WTA Championships Preview

Rating the top eight: Mauresmo, Davenport the favorites
Sharapova threat in the red group, Myskina in the black

By Matthew Cronin, TennisReporters.net

Photos: Susan & Fred Mullane/Camerawork USA, Ron Cioffi/TR.net, WTA Tour

FROM THE WTA CHAMPIOSNHIPS IN LA – In one of the most wildly unpredictable seasons in WTA Tour history, the top eight (healthy) women will begin play at the WTA Tour Championships on Wednesday.

The two round robins groups were announced Monday. The tougher Red Group will be made up of Lindsay Davenport, Anastasia Myskina, Elena Dementieva and Serena Williams, while the Black Group will trot out Amelie Mauresmo, Svetlana Kuznetsova, Maria Sharapova and Vera Zvonareva.

The top two players from both groups will advance to the semis. The winner has been crowned next Monday night. The No. 1 ranking is at stake, with Lindsay Davenport holding a 351-point lead over No. 2 Amelie Mauresmo. Mauresmo has a tall task ahead of her: If Davenport reaches the final, she'll end the year at No. 1, regardless of what Mauresmo does.

The following capsules rate the eight players based on their expected finishes.
1. Amelie Mauresmo: Back in October, she was called her a paper tiger No. 1 due to her failure to win a Slam this year. But, given that, her main competition for the year-end top spot – Davenport – is also Slam-less this year. If Mauresmo wins her sixth title at the Championships, there will be legitimate dead carcasses left all over the Staples Center.

Essentially, the legitimacy of the Frenchwoman's year comes down to this tournament. If she win the tournament and snares No. 1, her season will be looked on much more favorably. People's No. 1s usually win Slam titles, but if Mauresmo takes out a couple of 2004 Slam winners here and Davenport, she could then be legitimately called 2004's most impressive overall performer.

The all-courter been quite impressive this fall when healthy, grabbing the titles in Linz and Philly during the last two weeks and notching victories over the likes of Venus Williams and Zvonareva. Extremely talented but injury prone (she pulled a stomach muscle during a showdown-for-No. 1 final against Davenport at Filderstadt in mid-October), the 25-year-old has more variety than anyone does out there with Justine Henin-Hardenne still nursing an illness. She's a delight to watch and a tremendous competitor when she doesn't get tight. Mauresmo is well aware of the fact that this is now her most important to date. It's the fifth Slam with four other competitors looking to prove they deserve the mantle of the People's No. 1. If she can play the stopper and win a big tournament that's she quite capable of taking, she'll put herself into prime position to win a Slam next year. If she doesn't, it's back to the therapist's couch.

2. Lindsay Davenport: This was supposed to be the Southern California native's last tournament, but improved health and a desire for an elusive fourth Slam changed Davenport's mind. If healthy, she'll play a fairly full schedule next year, mostly because her amazing four-title run on hardcourts last summer convinced her she was the world's best when all her body parts were singing sweet tunes together.

But even though she has been relatively healthy since Roland Garros, she hasn't been perfect, which is why she failed to win the US Open. She played a bit this fall and then caught the flu. A knockdown, drag-out competitor indoors, Davenport certainly feels like she can hit through anyone in the field, with the exception of a zoning Sharapova. The question isn't whether she can cleanly strike her way through the draw, it's really whether her body can survive five tough matches in six days. Davenport doesn't want to end the year as No. 1 without a major title and this one is as good as it gets outside the Slams. She and Mauresmo are the two favorites to win and if they play each other in the final, Davenport can count on significant fan support. She'll also need to count on some very consistent serving and returning to repel the Frenchwoman.

3. Maria Sharapova: Just when you thought that the Wimbledon champion was taking the easy way out and bouncing through weak fields in Asia, Sharapova stepped up in a big way in Zurich and Philly. Yes, she failed to win both titles, but you can essentially blame a sore shoulder for her loss to Alicia Molik in Switzerland (she then beat her Philly) and, of course, as the reason why she pulled out of her semifinal in Philly against Mauresmo. Sharapova has all the tools to be No. 1: huge strokes off the ground, a blowtorch return and an improving serve. Like the sleek grass at Wimbledon, the thin air indoors serves her rapid-fire attack very well.

