Zvonareva goes undefeated in round robin play, while Serena and Ivanovic withdraw

This year marks the first time in a three-year agreement where the women's year-end championships will be held in Doha, in an outdoor arena. Over the last five or so years, there has been a recent history of the tournament being hit by withdrawals, although it was this time last year that Justine Henin and Maria Sharapova played that memorable three hour encounter in the final, the match that mentally exhausted Henin and led to her retirement. In 2006, Henin and Sharapova battled it out for the year-end number one ranking, and Amelie Mauresmo played some good tennis back then as well.

As for this year, Jelena Jankovic has already secured her position as the year-end world number 1. Svetlana Kuznetsova and Ana Ivanovic have struggled for form as late, and unfortunately for them, this week hasn't done any wonders for their confidence as they both packed their bags out of Doha without notching up a single win.

Unfortunately for the fans, yesterday turned out to be essentially a day filled with meaningless matches, after both Serena Williams and Ana Ivanovic withdrew from their final round robin matches, with Williams citing a sore stomach muscle and Ivanovic feeling the effects from a virus.

Vera Zvonareva continued her good run at the year-end championships, defeating Jelena Jankovic in yesterday's match, extending her undefeated run in Doha to three consecutive wins, all of which were over top ten players. Zvonareva had her breakthrough year in 2004, where she broke into the top 10 for the first time in August, and qualified for her first year-end championships. Zvonareva, since then, never made it back since until this year, but has played some of her best tennis as of late compiling a win-loss record of 26-7 since the Beijing Olympics, where she picked up a bronze medal. Where Zvonareva went winless in this very same event in 2004, the 24-year-old Russian now looks like one of the main threats heading into the business end of this year's event.

So how is that Zvonareva finds herself on the brink of breaking into the top 5 this year? Throughout the championships, Zvonareva has been playing with controlled aggression keeping good length on her groundstrokes and moving her opponents around just enough, to enable herself to keep the initiative in the rallies, kind of like a less powerful version of Juan Martin Del Potro on the men's tour.

While Zvonareva doesn't have a standout quality in her game, on a good day, she forces her opponents to play either a higher risk game or break down her game, which has been a difficult task for everyone so far. When I watch her, what I notice the most is how she takes care of her side of the net remarkably well, maintaining an aggressive game plan but giving herself good margin for error keeping all of her shots a metre or so inside the lines. Of course, this is only referring to the composed Zvonareva, when she's not having one of her well-known mental breakdowns, which it must be said occur less and less these days. When she's on the defensive, she tries to get the ball back deep in the middle of the court, not giving her opponent much to work with.

Playing against a more consistent and athletic player in Jankovic, it was going to be a tall order for Zvonareva to defeat her. The first set went exactly as planned with Jankovic cruising through past Zvonareva 6-2. Zvonareva wasn't playing poorly, keeping relatively good consistency but whenever she was pulled out wide and on the run, she was forced into hitting a weaker return and was punished repeatedly for that. Although Zvonareva's movement has improved over the last season, it still remains a weakness in the Russian's game especially when compared to some of her peers, like the Williams sisters, Dementieva and Jankovic, who is perhaps the best mover on tour along with Venus Williams.

In the second set, Zvonareva opted for a more aggressive game plan, taking the ball down-the-line on more occasions than she did previously and being much more effective on the run. She was now getting behind the ball much better and finding herself able to hit more of a full-blooded swing, especially on the forehand side. Jankovic continued to probe and test her to the full extent as they engaged in numerous long gruelling rallies, and Zvonareva needed to dig herself out of some tough games, which she did so successfully. In the end, it was the usually steady Jankovic who cracked, making just a few too many unforced errors in the final set to go down in defeat.

For Jankovic, given that she finished her group second in the standings, she still was able to qualify for the semi-finals and will have the opportunity to contend for the title, as will Zvonareva, of course.