I figure I may as well start a thread for the assorted fall 2008 tournaments before and after the Masters events in Madrid and Paris.

I figure I'm doing this because Gilles Simon defended his title in Bucharest this week. He beat Carlos Moya in straight sets in the final.

I notice Patty Schnyder picked up a title in Bali. Does anybody know if her book has come out yet? I'm not a big fan of athlete biographies as a general rule because most of them haven't had very interesting lives, but Patty should be an exception.

Not a "small" tournement but Petrova ousts Ivanovic in Tokyo's second round.
Jankovic, Dementieva and Kuznetsova won easily their matches.

What does JJ have to do in Tokyo to get number 1 position?

JJ has to win the Pilot Pen to regain #1...that'd be a bummer for Serena since she won the major but JJ's right there...Ivanovic is rusty and really needs to regroup...

Luv to see another Elena/Jelena serving fest!

ok, she just lost to Kutznetsova 26 75 75

Safina will be number one...it's only a matter of time. I take back anything I ever said about her. I didn't think she could be top 5, but if she continues to play well, she could be number 1 by the end of the year, and if not then, going into the new season. I hope she does it.

I'm disappointed that JJ didn't take her opporunity to return to number 1.

I like that prediction Shep, it's nervy. Cool you've allowed yourself to change your mind about Safina. She has changed. The tour is overrun with underperformers, but she's the opposite. I don't think anyone knew how much potential she had until she got fit.

This isn't the Pilot Pen, it's the Toray Pan Pacific Open. But I guess Jelena didn't do what she had to in order to reach number one. Both of the top Serbian players have their bugaboos. Ana is seriously slumping. The occasional loss is all in a day's work for Jelena, but with her much-touted new fitness trainer, I have a feeling she's going to be sharper next year.

Aga Radwanska has to have the most cerebral fans around. It's almost comical on WTA World how people will delve into the shot-by-shot and point-by-point intricacies of her picking apart Marion Bartoli in straight sets. It's true: when Aga's at her best, you could write a dissertation.

I love that aspect of Aga, but then the next day she wins only 3 games against Petrova. Aga is going to have to get stronger (not sure if it'll happen, she's a girly-girl) if she's ever going to contend. She beat Petrova in a brilliant grass match at Eastbourne, but when Petrova or any hard-hitter is on point, Aga is automatically beaten.

Petrova is such an odd case. This time of year is usually her peak. She's great on indoor hard courts. It's too bad for her they don't have a major on indoor hard courts. But then, could she keep it together if they did?

Ana has taken a serious nosedive since the French Open. Good thing for her she has the game to pick it up. But will she?

Safina took Tokyo, making quick work of Sveta in the final. That's Dinara's 4th tournament win this year.

Zvonareva won in Guangzho, beating Peng. Zvonareva has had a great year also, and like Dinara, she looks like a different person now because she's so fit. (Both seem much happier as well.) I caught a little of her Fed Cup wins against Spain a week or two ago and was struck by her legs. They're almost Dementieva-esque, maybe less bulky.

Zheng Jie defeats Ivanovic again.

Ana is very busy these days -- with Fernando Verdasco.

Ivanovic's game may be in freefall, but gotta say, that girl has the B-E-S-T taste in men. I don't know whether to worry for her or give her a standing ovation.

In other offcourt news, Ivanovic's friend Rafa Nadal has gotten the paparazzi-spy treatment while changing swimsuits on a boat...it's kind of like seeing the Virgin Mary.

Oh yeah, tennis: Djokovic and Tsonga are in the final in Bangkok; in Beijing, it's Sveta vs. Jankovic.

Next week, Kimiko Date Krumm is playing in Tokyo (she drew Peer in the first round). Serena is supposed to join most of the top 10 in Stuttgart. Del Potro is playing in Tokyo -- Ferrer's the top seed.

I'm wondering if JMDP will keep up his top form. He destroyed Davydenko and Andreev in Davis Cup. Davydenko the backboard, no slouch on clay, could not handle his groundstrokes. Del Potro's looking like he's going to storm to the top next year. He may overake some of the top 4.

