Ashley Harkleroad

Two-time Grand Slam champion and former world No. 1 Amelie Mauresmo leads an impressive list of 23 players who’ve made early commitments to the 2008 Western & Southern Financial Group Women’s Open, which will be played August 9-17 at the Lindner Family Tennis Center in the Cincinnati suburb of Mason.
 
Mauresmo, who reached the world No. 1 ranking in 2004, owns 24 Sony Ericsson WTA Tour singles titles including the Australian Open and Wimbledon. She won both in 2006.
 

Tommy Haas, Sam Querrey, Donald Young, Ashley Harkleroad and Alexandra Stevenson are among those entered in Sunday's inaugural Shotgun 21 World Championships, a tennis competition where men and women will play each other.

Olympics in wings. Ivanovic, Kuznetsova nursing sore joints
 
The injury retirements have begun (there were two yesterday; one Monday night). But they're not nearly as momentous or late in the week as the ones that happened here two years ago, which involved higher-ranked players like Anna Chakvetadze, Jelena Jankovic and Nicole Vaidisova.
 

The women's Rogers Cup tennis event gets into full swing today in Montreal.
 
After rain yesterday, when showers interrupted play, the forecast is good and No. 4 Svetlana Kuznetsova and No. 5 Elena Dementieva, will be the highest seeded players in action.
 

As per the annual Montreal-Toronto flipflop of the Canadian Open events, the tournament is back at Stade Uniprix this year.
 

Tennis has got a little sex secret.  And after the last few weeks it no longer looks so little or so secret.
 
It has nothing to do with who was hooking up with whom in the village at Wimbledon — however titillating that might be.  No, this has to do with the fact that some of the best players in the world also happen to be extremely attractive women and how The Game is going to deal with that.
 

Ashley Harkleroad has just pulled off a tennis first — and one that has some people scratching their heads.  In the August issue of Playboy there is Ashley wearing a smile, a little make-up and not much else. But the 23-year-old explains in an exclusive interview with Mark Winters for Tennis Week why her decision to pose nude represents a triumph for her and she hopes will send a message to others.
 

Ashley Harkleroad is currently ranked 65th in the world, although she has been as high as No. 39 in June 2003. Considering she's 23 and pushed Maria Sharapova in a tough match at the 2006 Australian Open, her best days could still be ahead of her (currently, she hasn't advanced past the third round of a major). While her career winnings to date total nearly a million dollars, there's one thing every tennis fan (and non-fan) wants to discuss: she's the August 2008 cover girl for Playboy (on newsstands Friday).

Struggling Ashley Needs Time Off; On-Court Coaching Dying
 
On Sunday, Flintstone native Ashley Harkleroad was as happy as a Georgia peach conducting pre-tournament interviews celebrating her appearance on the cover of Playboy as well as her prospects in the East West Bank Classic draw.

The seeds were perfect in first round matches but went 1-1 in the first two second round matches of the week, as Day 2 of the $600,000 East West Bank Classic presented by Herbalife took place on Tuesday in Los Angeles, California.