Month of November , 2008

Nadia Petrova clinched the second alternate berth for the Sony Ericsson Championships - Doha 2008 on Friday, with a quarterfinal win halfway across the world in Québec City.
 
If Petrova - the No.1 seed at the Tier III event - lost her quarterfinal with Melinda Czink, then Flavia Pennetta would have joined Agnieszka Radwanska in the alternate line-up at the prestigious season-ender, which will be held next week in Doha, Qatar. But she beat the unseeded Hungarian, 61 64, thus overtaking Pennetta in the Race to the Sony Ericsson Championships.

Defending champion David Nalbandian continued to impress at the BNP Paris Masters.

The eighth-seeded Argentine advanced to the final of the hardcourt event Saturday with a 6-1, 5-7, 6-4 triumph over No. 5 Nikolay Davydenko of Russia.

Nalbandian, who will face either No. 11 James Blake or 13th-seeded Frenchman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in Sunday’s final, is a victory away from becoming the first back-to-back winner in the 23-year history of this event.

It's the kind of irresistible question upon which the PTI guys thrive: Who is the best player in such-and-such a sport never to have won a major championship?
 

Argentine David Nalbandian and France's Jo-Wilfried Tsonga will battle it out for the last Masters Cup spot in the final of the Paris Masters after winning their semi-final matches on Saturday.

Nalbandian battled for a 6-1 5-7 6-4 victory over Russian world number six Nikolay Davydenko, while local favourite Tsonga advanced with a 6-4 6-3 defeat of James Blake.

The result ended the American's hopes of qualifying for the season-ending tournament.

The day before Ana Ivanovic lost her second-round match at the U.S. Open, her part-time coach, Sven Groeneveld, wasn't particularly hopeful about his pupil's chances in Flushing. Ivanovic had missed most of the summer, including the Olympic Games in Beijing, because of a wrist injury. When she did play, she didn't do it well.
 

Nadia Petrova got one step closer to her second Sony Ericsson WTA Tour singles title of the year Saturday, defeating Angela Haynes in straight sets to reach the final of the Bell Challenge.
 
Haynes, who had never reached a singles quarterfinal on the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour before this week, had reached the semifinals with some impressive wins, and as a lucky loser, no less. But she drew the top-seeded Petrova in that round and her breakthrough run came to an abrupt end in 50 minutes, as she fell, 61 63, to the world's No.11 player.
 

World number one Jelena Jankovic and her seven fellow qualifiers could have been forgiven if their only goal at the WTA Championships was to pocket the $1.34 million winner's cheque.

Chasing ranking points is also usually high on the agenda. But with Jankovic having already secured the year-ending world number one spot, the top players are more concerned with their future on the Tour.
 

The highest earner in women’s tennis this year has plenty of other projects to occupy her
 
The world of constantly changing hats that Serena Williams inhabits, in which she is forever switching between the demands of top-flight tennis, fashion design, acting, philanthropic deeds and now writing an inspirational memoir that will double as her life history, can mean that a mission statement laid down several months earlier becomes a curious thing to revisit.
 

World No. 4 Ana Ivanovic was in Dubai last weekend on her way to Doha to play the season-ending Sony Ericsson Championships starting 4th November 2008.
 
The tournament features the world’s top 8 women. She stayed over at Habtoor Grand Resort & Spa while practising for the last tournament of the year.
 

Key facts and figures about the women's season-ending WTA Championships beginning in Doha on Tuesday:

2007 champion: Justine Henin (Belgium)
 

Most titles: Eight - Martina Navratilova (U.S.)
 

Youngest winner: Monica Seles (Yugoslavia) - 1990, 16 years old
 

Oldest winner: Navratilova - 1986, 30 years old
 

Total prize money for 2008: $4,550,000
 

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2008 lineup (prefix number denotes world ranking):

When the brilliant Justine Henin retired in May, women's tennis needed to find a new, triumphant No.1. So when Ana Ivanovic captured her first Grand Slam title at Roland Garros a few weeks later, building on her runner-up finish to Maria Sharapova at the Australian Open, it seemed all prayers had been answered.
 

