Notes on a Draw Sheet

WTA bitten hard by injury bug
Five of top 7 have pulled out of tournaments; Petrova calls out Justine; Elena poops out

By Matthew Cronin
tennisreporters.net

Fred Mullane/Camerawork USA, Inc.

FROM THE ACURA CLASSIC IN CARLSBAD, CALIF. – When Kim Clijsters and Justine Henin-Hardenne are teaching the world the meaning of the word tenacity, it's sometimes easy to forget that on a gorgeous, lazy and sticky Thursday in San Diego that the WTA Tour has been devastated by injuries.

But it has and it's not pretty.

Five of the tour's top seven players have pulled out of tournaments the past five weeks, with sixth-ranked Amelie Mauresmo pulling out of Wimbledon, and top-ranked Serena Williams and fifth-ranked Lindsay Davenport pulling out of last week's Bank of the West Classic.

Fourth-ranked Venus Williams (abdominal tear) pulled out of all the California tournaments and, on Wednesday, seventh-ranked Jennifer Capriati became ninth player to either pull out of or retire from the Acura Classic when she retired with a pectoral injury down 1-4 in the first set to Russian Elena Likhovtseva.

Americans Serena (pectoral strain), Venus, Monica Seles (foot), Ashley Harkleroad (elbow) and Alexandra Stevenson (shoulder); Russian Vera Zvonareva (elbow injury) and France's Natalie Dechy (wrist) pulled out of the Acura with injuries before the event began. Switzerland's Marie-Gaianeh Mikaelian retired with a wrist injury in her first-round loss to Nadia Petrova here.

Neither of the Williamses will play Carson (Los Angeles County) next week. Marquee attractions like Seles, who's out until at least the US Open and Anna Kournikova, who won't even attempt to play the Open, are out.

This makes midweek ticket sales a tough go for organizers, especially for the women's tournament in Carson, which is being played for the first time at the new Home Depot Center, more than a stone's throw away from the tournament's former cozy and breezy confines in Manhattan Beach. However Capriati expects all the top players to return by the time the US Open kicks off in a month's time.

OVER-TRAINING IS THE CULPRIT
"Everyone seems to get better as soon as the Grand Slams roll around," Capriati said.
What's the reason for the rash of injuries? Capriati suspects over-training, as does the chronically injured Mary Pierce.

"It's a long season and with the grind of the tour, there's not much time to take a break, let alone recover" said Capriati, who reached the final of last week's Bank of the West Classic while playing with shoulder pain. "It's also a totally individual sport and you are taking on responsibilities. I don't feel like I can sit back and not try to play. Plus, the game is so much more powerful now and maybe some of the girls are over-training trying to get stronger."

Pierce, who seems to have injured every part of her big frame over the past three years, added,
"That was the case with me," said Pierce. "I was over-training all the time. You have to learn that you can only do so much in practice. I probably hit three times as many balls than any other girl from age 10 to 18. Now I have not the desire to do so. There's no reason to train all day. You have to train smarter instead. There's no question the girls are stronger and faster than they used to be."

Elena Dementieva suspects the switch from grass to hard courts as one of the reasons and also targets grass as a surface where players are very vulnerable.

"If you looked at the number of players who get hurt on grass or when they go from grass to hard courts, it would really be surprising," Dementieva said. "Grass is so hard to get used to and so hard to get you footing on. … But there's no reason to practice so much or go to the gym all the time. Sometimes it's better just to take a mental break."

Capriati said her right rotator cuff began bothering her after Wimbledon. She began icing her shoulder last week during the Bank of the West Classic and in the final against winner Kim Clijsters, took an injury time out to treat a pectoral strain. She's never had a major injury and says she will attempt to play Toronto, but it's hard to imagine that her doctor will advise her to start grinding in matches again in 12 days time, not if she wants a serious shot in New York.

"It hurt me every time I made contact with the ball," said Capriati. "I was afraid to go for it and risk injuring it some more."

SELES' INJURY COULD END CAREER

Susan Mullane/Camerawork USA, Inc.

As we wrote in this space after Nadia Petrova at Roland Garros trounced her, Seles' career is at serious risk. She won't attempt to play until at least the US Open while she continues to rehabilitate a stress fracture her in left foot. She's pulled out of Wimbledon, Carlsbad, Carson and Toronto. An IMG spokesperson told tennisreporters.net that "Seles is continuing to work with her trainer to find ways to ease the pain in her foot and will continue to do so in hopes of behind competitive for the US Open."

But with no match practice, she has little chance of doing damage. The 29-year-old Seles has suffered one stress fracture or another in her feet the past six years, including one in her right foot in 2001, which kept her out of action for five months. After losing to Petrova at Roland Garros, Seles said that if her chronically bad feet don't heel, she may retire.

