Seeds Buried in Toronto
by Ben Rothenberg on Aug 20, 2009 10:45 AM EDT
in Analysis
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I'm on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls for a few more hours, and I can smell the stink of the Toronto seeds' play from here.
Of the sixteen seeds in the fifty-six-player Toronto draw, only five have made the Round of 16. Even worse, the top eight seeds had a bye to the second round.
Seeds have won less than half their matches against unseeded players in Toronto, compiling a record of 10-11 in their first and second round matches.
Here's a breakdown of how the sixteen have done, and which five are left standing.
Dinara Safina(Bye in first round, upset by Aravane Rezai in second round)- Serena Williams (Bye in first round, defeated Yaroslava Shvedova in second round)
Venus Williams(Bye in first round, upset by Kateryna Bondarenko in second round)- Elena Dementieva (Bye in first round, defeated Ai Sugiyama in second round)
- Jelena Jankovic (Bye in first round, defeated Patty Schnyder in second round)
Svetlana Kuznetsova(Bye in first round, upset by Samantha Stosur in second round)- Vera Zvonareva (Bye in first round, defeated Roberta Vinci in second round)
Caroline Wozniacki(Bye in first round, upset by Zheng Jie in second round)Victoria Azarenka(Defeated Shuai Peng in first round, upset by Kim Clijsters in second round)Nadia Petrova(Upset by Maria Sharapova in first round)Ana Ivanovic(Defeated Magdalena Rybarikova in first round, upset by Lucie Safarova in second round)Flavia Pennetta(Defeated Maria Kirilenko in first round, upset by Virginie Razzano in second round)Marion Bartoli(Upset by Alona Bondarenko in first round)- Agnieszka Radwanska (Defeated Carla Suarez Navarro in first round, defeated Agnes Szavay in second round)
Amelie Mauresmo(Upset by Francesca Schiavone in first round)Dominika Cibulkova(Defeated Sara Errani in first round, upset by Alisa Kleybanova in second round)
What accounts for this massacre of the favorites? Depth in the women's game? Exhaustion from playing last week in Cincinnati? A ranking system that poorly reflects who the top players in the game are? Lack of focus on Toronto due to the looming US Open?
Or something else entirely?
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I don’t know what happened to Ivanovic last night. She was serving for the match in set 2 and lost, partly as a result of running out of challenges on some poor decisions earlier in the set. She also had a couple of untimely shots into the top of the net. Tennis is a game of inches, and it all came apart for her in her final service game. I missed the final set of that one, so I can’t comment on that. Safarova played tough, it was good tennis in that match from what I saw of it, but one break for Ana in Game 10 of the second set and it would’ve been a straight sets win.
Venus has never won a singles match at the Canadian Open. She’s been at the tournament 3 times, and is 0-3. Who knows why that is.
Some good players beat Mauresemo, Petrova, Azarenka, Wozniacki, and Kuznetsova. I don’t care what their world ranking is, I don’t consider those wins big upsets.
It’s a little surprising to see the forest, but when you look at the trees it becomes a bit easier to see. It is a strong field for a WTA event, and I don’t know if some of the top players were ready mentally for it.
Hockey blogging can't get any flatter.
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