When the Sony Ericsson WTA Championships kick off in Doha on Nov. 4, an unpredictable year in women's tennis will turn another page.
 
At the very least, one of the tour's elite eight who will compete — current No. 1 Jelena Jankovic, Roland Garros champion Ana Ivanovic, U.S. Open champion Serena Williams, Wimbledon champion Venus Williams, No. 2 Dinara Safina, Olympic singles gold medalist Elena Dementieva, former U.S. Open champion Svetlana Kuznetsova and the revived Russian veteran Vera Zvonareva — will emerge with decent momentum heading into 2009.

Briefly back at No.1 after her stirring U.S. Open victory in September, Serena Williams soon surrendered that position to Jelena Jankovic and has now retreated to No.3 after playing just one singles match in the last eight weeks.
 

Jo-Wilfried Tsonga won his maiden Masters Series event when he beat Argentine David Nalbandian 6-3 4-6 6-4 in the final of the Paris Masters on Sunday to clinch the last qualifying spot for the season's finale in Shanghai.

The 23-year-old Frenchman joined Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic, Andy Murray, Nikolay Davydenko, Andy Roddick and Juan Martin del Potro as the players who qualified for the Masters Cup, which will start on Nov. 9.

"It wraps up a very rich season for me. I played very well. The icing on the cake will be Shanghai.

The left fist that Ana Ivanovic kept clenching at the French Open as she collected winners and victories got much less use the rest of the season.
 
Ivanovic's first Grand Slam singles title, which came in Paris in June, may yet prove to be a springboard to more major trophies, but it was no ticket to the stratosphere in 2008.
 
She lost in the third round at Wimbledon and would have lost a round earlier if not for an improbable net-cord winner that left her opponent, Nathalie Dechy, dumbfounded on match point.
 

The eight singles players set to compete in the season-ending Sony Ericsson Championships - Doha 2008 can now prepare their match strategies for the round robin phase, with the White and Maroon Groups allocated at the official draw ceremony on Sunday.
White Group
Jelena Jankovic (Srb)
Ana Ivanovic (Srb)
Svetlana Kuznetsova (Rus)
Vera Zvonareva (Rus)

Maroon Group
Dinara Safina (Rus)
Serena Williams (USA)
Elena Dementieva (Rus)
Venus Williams (USA) 

Serena and Venus Williams have been drawn in the same group at the WTA's season-ending event, the Sony Ericsson Championships.
 
They have been drawn in the Maroon group along with Russian pair Dinara Safina and Elena Dementieva.
 
Jelena Jankovic, Ana Ivanovic, Svetlana Kuznetsova and Vera Zvonareva make up the White group.
 
Each group plays in a round robin format, with the top two qualifying for the semi-finals.
 

She needed to reach the semifinals in Québec City to qualify as an alternate for the Sony Ericsson Championships - Doha 2008, and with three easy wins to start the week she achieved the feat with flying colors. But she didn't stop there by any means, winning that semifinal handily on Saturday then battling past a game Bethanie Mattek on Sunday to capture the Tier III Bell Challenge title.
 

After Madrid, WTA now brings stars to the desert
 
Was it really only a year ago that Justine Henin and Maria Sharapova played one of the best finals in the 36-year history of the women's season-ending championships?
 
That show in Madrid - won by Henin - was a three-set tribute to controlled aggression, lunging defense and focused ambition by two champions in their primes. Or so it seemed.
 

As a little boy, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga was taught to finish off everything on his plate and he did just that when he won the Paris Masters on Sunday.

The 23-year-old Frenchman, who beat Argentine David Nalbandian 6-3 4-6 6-4 in the final in front of a jubilant home crowd, started sobbing after clinching victory and the tears kept rolling during his post-match news conference.

"My parents taught me not to complain, to always go forward," the son of two teachers said.