Jelena revenged last week's loss to Kuznetsova easily winning 63 62 this time.

And Tsonga won in Bangkok.

OK, I have too much free time here on this lazy, Sunday morning. So I began thinking (again) about who will be making the year-end championships. For the purposes of this discussion, let's assume that the Top 7 qualify as that seems most likely to happen. Roddick certainly helped solidify his chances by beating Dudi Sela to win Beijing. So who gets the 8th spot?

Tsonga will make a huge jump with his win at Bangkok over Novak, and maybe he deserves the 8th spot the most considering his time away due to injury. Gonzalez and Robredo certainly wasted opportunities against Bjorn Phau and Dudi Sela yesterday. What a week for Dudi!

OK, let's get back to the question at hand. I'm going with longshot Igor Andreev. Not only is he way behind in points, but he is not known to have done well on fast courts that he will have to play over the next month or two. But I was impressed with what I saw of Igor in person at Flushing, and I just think he has finally hit his groove after returning from injury a year ago or so. I guess it's hard to bet against Del Potro, but I will. I really like the guy, but hot streaks have to end at some point.

I cant wait to see what Del Potro and Cilic do next year though. Maybe Gulbis too, but I think he needs another year or so. But who will do it this year? Take a look below and tell us who else should pack for Shanghai.

1 Nadal, Rafael (ESP) 1265
2 Federer, Roger (SUI) 921
3 Djokovic, Novak (SRB) 875
4 Murray, Andy (GBR) 520
5 Davydenko, Nikolay (RUS) 417
6 Ferrer, David (ESP) 337
7 Roddick, Andy (USA) 329
--------------------------------------------
8 Blake, James (USA) 309
9 Wawrinka, Stanislas (SUI) 286
10 Del Potro, Juan Martin (ARG) 272
11 Gonzalez, Fernando (CHI) 266
12 Simon, Gilles (FRA) 261
13 Almagro, Nicolas (ESP) 253
13 Verdasco, Fernando (ESP) 253
15 Andreev, Igor (RUS) 239
16 Fish, Mardy (USA) 226
17 Robredo, Tommy (ESP) 218
18 Tsonga, Jo-Wilfried (FRA) 215
19 Cilic, Marin (CRO) 205
20 Karlovic, Ivo (CRO) 202

Or maybe somebody outside the Top 20 like Nalbandian will have another miracle year-end run....and not to the buffet! There are certainly a lot of points to be had with 2 Master Series still to be played. Bring it on!

Heaven forbid my cable company ever get the Tennis Channel ... So I didn't see any of these interesting finals.

Sela certainly had a Cinderella week, too bad the clock struck midnight against Roddick. I didn't see the match, so I don't know if Sela played crazy out of his head, or if Roddick did more of the same CRUSH-KILL-DESTROY.....LOOP silliness, or a combination of the two, but Sela kept things close according to what I read. And Sela's like the 1,000,000th person to say something like "I just knew if I could return his serve, I'd have chances." Gee, Andy, see a pattern forming?

While I still remain an Andy fan, I really don't think at this point in his career he's going to change his game to include a Plan B and become a thinking man's thinking man on the court. If he hasn't already figured out that guys barely within the top 100 know how to neutralize his bread and butter, I doubt he ever will. But damn he's still sweet to look at!

I didn't see Nole/Tsonga, either. I don't know what to make of either of these players right now. While doing well and winning your first slam (or making your first slam final), and then "going away for a while" is nothing new (Pete Sampras, anyone?), these guys seem harder to guage.

JW didn't even play the FO or the Big W because of injuries, and his USO certainly wasn't the greatest, and after his great AO, he never played more than 3 matches in a tournament until today, where he lost the 4th, the final.

