Australian Open Day 5 Blog

This time last year, Jelena Jankovic was ranked world number 1, but this year she’s seeded 8 and flying under the radar. She was scheduled against Alona Bondarenko on Hisense Arena, in what promised to be a good test for where Jankovic’s form is at.

The match had barely started and Jankovic had already hit plenty of shots close to the lines. She seems to particularly like the crosscourt corners and her backhand down the line. It’s almost like she’s constantly picking these very small areas in the court and has her mind set on targeting them.

On first glance, her groundstrokes look very good, but she is already down on the scoreboard, so why is that? I think the athleticism on her groundstrokes really comes through well live particularly how she slides into her forehand on the run, similar in a way to how Rafael Nadal plants his foot on his double-handed backhand out wide.

The problem is that Bondarenko appears to be capable of hitting it at another pace above what Jankovic is capable of, regardless of how much Jankovic will exaggerate her forehand swing or put it further over her shoulder to try to generate more pace. Bondarenko just happens to have that pace, and it seems much easier for her to hit winners too. Part of the reason is that Bondarenko is more accurate, but also that she seems to hit much better shots on the run which enable her to keep her opponent on the move for more than one or two shots.

I don’t think this is normally the case though. There is a reason why Jankovic has such a dominant head-to-head over her. And Jankovic is known for her defensive skills which I thought were lacking today. After making too many errors to start with, Jankovic started to bring the percentages down, sticking more with crosscourt shots on the run. This helped bring the match closer, but not close enough.

It ended up being a bit of a Catch 22 situation because Jankovic’s aggressive game simply wasn’t working. New sets tend to be opportunities for players to try new tactics, and after reining it in, Jankovic tried that aggressive game again. She tried all her strengths: more backhand down the lines, more off backhands, and she also tried to maintain more depth again. Bondarenko was playing well enough, that Jankovic was probably on the right track in terms of ideas that she needed to play better to change the course of the match.

What was fascinating though was how quickly Jankovic ran out of ideas and looked unsure of herself. The majority of her play in the second set could probably be described as reckless experimentation, maybe hoping that she could accidentally stumble across some answers. The thing is, she never believed in what she was doing so she wasn’t close to pulling it off.

There was a moment late in the second set where it looked like Bondarenko was getting tight as she lost her serve, and that maybe Jankovic should have changed her tactics to allow it to happen more. But it ended up only being a temporary blip, and the way Bondarenko closed out the match on the return game with some impressive groundstrokes proved that it wouldn’t have been a good idea after all.

It’s interesting to watch two women’s matches in a row, because that allowed me to compare the two, and I really like comparing things. Actually the only thing that I really wanted to compare was the serves of the four women, and the fact that Alisa Kleybanova has a significantly better serve than the rest of them. It’s one of the more powerful serves on the women’s tour, and like the rest of her shots, the weight of shot on it is impressive. It’s not just a flat, hard serve.

Kleybanova was up against Justine Henin today. Given Kleybanova’s stature and her reputation, it’s not at all surprising that she has tremendous power on both sides, but what is impressive is the work that she gets on the ball which looks somewhat unique in women’s tennis.

I am not actually sure how to describe it, but I think by rolling her wrist over the ball on both sides, she has the ability to generate more spin than most players after the ball bounces, or at least in a way that many players are not used to dealing with. For example, in the third set, Kleybanova hit a forehand down the line winner that looked like it was going to fall out, but dropped in at the last minute, and it was no shank or poorly timed shot.

Henin couldn’t seem to deal with any of it at first, and maybe as a result of that, I might have been overestimating the effectiveness of Kleybanova’s shots. But early on, Kleybanova would consistently win points by hitting hard straight down the middle. Actually it was frustrating to watch seeing Kleybanova achieve so much success without maintaining much accuracy. I couldn’t understand the lack of rallies, why Henin couldn’t manage to extend them. Usually if you’re going to hit a winner against Henin, you need to make her cover large amounts of court because she’s that quick.

