best singles title to date. Reading her recent press, she seems to feel that her game and fitness are finally going in the right direction - and given that she's playing/played 4 events in the heat of Doha (women's singles, doubles and team plus the mixed doubles) and made 3 finals thus far... her body must be in better physical shape these days. Perhaps with less pressure than she faced in '06, she'll cause some upsets in 2007.

B