Wednesday, October 7, 2009
WORLD NEWS
Serena Williams Will be Ranked Number One Next Week
She’s back where she believes she belongs, at No.1, after Serena Williams recaptured the top spot with a straight sets win over Ekaterina Makarova in the second round of the China Open.
“It feels pretty good,” she said. “I'm really excited, I guess. I don't want to put too much pressure on myself, but I mean, I'm obviously happy to be there because I feel like I've been working so hard all year, and I'm just happy to be back. I think I've earned it. I've won two Grand Slams. I wish I had gotten more, but you know I'm just excited to have those two this year. It's great.
“I think I got pretty deep in the other ones, but if you don't win, it doesn't count whether you get deep or not. I've just been playing really consistent throughout the year. Especially in the beginning of the year, I did well. Then I got sidelined a little bit by injury, but I kept fighting. I kept showing up and doing the best that I could do. Sometimes, it was a first round loss, but I really tried, and I think at the end of the day, that's what matters.”
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Wozniacki is Upset With the WTA Tour and the China Open
US Open finalist up Caroline Wozniacki is unhappy with the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour along with the scheduling committee of the China Open who scheduled her first match in Beijing for Sunday after she reported suffering from a virus.
The 20 year-old Dane, now ranked fifth in the world and normally one of the most happy-go-lucky players on the women’s scene, took the WTA Tour to task for its perceived lack of cooperation. She maintained the Tour failed to represent her best interests and called the decision to make her play when unwell "very disappointing."
Wozniacki lost her first round match in Beijing 6-7,7-6,6-0 to Spain’s Maria Jose Martinez-Sanchez. Writing on her website www.carolinewozniacki.dk, she said: "In Beijing, I still was not feeling close to 100%, so I asked the tournament director and WTA for a Monday start (instead of playing my first round on Sunday), but it was very frustrating to learn on Saturday that I was scheduled to play my first match on Sunday.
"I really needed every hour of rest to get over this virus and ready for my first match, but the WTA or tournament director did not seem to care at all and take this into consideration. The WTA Tour is supposed to be a players union, but I certainly don’t think they represented my best interest this week in Beijing and it was very disappointing."
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Federer’s Fragrance Company is Going Out of Business
RF, Roger Federer’s line of fragrances that have been on the market for six years without causing much of a concern for the established brands, has gone out of business.
The Swiss magazine Bilanz reported that RF Cosmetics had gone into liquidation. Later company officials confirmed that statement.
The world no.1 decided to diversify into the fragrance and cosmetic market in 2003 during his hiatus from IMG management. His then girlfriend and now wife, Mirka Vavrinec, was in charge of his business interests away from the tennis court and RF produced products such as aftershave, shower gel and deodorant.
With a fortune estimated to be spiraling towards the $50 million mark, Federer will not be too concerned about this business failure but his major rival Rafael Nadal may be affected.
A year ago the Mallorcan was signed up as the global ambassador the Lanvin line of fragrances. "L'Homme Sport", reportedly formulated with Nadal as a ‘fragrance’ consultant, was launched earlier this year with a selling price of $95 a bottle.
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Agassi to Debut on Senior Tour This Week
Andre Agassi will make his highly anticipated Outback Champions Series debut when he takes on Mikael Pernfors Friday night in the opening round of the 2009 Cancer Treatment Centers of America Tennis Championships at Surprise, Ariz.
Agassi and Pernfors will play their quarterfinal match the evening of October 9. Mark Philippoussis and Wayne Ferreira will open up tournament play on Thursday evening, Rounding out the field in Surprise are Jim Courier, Todd Martin, Aaron Krickstein and Jimmy Arias.
The Cancer Treatment Centers of America Championships at Surprise runs Thursday through Sunday and will feature a field of eight champion players competing in a single knock-out format event for $150,000 in prize money and ranking points that determine the year-end No. 1 ranked player on the Outback Champions Series.
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Rusedski Signs to Play London Masters Event
Greg Rusedski will attempt to win his first ATP Champions Tour title on British soil after signing up to appear in the AEGON Masters Tennis tournament at the Royal Albert Hall in London, December 1-6.