Whineovic actually has had a decent year. Other than the embarrassments at the Big W and the Sony Ericsson, he's consistently made it to semis and finals all year. While he's part of the pack of 3 at the top, it's tougher to guage, for me at least, if he's truly able to take #2 away from the Fed right now, let alone dislodge an on-fire Rafa. To his credit, everyone said he won't be able to live up to expectations after his AO win, but he really handled those expectations pretty well this year, IMO. I think what really stood out was the Big W humiliation, (and it was a big one!) and its untimely occurence after some silly statements in the press that made people write him off. His USO comments after a match didn't win him any friends, either. But I think I'm going to have to wait to see how he comports himself at the AO next year to see if he's ready to take the torch.

I guess I missed that marriage. Couldn't she make it Kimiko Date Krumm-Kake?

Date lost 3 and 1 to Peer, unfortunately. She is hoping to play in the qualies at in Melbourne. Wouldn't that be something if she was able to get her ranking up to be able to play the qualies at the Australian. I still think she can give some people fits with her game.

Venus won easily against Groenfeld in Germany.

Bjorkman played his last (singles) match. Safin won his 400th match. Did you read this about Safin's win?

Former ATP World No. 1 Marat Safin claimed his 400th career win Tuesday at his hometown event, the ATP Kremlin Cup in Moscow. Safin, 28, converted just two of 10 break point opportunities against Israeli Noam Okun, but it was enough to earn a 7-6(5), 3-6, 6-4 win in 2 hr., 5 min.

The match had a bizarre end when Safin broke Okun to take the match 6-4 in the third. However, Safin mistakenly thought it was 6-5, and a change over. So after securing the break, the Russian went to his chair and began to towel off. Eventually chair umpire Carlos Bernardes leaned over and informed Safin the match was over. The somewhat embarrassed Safin quickly went to the net and shared a laugh with Okun while they shook hands.

Oh, Safin. Anybody want to predict this week's winners? I'll say Andreev, Dementieva, Nalbandian, and Monfils.

In Moscow..
Ivanovic lost yet another early round match. This was the woman a lot of people wanted to stay #1??
Venus lost early against Flavia, who seems to have her number, clay court or not.

Such a crisis of confidence for Ivanovic. I'm sure that thumb injury was a big deal, but this skid is so much more than that injury. She's really going to have to pick it up in the early part of next season and defend her points, or she will fall and fall far. I wonder if she should just pack it in for the year?

Jankovic wins again (Kremlin Cup) and is the top seed in this week's tournament in Zurich. She is guaranteed to end the year at #1 and has already qualifed for the Season Ending Championships. Why is Jankovic playing so much? Maybe it is because she just loves tennis?

Jankovic is playing with so much confidence that there is essentially no one in the Zurich draw that could challenge her. She has recenly defeated most of the other possible contenders for the title, including Venus.

2008 Zurich Singles Draw

Quite the impressive roll for Jelena...she's deserving of #1 at this point. She has two weeks off after Zurich before the year end...she has to be zonked but she's playing such good tennis, gaining more and more confidence with each win, and deservedly #1. Who knows what'll happen in Zurich, she may just lose early...there's plenty of tough players in that draw, many of whom are probably hungry to beat the #1. You know Venus would like another shot at her...

Philipp Petzschner of Germany defeated Monfils in straight sets to win the title yesterday in Vienna, Austria.

Petzschner is cute and I like his game.

He is the latest addition to my long list of tennis players that I find attractive for various reasons.

This is completely random, but yesterday in Sacramento, the Battistone brothers beat top seeds Rajeev Ram & John Isner to take the doubles title of that challenger tournament (Donald Young beat Kendrick for the singles title).

This brother team kind of came out of nowhere. Back in the 90s, they played some Futures tournaments with little success (neither broke into the Top 800 in singles or doubles). Then they apparently went on Mormon missions to Brazil. They came back to the states, and last fall they tried their hands at some pro events. And found immediate success - winning the 4th pro event they entered (a Futures tourney in Louisiana) and moving up to the Challenger tour. The got to the final of Binghamton a couple of months ago and now are the champs in Sacramento. They've shot up in the rankings from the 1200s a year ago to the 500s six months ago to the mid 200s a week ago to the low 200s now. They're not that far from being able to play on the ATP tour full-time next year. At 29 and 31, their careers are blossoming.