From a shot selection point of view, Henin was frustrating in her own way too. For some reason, she tried to hit winners in a couple of shots herself too. Why was she trying to play the same way as Kleybanova? Why was she not making Kleybanova move when it’s the Russian’s weakness, and why was she not being more patient when it would give her a clear advantage in the rallies? Yes, these were the old problems from a couple of weeks ago coming back to haunt Henin again. Her unforced error stats in the first set were terrible, and whenever she reached some sort of consistency, she’d appear much closer to evening up the match

At least in the second set, despite her continual struggles, she started to resort to a more consistent game. It looks like she has figured out that she can still make Kleybanova move around the court just by hitting crosscourt forehands and backhands the majority of the time, and maybe throwing in some slices as well. I suppose this is related to the story I heard about the crosscourt and down the line drill, that if one person hits crosscourt and one person hits down the line, the person retrieving the crosscourt shots will have to cover so much more ground. Of course Kleybanova didn’t hit all her shots down the line or crosscourt, but Henin should have no trouble covering that ground, should there have been a one-on-one battle in this.

As the rallies started getting longer, the more Henin appeared to be in control of them. Though the fact that the unforced error statistics were in Kleybanova’s favour for such a long time showed just how poorly Henin was playing when you consider what a risky game Kleybanova plays. But in the end, Henin wore her down, and I think she started to become more used to the types of shots she was getting from Kleybanova’s racquet too.

At one stage, Henin was a set and a break down, but she managed to come through in the end.

Following her match on Hisense Arena was Andy Murray and Florent Serra who I seem to somehow always end up watching live due to timing and luck of the draw.

During the warm-up, some Murray supporters in the crowd provided some light entertainment by surely distracting the players in the warm-up especially Murray, by calling out forehand, backhand or volley depending on what shot he was hitting at contact.

This time around I was situated in a much better position to see Murray than in my brief little encounter a couple of days ago on Margaret Court Arena about six rows back and behind the players. I think, given that Murray tends to have an understated game, it was difficult to know what to expect before this week. The lack of pace is not as evident live, definitely not in the same way as Fabrice Santoro anyway. And he doesn’t come across as being that lazy around the court either.

But I was pleased to learn that I liked what I saw. It’s nice to see a player that comes across as obviously being very good, while not overly relying on the shotmaking department. I like the fact that Murray builds up points with shots that are connected to one another, a series of shots that lead to the final winner. I also like that he doesn’t have to be playing incredibly well for it to be entertaining. Either that or I am taking for granted his quality of play.

Obviously Murray is incredibly good at spotting openings. He can generate some good angles on both sides, often short angles too, and as soon as he has his opponent leaving a gap in the court, he’ll throw in the down the line shot if he’s feeling confident enough.

Actually, it’s interesting to note the difference between Murray playing assertively as opposed to playing reactively. Obviously his shot selection will be different, with not as many down the line shots, but even the threat of his defensive abilities significantly changes. On an assertive day, Murray will seem to leave no gaps open for his opponents, neutralise everything and make it even better. But maybe after a short high forehand or a casually chipped shot, he’ll find himself blocking everything back and being almost on the permanent defensive.

This is important given that if Serra is given anything that resembles a short ball, he’ll pounce on it. Serra played a decent first set, though he faded away in the second. He is definitely a player that plays well in patches.

This is what happened here in the first set. Murray was confident to start with then he backed off midway through. So it is very possible that I was admiring the exact same thing that would end up being a weakness later in a match. Murray was in complete control of that first set and should have finished it off well before he ended up doing so 7-5 in the first set. He played a shocking service game serving for the set at 5-3 broken to love on the back of his own errors. It seems that whenever Murray returns serve well, with deep returns, he sets up all the rallies for himself but if he doesn’t block it back well enough then he’s in trouble.

