Dinara ousted once again.
And with it goes that millstone of a #1 ranking.
(li xin/AFP/Getty Images)
What a welcome relief that now seems.
It certainly is for me.
One hopes being somewhat unwillingly escorted out of the eye of the storm, will allow her to get back to playing what seems like competitive tennis once again, something she last managed back in Cincinnati. Whether she’ll regain that top spot though, is very much up for debate, now that all three members of that Revivalist Movement known as the ‘Pre-Safinite Sisterhood’*, are active once more.
Oh and here’s some trivia for you before we move on.
Zhang (ranked #226) is now the lowest ranked player in WTA history to defeat a reigning world #1, a record previously held by Julie Coin with her defeat of Ana Ivanovic, and a record rather too neatly woven into the fabric of this tragedy.
How’s that for a career milestone on your way out?
And what of the woman that replaced her?
"Obviously I'm happy to be there because I've worked so hard this year to get there, I think I've earned it," said Williams.
(BBC)
You don’t sound too convinced. I wasn’t much convinced by her slightly muted post match celebrations either. After a season of soap-operatic trash talk, I was almost expecting her to burst open the bubbly on court. A likely result of that US Open cloud that continues to hang over her maybe?
The only other match I caught today saw Jelena Jankovic ceding a winning position of a break and a set up, to Peng Shuai eventually losing it 6-4, 5-7, 2-6. It was the wrist. Again.
But I couldn’t, for the life of me, work out what she was doing here in the first place. Or why she didn’t pull out earlier.
It won her a lot of fans. Apparently.
The Vika Shaza clash, arguably the match up of the day, wasn’t broadcast. I gather Shaza mounted an epic comeback from 5-2 down in the second to win it 6-3 6-7 7-5. It sounded like they made a lot noise (from the adjacent court Serena was playing on), but though I didn’t see it, I kinda saw this result coming.
Vika has lost far too much of her belief since that Wimbledon quarter final, and that’s not a good place to be in for her. Especially if you’re considering playing a tennis match against Miss Brute-Belief-Force herself.
“The match isn’t over until we shake hands,” said the Russian. “I realised that I didn’t want to be going home. I just went forward and I kept being aggressive and stayed positive and that gets you a long way.”
(Yahoo! Sports)
I can only live in hope for the day that I’m able to will away all of the worst life throws at me, by simply deciding I’m not ready to go home just yet.
I’ve been a little neglectful of the gents this past week. But neither Bangkok, nor the ATP events in Beijing or Tokyo are being broadcast.
Meh. I have to confess I’m not fully engaged in this Asian swing. Maybe Shanghai will correct that.
Don’t expect me to go on the hunt for a live stream.
“All” I’ve missed so far are the early exits of A-Rod and Delpo.
But I’m loving these juddery-camera pics coming out of Beijing.
***
* The ‘Pre-Safinite Sisterhood’ (also known as the ‘HenKimPovites’) was a Revivalist movement with it’s roots at the turn of the Millennium. All three members (Henin, Kimmie and Pova) of this self-styled sisterhood took a leave of absence at the height of their very considerable powers through causes relating to burn out and injury.
They returned, perhaps in reaction to the perceived ‘mechanisation’ of tennis that had gathered momentum during their absence, and with a view to restoring some much needed credibility to the WTA (and the battle for the number one ranking in particular). An organisation that had become largely overrun by gangly, inflexible and significantly less creative baseliners , neither of whom seemed to possess the stomach for the #1 ranking - a battle taking place in an atmosphere of decreased and at times embittered competition.
Their period out of the game also saw the rise of one Dinara Safina to the #1 spot, whose imposing , if slightly one dimensional brand of tennis, quickly became an object of ridicule for those that sought a return to the old ways; because the movement envisioned such a return, and because their distaste extended only to the long line of similarly styled ‘Safinites’, and not to Safina herself, they were at first known informally only as the ‘Pre-Safinites’. Over time, the group became more formally known by the full name in use today.
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