Women's Year End Championships In Doha Preview And Also A Look At This Weeks ATP Events.

Serena Williams and the lineswoman she went "ape-shit" on won't be able to "hug-it-out" or "bury the hatchet" this week at the WTA year end championships in Doha, Qatar.  Serena is in the field qualifying as one of the top 8 players in the world rankings.  The line judge who's name is unknown was invited to work the matches in Doha will not be attending for family reasons.....Good on her.  Don't give Serena a chance to make herself look good in a fake way.

The ITF continues its investigation on whether to fine Serena more than the already levied fine of $10,500, or add a suspension which could include Grand Slam events.  I don't really know how much more investigating needs to go into it.  The incident has been on television and posted on the internet everywhere....So here it is one more time..



The thing that caught my attention recently about this is Serena has come out and said that at the time she thought it was a possibility she MAY HAVE foot-faulted.  Thats as close as an admission of guilt and maybe she was wrong as you will get from the classless bitch.  So hopefully the ITF puts her ass into timeout for as long as possible.  I won't miss her.  Or her punishment could be to just have to play Justine Henin in every tournament.  That way she will be embarrassed.  I'm cool with either/or.

Alright onto Doha.  This is a round robin event where the top 8 womens players in the world based on their 2009 performance not overall ranking are invited to compete for the year end championship.  The 8 players are broken into groups 2 groups of 4.

The 2 groups and their 2009 ranking:

WHITE:
Dinara Safina #1
Caroline Wozniacki #4
Victoria Azarenka #6
Jelena Jankovic #8

MAROON:
Serena Williams #2
Svetlana Kuznetsova #3
Elena Dementieva #5
Venus Williams #7

The white group seems to be pretty weak.  Safina is a headcase right now and can barely win a match, Wozniacki has retired from 2 of her last 3 tournaments with lingering injuries.  Azarenka hasn't been playing up to her potential and Jankovic is both bothered by injuries and not playing real well.  So to me it looks like Azarenka and Jankovic will advance out of this group.

The Maroon group is more stacked.  No I wasn't talking about Serena's boobs.  Serena is rusty and doesn't seem to care about the "smaller" tournaments.  But when motivated and in shape there aren't too many that can beat her.  Kuznetsova is continually steady, and a true professional.  Dementieva can look great and beat anyone one day and just flounder and get beat by almost anyone another day.  She is tough to predict.  Venus is the weakest of this group.  She hasn't been playing well, and it almost seems like she is losing a step or just not caring.  Put a fork in her.  She's done..... I like Dementieva and Serena moving onto the final four single elimination bracket.

I see a Dementieva - Azarenka final with Azarenka being the upset winner.

Alright the men are continuing playing some smaller tournaments this week, before they have their year end championships in London.

Lets start off in Lyon, France where #1 seed and countryman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga is playing with fellow countryman Gilles Simon.  After them two the quality of players drops off. 

Marin Cilic is the #1 seed in Vienna, Austria, which seems to have the best field of the three ATP tournaments this week.  Other players competing are:  Radek Stepanek, Philipp Kohlschreiber, Gael Monfils, John Isner, Feliciano Lopez, and Jurgen Melzer.

The tournament in St. Petersburg, Russia lacks star quality.  When the #30 ranked Mikhail Youzhny is your #1 seed you know its pretty weak.  Other players in the field are:  Victor Hanescu, Viktor Troicki, Jeremy Chardy, Igor Andreev, Marat Safin, and Richard Gasquet.