In the second set was a more relaxed Murray, as if the match was now firmly in his control. This set marked the introduction of the trademark behind the baseline passing shot winners, which was what we all came to see. By now, he had also added some additional variety to his game, in terms of shot selection. It was good, but also very relaxed at the same time, partially due to the fact that Serra couldn’t seem to keep up a consistent standard in his own play.

Given that Murray was already up two sets to love, I thought I should head over to Rod Laver Arena to watch Florian Mayer against Juan Martin Del Potro, a rematch of last year’s second round match here in Melbourne. I didn’t want to be joining the match to watch with it nearing its conclusion so I left Murray’s match early, though it turned out as I made my way there, that Mayer had just taken a break to go up 3-0 in the second set.

As I sat down to take my place on the seat, Del Potro would hit a couple of scorching winners to suggest that this match was played fully in his hands. Del Potro seems to have the intimidating ability to hit huge return winners when he perfectly connects with a shot. Despite pace being the main attribute of those spectacular winners, I’m pretty sure he does it mainly through timing.

A couple of minutes later, and all of these spectacular winners started to make more sense. Del Potro has been swinging away on everything, because he’s only interested in keeping rallies short. I started to think that maybe he is injured, because only injured players play with recklessness like that, aside from Richard Gasquet’s play late last year. Now that I have hindsight, I can say that he merely tanked the rest of the set away to save energy, and maybe to protect that minor injury he has too.

Del Potro’s energy levels were up and down the whole set. It was one of Del Potro’s slow walking and shoulder slumping days, and his movement didn’t seem that active in the actual rallies themselves either. It was very deceptive movement because he didn’t move that energetically if he didn’t have to run far. He’d only move as much as required. But whenever he had to reach a shot on the stretch, suddenly he’d speed up and make his way there.

In any case, it was great to see Mayer showing the same form as he did against Troicki the other day, still striking that crosscourt forehand well, and throwing in just as much variety as he did back then. Except this time, Mayer probably has even a few more tricks up his sleeve, or at least he is using more of it today anyway. He’s throwing in more slice forehands especially on the run and using the angles even more than usual. But his biggest strength by far would have to be how well he’s sneaking up to the net.

One would think that in a baseline rally, Del Potro would have the clear advantage but Mayer has been doing an unexpectedly good job of closing that gap. And that’s because of how well he’s been sneaking up to the net, and sensing whenever he has Del Potro out wide, and out of position. He has been serving and volleying a lot on his own serve too.

Where Del Potro did end up getting the clear advantage over Mayer was on serve, how he’d be able to rely on it for so many more cheap points which made him much less prone to losing serve. Mayer had his chances to break back when Del Potro was serving for the match, missing a drop volley into the net that didn’t even need to be good to be a winner, not to mention that these kinds of shots are Mayer’s specialty.

Due to the match finishing close to 7pm, there was a half hour delay in the night matches. What I wanted to see was Rafael Nadal against Philipp Kohlschreiber, and it ended up being a decent match despite the poor start.

I think I had a fear on what I would comment on, given that Nadal’s strengths and weaknesses have already been extensively covered. And should I make the obvious comment on Nadal’s topspin? The most fascinating part of the match for me was going outside for a break and having a look at the TV screen to see the difference of what the match looked like from there. The context of all of this is that I watched the match from a very diagonal perspective which tends to distort what everything looks like, aside from being able to see everything closer.

I think, during the match, I had not realized that the players were using the whole court so much and having to cover so much of it. But aside from that, the other difference was that, you could barely see any spin on the television. In this particular match, both Nadal and Kohlschreiber were hitting with a lot of spin, though not in a similar way. Looking at all these rallies, almost all of these angles that the players are continuously generating is related to the spin that they are imparting on it to make it break away from the court so much, so it was strange not being able to see it. Though I think it was easier to admire the movement on TV view than live actually.

It was a very slow start indeed for Nadal, and he opened up the first game with a couple of shanked shots. Kohlschreiber was in good form early on in free hitting mode, and he must have been loving those high forehands which surely suit his exaggerated grip. Kohlschreiber looked as if he had plenty of time to hit the ball to wind up for his shots, and he was easily the aggressor early on in the match.