Oh, also, their racquets have two handles: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzNr90XZ05A.

That's wild Jake. I didn't know players were allowed to use two-handle racquets on tour.

As for Jelena, she is playing better right now that she has all year. She's never been so aggressive or had as much power in her ground game or serve. If she brings this form into the Australian she has to be a favorite if not the favorite to win. Of course, some big names who've beaten her down like Sharapova are out of the picture right now. Plus others like Safina have had her number when they were peaking earlier this year.

No doubt about it, this is Jelena's time. Major season has yet to be her time though. A lot of people love a winner, but she's going to have make that major hurdle before everyone gives her props -- even if she is undeniably the best player out there right now.

Amazingly, the Battistone brothers get a rematch of their finals match against Isner & Ram tomorrow afternoon in Calabasas. They're also notable for Brian's volleyball-jump serve (he gets some pop on that thing!).

Jelena - perhaps she'll pull a Mauresmo, wherein she wins the year-end championship and that gives her the confidence to succeed in a major. Time will tell.

So Venus is starting to own Ivanovic. She's 5-1 with her. I bet she can't wait for another shot at Pennetta in the final, after losing three in a row to her, the last one just recently in Moscow. Go Venus!!

No one beats Venus Williams four times in a row Congrats to her on her first tier 2 title in a long time.

You said it Terp. Congrats to Venus. Whoo-hoo! Venus gets the job done looking like '60s era Nina Simone.

Brava to Flavia too, for beating a no doubt exhausted Jelena and putting together another strong week this year and especially this season. I've always thought she was hot and I like her 'don't make me beat your ass' attitude on court.

Linz

Quarterfinals
(1) Ana Ivanovic (SRB) d. (7) Flavia Pennetta (ITA) 64 64
(2) Vera Zvonareva (RUS) d. (8) Alizé Cornet (FRA) 75 61
(3) Agnieszka Radwanska (POL) d. (5) Nadia Petrova (RUS) 63 62
(6) Marion Bartoli (FRA) d. Alona Bondarenko (UKR) 63 57 61


Ivanovic is starting to win matches again (Pennetta was a potentially tough opponents considering her recent weeks' results. Maybe she was a bit tired)
Zvonareva is playing well too lately.

Luxembourg
Quarterfinals
(1) Elena Dementieva (RUS) d. (5) Amélie Mauresmo (FRA) 64 60
(8) Sorana Cirstea (ROU) d. (3) Daniela Hantuchova (SVK) 76(2) 62
(4) Caroline Wozniacki (DEN) d. (7) Anabel Medina Garrigues (ESP) 61 76(7)
(6) Li Na (CHN) d. Iveta Benesova (CZE) 64 46 62

This Cirstea girl won Tashkent a couple of weeks ago.

Surprised to see Ivanovic winning Linz over Zvonareva so easily. I expected a much closer match.

Less surprised to see a very hard fought match between Elena D and Wozniacky in Luzembourg.

Me too. Zvonareva was flawless the previous match against Bartoli, while Ivanovic was a mess against Radwanska. I guess Ana's getting her game back in time for the YEC. Bepa may be the YEC punching bag.

In other news, Federer straight-setted Nalbandian in Switzerland, Murray coasted to a tournament win in St Petersberg, and gross Soderling took the three-set crown from Simon in Lyon's semi, extending the three-set win streak in the final.

Weird that Federer would be 50-50 for Paris when he seemed to improve with each match in a smaller tournament this week...

I see Kimiko Date was playing the $100,000 ITF Tapei tournment.
Her matches:
Kimiko DATE-KRUMM (JPN) defeated Rika FUJIWARA (JPN) (5) 6-4 6-4
Kimiko DATE-KRUMM (JPN) defeated Chin-Wei CHAN (TPE) 6-1 6-3
Corinna DENTONI (ITA) defeated Kimiko DATE-KRUMM (JPN) 5-7 7-5 7-6(4)


Fujiwara is number 141, Chan number 200 and Dentoni number 171.