The ultra-competitive teen wants to prove she's a true Top-5 player and will get a wonderful opportunity here. The question is: Can her shoulder survive five matches in a shot period of time? Maybe not, but if she scores some huge wins to get out of the round robin, the new billboard queen of tennis will have plenty to smile about – especially if those victories comes against her young Russian nemesis's like Sveta and Vera.

4. Anastasia Myskina: Personality wise, when Myskina is in a good mood, she's as colorful and entertaining as anyone is on tour. The same goes on court, where's she wily enough to pick opponents apart and potent enough from the baseline to elicit gasps from the crowd. The 23-year-old main problem is that week in, week out, she can't get a handle on her emotions, which is why she won Moscow in such spectacular fashion last month and then took a frightful loss to Nadia Petrova last week in Philly, dashing her hopes of grabbing the year-end top spot.

But wait just a minute: If Myskina does manage to win the Championships, there will be those who say that her one Slam title at Roland Garros and the Championships are enough to make her the player of the year. There isn't a player in the field anymore that she's afraid of, so you have to give her a very decent shot at the title – if she serves very well. But she's in the group of death with Davenport, Serena and Dementieva. She'll have to come in super-motivated to take out the two Americans playing in or near their hometowns.

5. Svetlana Kuznetsova: A true jock with a lumberjack's game from inside the baseline, Kuznetsova is much sweeter off court than she appears when clubbing balls stone-faced on court. With a murderous forehand and bike sprinter's oak tree legs, she can take down anyone when she's on. After her stunning run to the US Open title, she has had an average fall, losing to Serena in a tight final in Beijing, out-thought by Mauresmo in Filderstadt and wiped out by Dementieva in Moscow. Still, the 19-year-old has the serve and the firepower to make a statement here in her first appearance at the Championships. She has no shot at No. 1, but could get out of the Black Group as she's certainly capable of beating Zvonareva and Sharapova.

6. Serena Williams: By her own admission, this has been the six-time Slam champ's worse season ever. Much of that has to do with the knee injury that kept her out until March, but doesn't completely explain why she's only won two 2004 titles and took painful losses to Capriati at the French and the US Open and to Sharapova at Wimbledon. That fact is that she's lost a good deal of confidence, has let her conditioning slide and is having technical problems.

When she's practicing a lot, Serena has shown flashes of her dominant form. When she's spending too much time pursuing her multiple other interests, she's been a shadow of her former self. Give Serena props for winning Beijing just after the US Open and give her a free pass for the migraine that beset her in Linz, but she embarrassed herself by pulling out of Philly and then showing up at a London movie premier a few days later. Numerous celebs will come out to watch this Beverly Hills resident in LA and you know she doesn't want to get publicly waxed – unless it's at a certain Madam's museum in London town. But, she hasn't been practicing that much and may be too rusty to contend with Davenport, Myskina and Dementieva, who are going to make her hot a ton of balls and test her conditioning. Serena's intentions in the sport are somewhat mysterious, but she always battled hard when she shows up. You can never count a six-time Slam champ out of a title run.

7. Elena Dementieva: With her slow-as-molasses, swerving slice, she's become the poster girl of poor serving. That's too bad because off the ground, this leaping Russian is as lethal as anyone out there. She admits that it's her serve that's keeping her back from winning a Slam and is the main reason why she fell in the Roland Garros and US Open finals this year. Like Kuznetsova, the 23-year-old plays way too many tournaments and needs to conserve her energy more for the big events. But she'll fight hard to win this one because if she does, she'll end 2004 with her highest career ranking and her biggest title to date. Plus, it will give her tremendous confidence that she can win a 2005 Slam. A dark horse for sure, but a working horse who's capable of busting out of the stable.

8. Vera Zvonareva: She's still only 20, so it's hard to call her a complete underachiever yet. But how many times will Zvonareva lose close three-setters to the elite players before she wakes up and realizes that the same shots that get her out to early leads can also reappear at crunch time if she believes they are really there? A tremendous force from inside the baseline and a nifty mover, the Russian is often an emotional basket case, but then in Philly, she suddenly pulled it together and knocked off Jennifer Capriati and Nadia Petrova in two huge matches. Yes, she fell to Mauresmo in the final, but don't think that Vera didn't gain big confidence from booting Jennifer out of the Championships. It was a turning point for her. She's the only one in the field who can really say she has nothing to lose, which makes her the player no one wants to see glaring across the net.