It’s a sign that Nadal isn’t playing well early on when the flow of play is so one-sided like this, with it depending so heavily on what Kohlschreiber does. Of course, early on I was curious about Nadal’s spin so I paid specific attention to the height he was getting over the net. It’s no surprise that it was a little higher than other players, but it seemed to be different every single time, and it was especially higher if he was running out wide.

He doesn’t hit a shot with a very clean sound on his racquet so it’s sometimes difficult to tell just how well he is hitting the ball, and how if he hits a ball higher over the net, whether it is intentional or not. Though it’s not like everything looks the same. There is a difference. It’s just less obvious.

In the first set, Nadal is still playing it safe. He’s picking a lot on Kohlschreiber’s forehand and willing to trade backhand crosscourts for a long time. But he starts to time the ball better and become more consistent, which makes it increasingly difficult for Kohlschreiber to execute his shots. Though I do think that Kohlschreiber lost sense of what he was trying to achieve in his shotmaking, and didn’t target Nadal’s forehand often enough at that stage.

Nadal’s forehand is nowhere near as mechanical live, by the way I think. I put it down to the movement that he has on that side, which just makes it more beautiful to watch how he will sometimes be off the ground for a short period of time when making contact with the ball. It’s very athletic.

In terms of Nadal’s movement, as expected, his feet are moving quickly all the time. The result of it is that unlike some other players I’ve seen, whether he gets to a shot or not is nowhere near as surprising because his first steps, middle steps and last steps are all as quick as each other seemingly. The longer the match went on, the more he started to hit that trademark running forehand passing shot which I find to be ridiculously accurate.

The first set was like the trial period for both players, and in the second set they started to figure out more of what worked. I don’t really know why they needed that period given that they’ve played against each other numerous times before, but nevertheless it was there. Kohlschreiber in the second set, despite being less consistent had discovered the type of all-court game that he needed to play which would give him more chance to be successful on a long term basis.

Nadal stopped hitting as many backhand crosscourt rallies and started making Kohlschreiber move side to side more. This is what he needed to do, to take further control of the match, and make it more about him. After a while, it ended up being a nice all-court battle to watch. Though in the end, Nadal’s ability to hit on the run would continually improve, and Kohlschreiber was bound to make a few too many errors under that much pressure. It was a long match though, and rather competitive.

Australian Open Day 3 Blog

(This Australian Open blog was posted on Tennis Week here.)

Last year at the Australian Open there were press reports of tension between Serbian and Croatian fan bases, so the first round encounter between Janko Tipsarevic and Marin Cilic was interesting from that point of view, to see the rivalling between fanbases. As soon as the players started to warm up on the court, the support from both sides was already loud and clear and both groups were trying to outdo each other which made for an entertaining atmosphere in Margaret Court Arena. At times, Carlos Ramos, the chair umpire had to advise the crowd to be quiet during play stating that these are “two very nice guys.”

As I started watching the match, it was getting clear that Cilic was the man that was more in control of the match. The more aggressive player, capable of changing directions and going down-the-line off both sides with ease. One of the things that stood out the most about Cilic’s game was the consistent depth of his groundstrokes. It felt like his strokes were naturally penetrating and that it was much easier for him to hit an aggressive shot, rather than Tipsarevic who needed to specifically try to force the play and generate the racquet head speed especially off the forehand side.

It was a relatively comfortable first set for Cilic but the second set was more of a contest. Tipsarevic seems to be a guy that needs to put in a lot of mental energy and determination to bring the best out of his game, so that extra bit of determination to not want to give away cheap errors brought him more success than before. This is made even more obvious by his grunts which only appear every now and then during particular stages of the match. But eventually after numerous hard fought games, Cilic converted the crucial break of serve towards the end of the second set to win it.

