WTA: Aug 11-17 2008 2008 Olympics Tennis Beijing, CHN venue 32 players - outdoor: hard Deco-Turf II Live Scores pics: Yahoo! - Beijing 2008 Beijing: forecast ITF: 2008 Beijing Olympics Tennis # , # # , # W&S Financial Open Tier III Lindner Tennis Center, Cincinnati, OH $175,000 - 32 players - outdoor: hard Live Scores - in popup window results - order of play WTA pdf.: draws & OOP - notes tourney draws     pics: tourney     WTA     Yahoo! WSF - CO Cincinnati: radar - forecast     Sports: Post - Enquirer # , # # , #

Cincinnati: 2007 - 2006 - 2005 - 2004   Athens Olympics: 2004 previous other tourney pages next Athens, 2004: #1 Justine Henin 5' 5¾" 126 lb, RH, 1H-BH Cincinnati 2007: #8 Anna Chakvetadze 5' 7" 128 lb, RH, 2H-BH

    The Olympic and Cincinnati draws are not yet available as of this writing (WTA qualifying draws are usually up on the Friday before the tourney begins, main draws on Saturday, sometimes later). The links are above for your convenience when the draws become available.

Beijing 2008 entries:
    "Sony Ericsson WTA Tour Rankings will be used as the basis for determining the top 56 direct acceptances in the 64-player singles draw for women, subject to limitations outlined below as well as existing eligibility requirements.

    "Depending on the singles rankings of their women players, nations can be eligible for up to four entries into the singles and may be able to nominate a separate doubles team for direct acceptance if a doubles player is ranked in the top ten. By virtue of this agreement, the maximum number of women players on-site per country is raised from four to six.

    "Six of the remaining eight singles places will be selected by the ITF's Olympic Committee taking into consideration a player's singles computer ranking and a geographic distribution of nations entered, as well as two Tripartite Commission Invitations decided by the IOC, National Olympic Committees and the ITF." WTA story

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Athens 2004:
    On Saturday in Athens, in the final of the 2004 Summer Olympics tennis competition, top-seeded # 1 Justine Henin-Hardenne of Belgium won the Olympic gold medal by defeating 2nd-seeded # 2 Amelie Mauresmo of France 6-3, 6-3 (the ladies are shown on the podium during the awards ceremony).
    Justine's serve was not broken throughout the match; she played aggressively, varying her attack, occasionally serve-and-volleying. Justine broke Amelie in the 3rd game of the 1st set (not the 1st game, as current AP reports say) and again when leading 5-3 to take the set.
    After Justine held to open the 2nd set, Amelie served for the longest game of the match, a game that reached deuce 6 times while Amelie held the advantage only once. Justine broke her to go ahead 2-0, and although the play was not lopsided, Justine was clearly on her way to victory. Serving for the match at 5-3, Justine even had the luxury of winning the gold medal with an overhead smash match point.
    Justine said: "I don't know how I'm going to celebrate but I certainly will... This is just amazing and at last I'm well and getting better the more I play." story
    Amelie said: "[Justine] started very, very strongly. She didn’t give me a chance to play my game." story

Cincinnati 2007:
    On Sunday in Cincinnati, Ohio, in the final of the Western & Southern Financial Group Open, 20 year old top seeded # 8 Anna Chakvetadze from Moscow, Russia, handily defeated 27 year old 7th seeded # 60 Akiko Morigami from Tokyo, Japan, 6-1, 6-3 (Anna is shown hoisting the glassware after the match).

    Anna said: "I didn't expect it to be so easy; I think [Akiko] was tired, because she had a tough match yesterday. I was trying to play every point very concentrated, because the last few days have been really up and down. If it had been like that today it would be really tough because she doesn't make easy mistakes and runs very fast. My game plan was to move her, make her run and be more aggressive." WTA story

    Surprisingly, Anna was 0-3 against Akiko in career matches prior to this match; Akiko defeated Anna in 2004, 2005, and 2006 on grass, hardcourt, and red clay.

    Akiko said: "Those three matches both of us played pretty well, but Anna's definitely a different player than a few years ago. The difficult thing about playing her is that she changes the direction every other ball, so I had to run side to side all the time. I tried to mix things up, but really just couldn't do it today... Anna was just too good. I give her a lot of credit."

