Did anyone watch the Kirilenko-Sharapova match on the Tennis Channel? Kirilenko played awesome and it almost looked like Yuri was yelling at Maria to pull out of the match. She sure seemed like she could go on.

saw the match on telly, and, according to the commentator, her father did indeed tell her to pull out. apparently he'd been indicating as much from about mid-way through the first set. no idea why - she looked to be playing well, but was being outsmarted and (incredibly) out-hit by kirilenko. anyone got any further insights?

Yeah I'm sure the injury got a lot worse after Sharapova lost the first Her maniac father was clearly telling her to stop playing. What a horrible week for tournament organizers. Davenport withdraws before the tournament, Serena loses her first match, Venus withdraws before her quarterfinal match, and Sharapova retires in her semi. Kim Clijsters is in great position right now to finish the year at #1.

With Sharapova and Davenport in and out of tournaments lately due to injuries, Kim does indeed have a shot at #1 for the year. She's still 600+ points behind Sharapova right now, but Maria has a lot of points to defend between now and the end of the year--she won Tier III and IV events, got to the final of a Tier I, and won the championships; Lindsay also has some points to defend with a Tier II title and a Tier I semi finish. Kim, on the other hand, only has 14 tournaments in her rolling 52-week total, she the points she's earning this fall over the next 3 events will be additional points tacked on to her total, not points that she's defending from last year. She could certainly make up that 600-point difference if she stays healthy and continues to play well!

Clijsters really should finish the year at #1, though I suppose Davenport or Sharapova could catch her if they win the year ending Championships. In any event, Kim certainly looks like the best player in the world right now, at least on hard courts.

Maybe the appearance fee is too high for them to play hard. The $1.1M China Open gave out a total of $4M for top stars to show up. Serena still got $300,000 even when she lost her opening match.

As Serena and Sharapova has got the money from China OPen .so it doesn't matter if they win or lose tht match .they just want the money