The third set was more of a temporary blip for Cilic rather than Tipsarevic playing good tennis, now starting to shank some shots on the forehand and dump shots into the net on the backhand. It’s interesting that players can look so technically sound to the point where it looks to me, that they would be able to repeat it at least to the extent of their game looking reasonably solid almost every single time. This kind of thinking usually seems to apply to the more relaxed, effortless players, but this is a misleading thought as Cilic proved by losing the range on his groundstrokes and making some awful errors at times.

I noticed that when Cilic is at his most consistent is when he looks to get his body weight moving forward into the ball, which doesn’t happen as much when he’s less confident. In turn, this led him to adopt a slightly more passive way of playing which allowed Tipsarevic to take control. My opinion was that it was Cilic’s play in this set that allowed Tipsarevic himself to play better for the most part. It was a scrappy third set that featured hard-fought rallies but numerous errors as well, so I decided to leave the action to take a walk to Hisense Arena to see the current World No. 1 Jelena Jankovic.



It was most likely going to be my only opportunity to see Jankovic over the course of my six day visit given that I had not purchased any Rod Laver Arena tickets. She was up against Kirsten Flipkens of Belgium, who to me was mainly known as the player that filled in for Belgium in Fed Cup whenever Clijsters or Henin were unavailable. Not that I had ever seen her play before.

What I most wanted to see from Jankovic was her superb athleticism and ability to maneuver her opponents out of position, to the point of wearing them out. But Jankovic is only just returning from illness. She stated herself that she hadn’t played a competitive match in about two months so not much was to be expected from her.

It was not an impressive performance, and if I looked too closely at what Jankovic was doing, then I found myself often disappointed. At no point did Jankovic look like she was actually in control of any point, in that she often gave Flipkens the opportunity to take the initiative in the rallies herself.

However she did hit some good counterpunching shots at times, with the passing shots and I got to see a glimpse of her backhand down-the-line. But for a shot to look impressive, it has to be implemented with success on a regular enough basis, with which Jankovic did not.

What made the match most interesting to watch was the play coming from the Flipkens racquet and her general style of play. Her game reminds me very much of some of the female doubles specialists, for example if Rennae Stubbs played singles, I think it would bear some resemblance to this. She doesn’t have the solid base of strong groundstrokes that the majority of women’s players have. Instead she plays an all-court game that mostly revolves around taking the ball early on the forehand side, and following it into the net. Flipkens seems to run around her backhand more often than any other female player I’ve seen, opting to sometimes hit forehands off shots that were about one meter away from the sideline. Flipkens implemented some of that net-rushing game to success in the second set but in the end, Jankovic made just enough passing shots to be able to finish off the match.

So the next match I watched was between David Nalbandian and Lu Yen-Hsun, which occupied most of my viewing day lasting almost four hours long. Coming off a tournament win in Sydney, some experts predicted a potential semifinal showing for Nalbandian given the form that he showed in that event. But Nalbandian in almost three years has failed to achieve anything in any Grand Slam event, not even reach the last eight which is shockingly awful for a man of his calibre rivalling Ivan Ljubicic’s career Grand Slam record in terms of unimpressiveness. And so his poor Grand Slam record continued bowing out to Lu, who had previously never advanced past the second round of a Slam.

In this particular match, Nalbandian picked up where he left off from his first round match, struggling with his game yet again and particularly the serve. In recent years, it has been observed by some that for Nalbandian, if he serves poorly, then he plays poorly and that is what happened yet again. On a bad day, Nalbandian’s serve can be incredibly weak especially on the second delivery where it can be continually punished by almost any player on tour as evidenced by players like Gicquel and Lu jumping on it time and time again. I don’t know whether he slowed down his first serve, in an attempt to increase his first serve percentage, but that looked weak at times as well.

I would say that the level of play that Nalbandian displayed today was relatively similar to that he showed against Gicquel, except that Lu was able to match him in terms of being able to maintain consistency and was also better offensively. In short, for particular stretches of the match, it felt like Lu was the better player in all areas of the game: serving, returning, offense, defense. Because of that reason, it was difficult to find anything to admire in Nalbandian’s game today when you could see the other guy across the net doing the exact same thing better.

