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.