Cedric Pioline also confirmed his plans to play, so that he will attempt to defend his title. The eight-man singles field will be completed by the 1987 Wimbledon champion Pat Cash and ATP Champions Tour debutant, Younes El Aynoui of Morocco.
For Rusedski, the chance to take on Pioline, El Aynoui and Cash as well as his 1997 US Open final nemesis Pat Rafter, Goran Ivanisevic, Mark Philippoussis and Stefan Edberg was too good to resist.
The AEGON Masters Tennis runs from the 1st to the 6th of December at the Royal Albert Hall in London. The tournament uses a round-robin format, with all players playing at least three matches each. Each day of the tournament, except the final Sunday, features two sessions - an afternoon session starting at 1pm and an evening session starting at 7.30pm. All sessions will feature a combination of singles and doubles matches. The event is the final tournament in 2009 on the ATP Champions Tour - a circuit of former World Number One tennis players, Grand Slam singles finalists and Davis Cup winners. Each event can also invite two wild cards of their choice.
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Roddick Again Complains About the Long Tour
Andy Roddick is never too happy immediately after a defeat, and his straight-sets loss to Lukasz Kubot in his opening match at the China Open had him sounding off at the ATP calendar, which he says does not give the top players enough time to rest and recover.
“Serena Williams, their tour championships are in two weeks, so that's good. Ours are not,” he said. “It is, it's a tough task. I certainly have not been shy about saying that at a certain point, something's gotta give. There's got to be some time to get yourself right physically and mentally. Right now, that's just not the case, and you're seeing it with Roger and Murray being out in Tokyo and Rafael had a four-month deal. Everyone acts surprised when that happens, but it really, I think the fact that we play all the time and all of a sudden something happens, it's really not that surprising.”
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Jankovic Still Has Her Sights on the Tour Championships
Jelena Jankovic lost a Beijing battle for entering the WTA Championships, but not the war. She will go on. Her loss to Shuai Peng was especially disappointing, after she served for the match in the second set but couldn’t close it out.
“For me, the good thing is I have one week in between because I lost early here, I still have 10 days or 12 days to recover. Then I am playing in Moscow, and then we’ll see. Right now I am No. 8 in the race, so it all depends on how the other girls behind me do.”
As of this year there is reserve solution for the players who don’t make Doha. Bali is hosting tournament for the rest of top girls, outside of top eight who will play in WTA Championships. But for Jelena that is not an option.
“I don’t think I’ll be going to Bali if I don’t make it to Doha. My goal is to go there. I feel like I belong there, and my goal is to compete with the best players in the world, so that is what I would like to try, but unfortunately, you cannot control injuries. You know something is happening at a bad time, you cannot give your best. You try really hard to be out there and to hit the ball as hard as you can, but you think you’ll be all right, but your arm is giving up, and it’s giving you a hard time. You could probably all see that during the match.”
After retirement in Tokyo final last Saturday, Beijing defeat against a girl she beat six times is another blow for Serbian girl.
“Yeah, it’s very disappointing. For me, it’s really not the right time to get injured, especially now because it’s the end of the year with a few more tournaments to play, especially I plan to get in the championships. For me there’s one more tournament to play, and this one was really important for me, especially I was the champion. I love to play here in China. I have a lot of fans here, but unfortunately my arm couldn’t hold up. I couldn’t really hit the ball as hard as I can hit. I played half the pace. I tried the best that I could, but unfortunately it wasn’t enough.”
When Jelena won Chinese title last year, she enjoyed presence of her mother. This time Snezana Jankovic wasn’t in Beijing.
“I love having my mom around, but unfortunately there were some other things that were more important in this moment, so she was staying at home because my grandmother died just during the U.S. Open, so I don’t think it’s the right time for her to travel. I am here with my dad, and I like having my dad as well here. None of this affected me on the court. The most important thing in this moment is to get healthy and so I can enjoy my games very much.”
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We Hear---
--that Sarasota, Florida’s Colony Beach Hotel and Resort hotel operations is preparing to file for chapter 11.
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THIS WEEK
MEN
Beijing
Tokyo
WOMEN
Beijing
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NEXT WEEK
MEN
Shanghai
WOMEN
Linz
Osaka
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