Lu is one of those incredibly solid players with good tactical awareness to play controlled aggressive tennis without trying to go outside of his abilities. He doesn’t really have the flair or the ability to create unexpectedly good shots like the top players do, but he makes his opponents play good tennis to beat him, and takes full advantage of any short balls and weaker offerings. I didn’t actually think his performance today was anything exceptional even for his own standards. It looked like something I had seen before from him.

One thing that Lu was particularly good at today was taking care of the midcourt short ball on the forehand side. The other area where he got a big advantage was on the return of serve. It wasn’t only the serve that was costing Nalbandian, but his return of serve was also a problem particularly whenever he had to block a serve back, he often sent it long or into the net on very makeable shots.

There were many breaks of serve featured in this match and closely contested games which added to the drama and nerve wracking nature of the match. I noticed that in the second and third sets which Nalbandian won, he seemed to be doing a better job of hanging in the rallies and extending them compared to the fourth and fifth sets which were relatively one-sided in Lu’s favour, given that he was up a double break in both of them. So what was it that went wrong that made the crucial difference?

I’ll admit that during the match, I was also looking up into the screen in between points to rewatch them to see if I could pick up anything different from a separate view. To see what Nalbandian’s footwork and movement looked like, to see how he was making those errors. But what stood out the most without even looking at the screen was that as the match reached the closing stages, Lu’s confidence grew more and more, and importantly his energy levels actually seemed to increase when it should be the opposite which allowed him to play a more aggressive brand of tennis. I guess you could say it was a sign of his adrenaline levels whereas Nalbandian’s energy levels went down instead.

It felt like within the stadium that Lu was somewhat of a sentimental favorite, maybe because of his quiet determination and his ability to keep his emotions in check, the sign of a good competitor. Not that it surprised me since I have seen him play before, but his body language and emotions seemed to rarely change over the course of the match, which fluctuated in fortunes for either player.

As for Nalbandian, while he may have often shown signs of disgust with himself, I still felt like it was a more composed performance for the main reason that it didn’t seem to affect his play in a negative manner. The final game of the match in particular was epic with numerous deuce points and Nalbandian squandering many break points unable to string anything together, allowing Lu to finally seal the match. So that was Nalbandian out of the tournament, which greatly disappointed me especially given the promise he showed leading up to the tournament and that I had yet to see him play a good match in this event.

So after witnessing a long and nerve wracking match that was mentally tiring for me, I wasn’t sure whether I’d be up to refocusing to watch another match. Initially I thought not, but I thought I should at least take a brief look at the match between Juan Martin Del Potro and Florian Mayer, to see if it was worth watching. It was a match that I had previously shown some interest in for the main reason of wanting to witness the play of the very creative and unusual Florian Mayer, a player that is just as unorthodox as Fabrice Santoro, but not acknowledged anywhere near as often for that fact.

Del Potro had just taken the first set 6-1 so this added to the feeling that maybe it wouldn’t be worth watching. The way Del Potro sets up his groundstrokes in making sure that he is in position at contact with the ball makes him appear very intimidating to play against. I like how incredibly low he bends down each time to hit his double-handed backhand.

The second set was where Mayer started to play some tennis that was highly entertaining. Mayer’s backhand in particular is a very entertaining shot. He seems to be able to generate this incredible angle crosscourt on an amazingly consistent basis, both off the topspin drive backhand and off the slice. He also hits a jumping double-handed backhand on a regular basis almost as if it were a showboating shot, which just adds to the appeal of his game. Then there was one point where he was running up to chase a dropshot and faked as if to hit a dropshot only to flick up a lob at the last minute. Although unfortunately that didn’t win him the point.

One thing that Mayer did well in this set was take the ball early on the short balls to follow up at net, and as you would expect, he has excellent feel up there. Mayer served for the second set at 5-4, but unfortunately it went downhill from there, losing that set 7-5 and convincingly losing the third 6-2.

