Notes on a Draw Sheet

Serena's bad headache day, Coria recovering
The Simple Gossip: The Paris Hilton rumors

By Matthew Cronin, TennisReporters.net

Susan Mullane/Camerawork USA

A headache slows down Serena on court and in the WTA race to the Championships.

Even though she suffered her most shocking loss of the year at the hands of Alina Jidkova in Linz on Wednesday, Serena William has all but locked up a spot in the season-ending WTA Championships.

While one of the trio of Venus Williams, Jennifer Capriati and Vera Zvonareva will grab the eighth and final place, only Zvonareva – who's still in the Linz draw – really has a fair shot of knocking Serena out of the seventh spot. Venus and Capriati will have to win Philadelphia next week and beat a slew of ranked player en route to even touch Serena, who as of Wednesday, is about 289 points ahead of Venus and 332 ahead of Capriati.

It shouldn't come as a total surprise that Capriati will play Philly. But given that she hasn't played since the US Open, it's an eye-opener at least. But as of last night, her plan was to head to Philly this coming weekend. She'll need to win at least two matches and possibly the tournament to qualify for LA. She's also has to hope that Venus falters, or she gets a chance to meet and beat her.

Serena has to be the first player in history to claim she lost because of a headache, but it sure looked a migraine from here. That's painful. Jidkova, one of the "Tennis Angels" with Jennifer Hopkins, Henrieta Nagyova and Emmanuelle Gagliardi, has been known more for her good looks than fine play.

The rusty Serena must have played terribly. "My knee was pretty OK, but I suffered from a bad headache," Williams said. "I am really disappointed, but I felt really dizzy and was lacking energy."

Back to Zvonareva, who will have to reach the Linz semis to put her in a virtual tie with Venus and Capriati by Philly time, which means she'll have to take down the capable Nathalie Dechy and Patty Schnyder in Linz, victories she is capable of, but the types of wins that haven't come easy for the Russian this fall.

Elena Dementieva, who has already qualified, believes the last two entrants will be "Venus or Vera because I don't think Jennifer (Capriati) is playing. She didn't play anything indoors. So I really feel like this shows they really want to get in and they're trying their best."

Does Dementieva herself have a shot at the title? "I think that maybe six players have a chance to win this year," she said. " There is not really one or two who can take a title and that's why it's going to be an interesting event. But I can't really tell who it's going to be. I hope it's going to be me... I can't say for everybody, but for myself it's been the goal for the year, to be in L.A. and not to be -- not just to be there but to play my best tennis and I'm taking it as one of the biggest events of the year and it's very different for me to compete against this group, the best players in the world and just to see how good I am. I think that everyone has a chance to be number one and there is a huge respect for this event, so I just take it very seriously."

federer injury could open up houston
The race to TMC Houston is getting interesting, but if Roger Federer doesn't recover from his thigh injury, the tournament's star appeal will take a major blow. Of course, without the nearly unbeatable Swiss in the field, at least the tournament will be super-competitive. It should be a terrific race for the final three spots between Marat Safin, Tim Henman, Andre Agassi, David Nalbandian and Guillermo Coria. Fed, Andy Roddick, Lleyton Hewitt and French champ Gaston Gaudio have already qualified and Carlos Moya is pretty much a lock. All save the still injured Coria are in action this week.

Henman defeated Antony Dupuis 6-3, 6-4 to advance to the second round of the Swiss Indoors. Nalbandian, who is tenth in the race, clocked Mario Ancic 6-4, 6-3 in Basel. Agassi took out Kristof Vliegen 6-2, 6-4 in the first round of the Stockholm Open. The 34-year-old Agassi will face a familiar foe, the 32-year-old Swede Jonas Bjorkman. In St. Petersburg, Safin moved on when Alexander Peya retired in the second set with an ankle injury. … Coria says he's recovering fast from his shoulder surgery, but is still scared something might occur. He trained in Madrid with Nalbandian and Agustin Calleri. Don't count him out of TMS Paris.

The Simple Gossip: The Paris Hilton rumors

Fox

Who doesn't want to be hooked up with Paris Hilton? Mark Philippoussis and Andy Roddick? Despite tabloid rumors to the contrary, sources say that neither Philippoussis nor Roddick locked lips with Ms. Hilton in Las Vegas last weekend. Hilton's publicist denied the Philippoussis rumor, as did Philippoussis himself. Roddick apparently didn't even meet up with Hilton in Vegas last weekend and was in town as a guest of Elton John. To address another Roddick rumor, a source says he's not dating Olympian Amanda Beard, either. But she was at the US Open watching him closely.

If you want the real scoop on the Philippoussis-Delta Goodrem split, read TennisReporters.net.net contributor's. Robert Lusetich's account in The Australian: Here's an excerpt:

Mark Philippoussis dumped Delta Goodrem because his tennis career was "going down the gurgler," according to the player's father and coach, Nick. "Things weren't working out well," Nick Philippoussis said in an exclusive interview with The Australian from his son's 6million Florida home.

He accused Goodrem's mother and manager Lea – whom many consider the power behind the pop queen's throne – of making his son into a public villain after the split, which occurred earlier this month. "What has he done? Did Mark kill anybody? Did he rape anybody?" Nick said.

"They were not married, they weren't even engaged. I'm trying to understand what's the problem? Mark made a decision. His tennis has been going down the gurgler for the past 10 months and he decided to change things. Mark decided, 'Let's go ahead with my tennis and make that the priority.' What's wrong with that? Mother Delta and Co are trying to make him into someone who's done something wrong."

QUOTE OF THE DAY
Dementieva: " I'm playing tennis because I think that's the most interesting game that I have ever seen."