    Anna is now 5-0 in WTA singles finals; she also won the titles earlier this year in 's-Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands, and Hobart, Tasmania. Anna has a 42-11 match record for 2007.
    Akiko, who has an 18-16 match record for the year, is now 1-2 in WTA singles finals; she won her title earlier this year in Prague.
2007 Cincinnati player's blog by Patty Schnyder

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WTA SCOREBOARD: Beijing Olympics & Cincinnati s=seed, #=rank, *=upset, LL=lucky loser ranks are for the previous week How do players get into the "draw"? Beijing 2008 Olympics Tennis,  Beijing, China       The time in Beijing is UCT (GMT, Zulu, Greenwich...) plus 8 hours. That is US EDT + 12 hours, PDT+15 hours. China news Plan your trip Local Radar Detailed Forecast     Beijing Olympics: The 64-player draw for the Beijing Olympics has 16 seeds, with no 1st-round byes. 56 entries are determined by WTA rankings, with up to 4 players per nation in the draw. 8 entries are selected by the ITF, IOC, & Nat'l OCs.     click for broader view   Beijing Olympic Green Tennis Courts location Latitude: 40.020401 Longitude: 116.370986 goto link for World Wind Beijing 2008 Olympic Green Tennis Courts are located at the northwest corner of the primary Olympics venue, on the south side of Beijing's 5th ring road. The Google Maps satellite photo was taken prior to construction, hopefully it will be updated before the Olympics begin.

Beijing Olympics, 1st Round, Sun-Mon loser's points: 1

Beijing Olympics, 2nd Round, Tues loser's points: 20

Beijing Olympics, 3rd Round, Weds 5pm start loser's points: 34

Beijing Olympics, QFs, Thurs 5pm start loser's points: 62

Beijing Olympics, SFs, Fri 5pm start loser's points: 94

Beijing Olympics, Final, Sat silver points: 174 gold points: 248

Beijing Olympics, Bronze Medal, Sat loser's points: 94 bronze points: 122 Beijing Olympics, Doubles Final, Sun Beijing Olympics, Doubles Bronze Medal, Sat Beijing Olympics, Withdrawals

The W&S Financial Open  Cincinnati, Ohio       The time at Cincinnati is UCT (GMT, Zulu...) -6 hours (=US Eastern Daylight Time, PDT +3). Ohio news     NWS weather radar     Cincinnati current conditions     Cincinnati: The main draw for Cincinnati has 8 seeds, with no 1st-round byes.     There are 4 qualifiers and 3 wild cards in the main draw.     Qualifying finals are on Monday.     click for broader view   Lindner Family Tennis Center, Mason, Ohio Lat.: 39.34876 Lon.: -84.276434 goto link for World Wind W&S Financial Open venue address: Lindner Family Tennis Center, 5460 Courseview Dr., Mason, OH 45040 2007: On Saturday, July 14 in Cincinnati, 2005 champ and 2007 2nd seed Patty Schnyder participated in the draw ceremony... On Monday, local wild card Kristin Flower, 5th seed Aiko Nakamura, and Bethanie Mattek signed autographs... And on Thursday, top seed Anna Chakvetadze visited the W&SFG HQ, and was awarded with a presumably lovely gift...

Cincinnati, 1st Round, Mon-Wed 11am loser's prize: $1,315 US; points: 1

Cincinnati, 2nd Round, Weds 11am-Thu 3pm loser's prize: $2,300 US; points: 20

Cincinnati, QFs, Fri 3pm loser's prize: $4,300 US; points: 35

Cincinnati, SFs, Sat 3pm loser's prize: $8,025 US; points: 65

Cincinnati, Final, Sun 1pm loser's prize: $15,000 US; points: 100 winner's prize: $28,000 US; points: 140

Cincinnati, Doubles Final, Sun loser's prize: $4,350 US winner's prize: $8,250 US Cincinnati, Qual Finals, Mon Aug 11 losers' prizes: q1 $360 1pt; q2 $670 3pts; qualifier 4 points Cincinnati, Withdrawals

    The Cincinnati tourney is a wee bit odd, inasmuch as 32 ladies (+ qualifying & doubles) play for $175,000, and a few weeks later 64 men (+ qualifying & doubles) play at the same place, in a tourney run by the same folks, for $2,450,000.
    The men are paid, on average, over 7 times as much per person as the ladies. This rarely is mentioned, which is strange considering the ruckus over equal pay at Wimbledon, where the discrepency was much smaller. Apparently everyone ignores this because the tourneys are not simultaneous.

See also: QuickShop: Sporting Goods - Martina Hingis - Anna Kournikova

Current WTA Results & Tennis News (tennis home page) - 2008 WTA Schedule with links & photos

Link to many postmatch interview & match highlight videos of WTA players at the 2008 WTA Player Videos page.

WTA PhotoRankings: the current top 20 Women's Tennis rankings with player photos, links, and bio info.