2008/2009: Reviewing the top 10 women and their future prospects

Written exclusively for Inside-Tennis.net:
It was a turbulent season on the WTA Tour in 2008. Justine Henin, the dominant player of 2007 announced her immediate retirement while she was still on top, Maria Sharapova struggled with injuries after an impressive Australian Open and the number one ranking seemed to chop and change every couple of months, to the point where it was difficult to think of any player as the ‘best player of the world’. In the end, Jankovic edged it out due to a strong end of 2008, despite not winning any slams, and by showing just that extra bit of consistency compared to others. The grand slams were won by four separate players for the first time since 2005, illustrating the lack of a dominant player.

Below is a review of each top 10 player’s 2008 season and their prospects heading into 2009, particularly in the grand slams.

1. Jelena Jankovic

After a successful 2007 season, Jankovic’s progress stalled in the first three quarters of the 2008 season. She looked worn out physically and mentally, and started to rely more on her natural athleticism rather than all-round game to win matches, which was always a step above many of her peers. The turning point was at the US Open, when Jankovic grinded out a couple of tough matches, then relished the opportunity in a night-time final against Serena Williams, despite not winning the match. Jankovic was loose and relaxed, showing that when she plays uninhibited tennis, she is one of the best players in the world. Jankovic then built on that momentum in the latter stages of the year, sending a strong message to the media and tennis fans that mocked her short-lived number one spot prior to the US Open.

When Jankovic is playing well, she moves her opponents around beautifully side-to-side with deep, accurate groundstrokes and can turn her matches into a living nightmare for her opponents, who can never seem to hit through her consistently enough or break her down. The key to Jankovic’s success seems to be a matter of whether she can remain relaxed and enjoy herself, and whether she can remain as physically strong as she needs to be, both areas which seem to go hand-in-hand with her. Jankovic will definitely be a threat in 2009, and should be able to consistently reach the late stages of the majors. If Jankovic can put herself in the position to challenge the top players enough times, then she will win one sooner or later.

2. Serena Williams

Following the retirement of Justine Henin, Serena was predicted to replace Henin as the leading player of women’s tennis, given that it was Henin that defeated Williams in three out of the four slams in 2007. However, Serena continued to struggle with maintaining any consistency, and her tournament schedule was comparatively lighter than Jankovic, who is known as an ironwoman. Williams suffered two disappointing losses at the Australian Open and French Open at the hands of Jankovic and Srebotnik but redeemed herself with a finals appearance at Wimbledon where she fell to her sister, Venus in a high quality match and at the US Open where she took the title. Serena’s long-talked about fitness and motivation problems, seem to be well behind her, reinforcing the fact that Serena is no longer as dominant as she was earlier in her career, but rather one of the best players in the world. Serena should be able to win one or two slams next year, but anything beyond that would be unlikely.

3. Dinara Safina

It was a breakthrough year for Safina, who before this season, had never been mentioned in the same breath as players like Jankovic and Ivanovic. It was commonly thought that Safina’s movement would prevent her to challenge for the biggest titles, but Safina showed remarkable improvements in this area, and subsequently so did her results. She had also improved her serve, and her competitive spirit and mental toughness gave her an edge over some of her peers. During the stretch between the French Open to the US Open, Safina compiled consistently the best results of any player. Given all that she has achieved this year, she has to be considered one of the main contenders in each of the slams, but whether she will win one is another matter.

4. Elena Dementieva

After three years of finishing consistently in the top 10, Dementieva compiled her best season since 2004, in a year that was highlighted by capturing the Olympic gold medal. For Dementieva, the key seems to be consistency, given that throughout her career she has been known for crashing out in the early rounds more often than other top players and frequently struggling with long, tough three-set battles. Unfortunately for Dementieva, despite her game moving in the right direction, she still seems suspect mentally. This was in evidence at the French Open, Wimbledon and US Open, where she struggled in either tight or leading positions, particularly at the French Open where she blew a 5-1 lead in the second set against Dinara Safina. What year Dementieva will have in 2009 is tough to predict, but based on history, I’ll go with a consistent top 10 finish for her, and maybe one semi-final appearance at a Slam.