"Yeah, it's one of the options for sure," she said. "If I'm in pain, I'm not going to be playing. But, I'm a positive person. I try not to give up. I've faced worse stuff. I don't know how my body will react to rest. And if it doesn't react well, then I have to stop."

Unless she takes a wildcard into New Haven, Serena and her bum knee and quadriceps are also done until the Open. Venus is still scheduled to play Toronto, but who knows if she really play or just rest her tummy until NY?

It's a good thing that the Belgians have become not only elite players, but have been in the world eye long enough for fans to long for a ticket to their matches. That's why Stanford did very well the last four days and why the Acura should have a strong weekend. However, it's important not to discount the fact that tournaments do much of their sales prior to the event when they are selling the likes of Serena, Venus, Monica and Anna. The more players who pull out of tournaments, the more the risk exists that next year, fans will wait until the tournament begins to purchase seats. If the same number of stars pull out in 2004, I'd hate to be a salesperson at any US Open warm-up tournament.

FYI: While we are strapped in stateside discussing the women's tour, pity the organizers in hot Sopot, where three players retired Thursday with illnesses, including top-seed Anastasia Myskina, No. 7 Dinara Safina and No. 6 Maja Matevzic.

Let's give the final word on the training versus overtraining subject to the put-upon Daniela Hantuchova, who after her long three-set win over Katernia Srebotnik in Carlsbad, said, "A lot of people have been criticizing for me for my weight and now all these other players are getting injured and I'm not. I'm able to play all these long three-set matches and still not get injured so maybe that's says some good things about me."

Petrova calls out Justine
However, Dani's endurance didn't pay off against Russian Nadia Petrova, who crushed her 6-1 6-3 to set up a compelling quarterfinal against Justine Henin-Hardenne.

Petrova is without question one of the strongest and most confident Russians out there among her mother country's Gang of 13 top-100 players. She nailed 25 winners to only 11 from Dani, including seven aces.

"I told myself before I got on court that because it was so hot and humid that I needed to play every point with all my strength and energy," said Petrova, who banged seven aces. "I was very focused and kept the pressure on her."

When you talk to her, Petrova appears to be very mentally strong, but she hasn't always shown that in matches over the past year, even though her run to the semis in Paris was impressive. Last week at Stanford, she was awful against Maria Vento-Kabchi. Petrova believes she has top-five stuff and has displayed some of that here, but the Williamses sisters and the Belgians don't lose to veteran qualifiers, even when they're not at their best.

Petrova gives herself "more than a 50 percent chance" to down Henin-Hardenne if he plays her best and says she needs to play both smart and aggressive. The week before Wimbledon, she gagged against Henin 5-7, 7-6 (5), 6-3 in Holland.

"I had her in the second set and let it slip," she said. "It was more mental."

Elena poops out
Speaking of mental slippage, had Petrova sat courtside earlier in the day, she would have seen 13-seed Elena Dementieva contract a bout of Russian-itis against Henin-Hardenne. Dementieva had Henin-Hardenne on the ropes up a set and 4-2 before losing eight straight games and falling.

Henin-Hardenne was dealing with blister on her foot and was having a lot of trouble finding her "A" game, plus Dementieva was flying about the court cracking her huge forehand and guiding her backhand toward the lines.

"I was in trouble," said Justine. "She was hitting very hard and putting me under a lot of pressure."

The Russian still has arguably the worst second serve amongst the top 15 players, slicing it in softly at between 65 and 70 mph. But Henin didn't know what to do with it and wasn't pouncing on it like Serena does. Yet a remarkable 20-plus ball rally at deuce in the sixth game of the second set that ended when Dementieva crisply put away a backhand volley, the Russian was pooped mentally and physically, even though she ended up breaking Henin-Hardenne to 2-4.

"It was a very difficult moment," Dementieva said. "I gave everything I had. I felt I couldn't move any more after that."

Henin-Hardenne remembered she playing on hard courts, moved inside the baseline instead of defending all the time and rose her game to a level that Dementieva no longer had. Henin-Hardenne had lost to Dementieva the last time the two played in Amelia Island, so she stopped playing it safe.

"In Amelia Island I thought that she wasn't that strong mentally and couldn't close out the match and that was a mistake," Justine said. "This time I said that she won't just lose it, you have to win it."

Petrova and Henin-Hardenne should be Friday's most attractive quarterfinal and you have to give Justine the edge in three. Other picks: Kim Clijsters over Lisa Raymond; Chanda Rubin over Lindsay Davenport and Svetlana Kuznetsova to beat Elena Likhovtseva.