Sharapova survives scare + 2007 flashbacks

Maria Sharapova escaped another early round exit today against Marta Domachowska at the Rogers Cup in Montreal. They were exchanging breaks almost all throughout the match- no one wanted to hold it seemed. Of course there was no TV coverage here in the US but I was closely following the live score feed. Masha had 17 double faults (matching her best? record) to Marta’s 13 and 12 aces to Marta’s 5. Both players took injury time outs; Masha for her shoulder and Marta for her back. I could only imagine how ugly this match was to watch! If Masha does not fix that shoulder issue, she’ll never be as dominating as she should be in the women’s field. Sigh. Final score was 7-5 5-7 6-2.

**UPDATE** Sharapova pulls out of Rogers Cup.

She said her presence at the Olympics and the U.S. Open in the coming weeks will depend largely on the results from Thursday’s tests.

“At the end of the day, it’s tough to go on court and not be close to even 50 per cent,” Sharapova said. “I’m too good of a player to go out there and try to fight through something that I think can eventually become something serious.”

Become serious? Isn’t it already?

Ahh, Mash can’t catch a break. LE SIGH

Image via Getty.

Oh, Marat

After such a good Wimbledon run this year, I was hoping that Marat Safin would be able to carry over his momentum and do well in the summer hard courts. Unfortunately, that has not been the case. He tanked his match today at the Western & Southern Financial Group Masters in Cincinnati against his bestfriend, Dmitry Tursunov. The first set was very close with Dmitry winning it in a tie break but in the second set, Marat just lost his temper (which he kept in check during Wimbledon!) when he was given a foot fault call and lost the point to go down breakpoint. Everything just went downhill from there and he basically handed the match to Dmitry.

Oh, Dinara’s big brother.

Velvet ropes: Rogers Cup WTA fashion show

Players attended and walked the runway at the WTA Tennis fashion show that is part of the Rogers Cup Tennis Tournament at the Fairmont Queen Elizabeth Hotel on July 27, 2008 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

All images via Getty.

Trophy case: July 27, 2008

Sara Errani of Italy won her second title in three weeks Sunday by defeating Anabel Medina Garrigues of Spain 6-3, 6-3 in the Slovenia Open final.

Rafael Nadal beat Nicolas Kiefer 6-3, 6-2 on Sunday to win the Rogers Cup, his fifth straight tournament victory. This is Rafa’s 29th consecutive win and his first hard court title this year. Seems like he’s on course to being Number 1 in the world by the end of the hardcourt season. Vamos Rafa!

After being in the brink of losing to Alla Kudryavtseva in the R16, Dinara Safina beat Flavia Pennetta 6-4, 6-2 to win the East West Bank Classic singles.

What’s up from Carson

Hello from the East West Bank Classic in Carson, CA!

Although this tournament has been plagued with withdrawals- from Lindsay Davenport to Svetlana Kuznetsova, there are still a lot of players to watch out for. Jelena Jankovic is top seed and looks to gain the Number 1 spot should she win it all. Second and third seeds, Daniela Hantuchova and Anna Chakvetadze respectively, were also there but unfortunately lost early. I was at Daniela’s doubles QF match (with Flavia Pennetta) and she seemed to be bothered with something. After they lost and everyone had left the stadium, she and Flavia stayed and engaged in a deep conversation. Hopefully it was nothing too serious. Flavia is doing well in her singles campaign dispatching Ai Sugiyama to reach the QFs. Dinara Safina is also in the tournament and had just beaten hard hitting fellow Russian, Alla Kudryavtseva. As much as I don’t like Alla (her comments after that Sharapova match at Wimbledon still makes me cringe to this day), she can really match a top player’s power but that’s all there is to her game right now. One player who’s caught my eye this past few days is Belarusian Victoria Azarenka. Her ground strokes are as solid as any Top 10 player’s and she moves really well on court. The big test for her will come in tomorrow’s QF match against Safina.