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French update: Sharapova in, Hingis, Guga outSlump breakers: Federer muddles through, Blake wins
Sharapova is traveling without her touring coach Michael Joyce, who is still at home attending to family business after the recent death of his mother. Joyce will rejoin Sharapova at the grass-court tournament in Birmingham in June. Joyce's close friend Eric Basica will serve as Sharapova's hitting partner in the interim. While it's good to see Sharapova get back on court, the tour suffered another blow when the tennis world's most accomplished talker, Martina Hingis, pulled out of the French Open with a hip injury. While it's too soon to close the books on Hingis' career, if the injury is serious, her fans may as well bury their hopes that she'll ever win another Slam. No player has suffered a serious hip injury and returned to their once glorious level of play. Look what's happened to Guga Kuerten, whose comeback from his surgery has stalled again. On Thursday, the three- time Roland Garros champ also pulled out of Paris. He's 2-7 on the year and hasn't played since Miami. He is training at home in Brazil but says that he still is having too many down days on the practice court. Roger Federer is admittedly struggling now, but at least he's willing to scrape and claw and, in that manner, may rediscover a semblance of his game. In a piece I wrote for foxsports.com, Jimmy Arias had some insightful comments as to what irks Roger on clay. On Wednesday, the No. 1 looked very shaky in his 6-3, 2-6, 6-4 win over Juan Monaco in Hamburg, nearly going down a break in the third set. Had he lost that match, you may as well have kissed his Roland Garros chances goodbye, because his confidence would have been absolutely shattered. "It was a hard fought win but maybe that was just what I needed," said Federer. "I've spent more time on the practice courts than in matches lately and I need to pick up as many wins as possible now going into the French Open." He'll face Juan Carlos Ferrero, a very good test, who bested Marat Safin 6-3, 7-6(15). The Safin suicide watch is on again. BTW: When talking to Pete Sampras a couple weeks back and listening to him discuss his 2002 down period, he mentioned how upset he was that critics were blaming his relationship with his soon-to-be-bride Bridgette Wilson. Pete over-dramatizes how many critics took a swipe at Bridgette's Wimbledon love notes, but be that as it may, when do we start blaming Mirka Vavrinec for Roger's slump (smile, smile)? Winning Hamburg would be a near cure all for Roger, but only if he picks off Rafael Nadal in the final and the odds of that happening at this point are very slim. Nadal stretched his clay court winning streak to 78 matches by besting fellow Spaniard Oscar Hernandez 7-5, 6-1. Talk about a man who owns his countrymen on their surface of choice. In an interesting twist, Nadal will face Igor Andreev, who was the last man to beat him on clay in April 2005 in Valencia. Andreev might want to ask his girlfriend, Maria Kirilenko, to sit court side and try to distract Rafa, because Nadal is displaying a more superior style today than he was back then. Rafa doesn't care who he's facing and, like every one else in Germany, is just hoping to warm his cold bones. "I just hope the sun comes out." There were more than a few notable wins posted with this unusually star-studded Hamburg field. Carlos Moya upended Tomas Berdych 3-6, 7-5, 7-6(6). Lleyton Hewitt, who looks like he will be hiring Fed's-ex Tony Roche, took a surprisingly impressive clay-court win by downing Juan Ignacio Chela 6-2, 7-6(3). And how about this: an American male won a match on red clay again! None other than James Blake, who bested Arnaud Clement 6-2, 6-3. It's good to see Blake putting his chin strap on during the clay-court season. His buddy Andy Roddick has played all of two matches on clay this year and won't play again till the French Open. He's all but conceded the clay-court season. Jim Courier, Michael Chang, Andre Agassi et al are shaking their collective heads. MOMO HAS LOST HER MOJOIt's easy to see Amelie Mauresmo going out early in Paris as she failed to slice and dice Samantha Stosur in a 7-5, 6-7(4), 7-6(7) defeat in Rome. Mauresmo was also knocked out early in Berlin and just came back from a two-month layoff due to appendicitis. At this point, she shouldn't even worry about Paris, but focus on honing her game for Wimbledon, where she will attempt to defend her title. Why stress out mentally when she knows that she'll never calm her nerves in a big match on Court Philippe Chatrier? No other major seeds went down, but a few potential popcorn matches got soggy when Shahar Peer destroyed Ai "please retire now" Sugiyama 6-0, 6-2. Svetlana Kuznetsova beat home-country-girl Mara Santangelo and Daniela Hantuchova blitzed Sybille Bammer 6-1, 6-2. Don't expect much from Sania Mirza 'til Wimbledon, but she could be more insightful in her WTA blog. … Two-time RG champ Sergi Bruguera won his second successive senior clay court in Italy, besting Wayne Ferreira 6-3, 6-4 in the final. John McEnroe went 0-3 there and it looks like it's time for the 48-year-old to rest his sore back, otherwise NBC and TTC will have to wheel him into the analyst's chair during RG. … The USTA selected Stowe, Vt. as the site for the Fed Cup by BNP Paribas semifinal between the United States and Russia on July 14-15. The matches will be played at the Topnotch Resort and Spa. The USTA will build a 3,000 seat venue, next to the existing indoor tennis facility at Topnotch.© TennisReporters.net 2007
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