5. Ana Ivanovic

It was a year of two halves for Ivanovic, who was superb up until the French Open then faded badly after that. The build-up to Ivanovic’s first grand slam title was almost like a learning experience, in the manner she crumbled badly on her first attempt, then improved on that performance in the Australian Open final before capturing the French. Like Safina, Ivanovic had also made great strides in improving her fitness, and she had tempered her game to some extent. However, rather than building on her slam win, Ivanovic started to struggle considerably, mentally more than anything where she often seemed shaky and lacking in confidence. The US Open loss to Julie Coin sticks to mind, where Ivanovic struggled to take advantage of a nervous Coin in the latter stages of the match, and was equally shaky herself. Heading into 2009, the pressure should firmly be off her shoulders by now and after the off-season break, she should be able to bounce back, and learn from that experience to yet again compete at the highest level.

6. Venus Williams

In the last few years or so, Venus Williams has largely compiled inconsistent results over the course of a season, and this year was no different. By capturing Wimbledon yet again, Venus confirmed her status as the best grass court player of this generation. Apart from Wimbledon, the one shining light of Venus’s year was her title win at the year-end championships, a place where she had never triumphed before which bodes nicely for 2009. Injuries and physical problems remained a frequent problem for Venus this year, and that will again be one of her main obstacles in 2009. If I was to make a prediction, I’d expect 2009 to be a very similar year for Venus to this year.

7. Vera Zvonareva

Zvonareva broke through to the top ten this year off the back of a strong end-of-season where she was 27-7 in wins/losses. Her breakthrough tournament was undoubtedly in the year-end championships where she finally established herself as a player that can potentially cause the top players problems, defeating Jankovic, Ivanovic, Kuznetsova and Dementieva to reach the finals. During the week, she played the sort of controlled aggression reminiscent of the likes of Dinara Safina. However, there are still big question marks over Zvonareva having crashed out early in all four grand slams this year and having never advanced past the quarter-finals in her career.

8. Svetlana Kuznetsova

It was undoubtedly a disappointing year for Kuznetsova, in a year that saw her capture no titles, continuing her miserable finals conversion rate having reached 5 finals in 2008. The grand slams in particular were a low point, with her only highlight being a semi-final appearance at Roland Garros where she was beaten convincingly by Safina. Compared to 2007 where Kuznetsova was ranked number 2, branded undeserving of that achievement and made the US Open final, Kuznetsova has largely flown under the radar this year, and for good reason. Kuznetsova most definitely has the game to compete near the top of the rankings, especially given the current lack of a dominant figure, but what kind of year she will have in 2009 is largely unknown.

9. Maria Sharapova

Sharapova began the year on a high winning the Australian Open, in what was arguably her most impressive slam win in her career, prompting suggestions that she could be the next dominant figure in tennis. But it became an injury-plagued season for Sharapova, who struggled yet again with the same shoulder injury that had troubled her late in 2007. If Sharapova can remain injury-free, she should still be one of the leading contenders in all of the majors, except for the French, and she should have a good shot at obtaining the number 1 ranking as well. Sharapova simply has more weapons than the likes of Dementieva and Safina, a much better serve and has the ability to perform as consistently as them, if not more so.

10. Agnieszka Radwanska

Radwanska continued her rise up the rankings in 2008, mainly breaking into the top 10 more as a result of ongoing consistency rather than any breakthrough result. She reached two quarter-finals in the slams and reached the fourth round on the other two occasions, but on all occasions, she was beaten relatively comfortably suggesting that she still has some way to go before she can challenge the elite players. She has taken a couple of major scalps in her career, but is too prone to being overpowered to beat them on a good day, to be able to string enough big wins together.

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.