Rogers Cup Women Championship 2010 to start today, Kim Clijsters hot favorite
The Rogers Cup Women Tennis Championship 2010 will start tonight in Montreal. Aleksandra Wozniak will be facing Swiss Timea Bacsinszky and later on Stephanie Dubois will meet Klara Zakopalova in today’s single matches.
In the doubles, Marie-Eve Pelletier along with Sharon Fichman will take on Wozniacki and Daniela Hantuchova where as El Tabakh and Rebecca Marino will contest Zheng Jie and Yung-Jan Chan. The top eight seeds of the tournament have received a first round bye.
Things have changed a great deal since last time when the ladies were in Montreal back in 2008. Ana Ivanovic was the top ranking player then followed by Svetlana Kuznetsova, Jelena Jankovic and Elena Dementieva. However, the rankings have changed drastically this season. Today, Ana Ivanovic is nowhere to be found in the entire top fifty WTA world rankings list whereas Dinara Safina is currently ranked number thirty five. The Russian Maria Sharapova as well as Svetlana Kuznetsova were ranked number three and four respectively in 2008 but this season they are on number fifteen and fourteen respectively. Ranked at number eight at that time, Anna Chakvetadze is not even playing this season. The Swiss tennis ace, Patty Schnyder was seeded ninth where as this season she hardly made it through to the qualifying round of the competition.
The current number one tennis star, Serena Williams who has dominated the women’s tennis competitions for the past couple of years is not participating in the Rogers Cup. Therefore, the field is pretty much open for the rest of the players without any measure of speculations. Kim Clijsters, who defeated Maria Sharapova to win the Cincinnati Open 2010, will arrive today as one of the hot favorites to win the title. Sharapova on the other hand, had announced her withdrawal from the tournament as a result of heel injury."I felt some pain in my foot during the second set of the final battle. This actually worried me so I have been pushed to miss the Rogers Cup for US Open”, stated Sharapova on her website.
The top seeded Jelena Jankovic while commenting on the Rogers Cup said, “I am looking forward to play my very best and get myself fully prepared prior to the US Open.” However, she said, “I have faced some injury problems in the recent past therefore I don’t have any high expectations from Rogers Cup. My only aim is to perform at the very best”. The French Open winner Francesca Schiavone was seeded number fourteen back in 2008 but was knocked down by Tamira Paszek in her very first round then. This time, however, the thirty year Old Italian is seeded number sixth to win the title in Montreal. The seventh seeded Agnieszka Radwanska, one of the less popular players in the top ten WTA rankings also isn't dreaming too high. “For me the most important thing is that I am enjoying my game to a great extent at the moment. I am looking forward to further improve it’, said Radwanska.
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