WTA July 14-20 Bank of the West Classic Stanford, CA Tier II $600,000 28 players - outdoor: hard Live Scores results - TV: ESPN2 WTA .pdf: draws & OOP - notes pics: Sportsline - Yahoo! - WTA Stanford: radar - forecast sports: Chronicle - Stan Daily # , # # , # Gastein Ladies, Bad Gastein, AUT Tier IV $175,000 32 players - outdoor: red clay Live Scores WTA .pdf: draws & OOP - tour. OOP pics: WTA - webcam Austria: radar (Europe) - forecast # , # # , #

Tourney pages: Stanford & Bad Gastein: 2007   Stanford: 2006 - 2005 - 2004 - 2003 previous other tourney pages next Stanford 2007: #38 Sania Mirza 5' 7" 132 lb, RH, 2H-BH Stanford 2007: #8 Anna Chakvetadze 5' 7" 128 lb, RH, 2H-BH

    The Stanford & Bad Gastein draws are not yet available as of this writing (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.

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Stanford, 2007:
    On Sunday at Stanford University, in the final of the Bank of the West Classic, 20-year-old top-seeded # 8 Anna Chakvetadze from Moscow, Russia, handily defeated 20-year-old unseeded # 38 Sania Mirza from Hyderabad, India, 6-3, 6-2 (photos shown). Anna's prize is $88,265; Sania's, $47,125.

    Although Anna only put 55% of her 1st serves in the box, and had 7 double faults, she won 83% of her 1st serve points (Sania: 63%, 2 DFs, 56%). It was Anna's 2nd title in a row; she also won last week in Cincinnati. Sania, who was sidelined by a knee injury (ACL) earlier this year, reached the final by scoring upset victories over # 16 Patty Schnyder, # 19 Tatiana Golovin, and # 24 Sybille Bammer.

    Anna said: "I had some trouble with my serve in the first set, but my win yesterday helped me, because I started to concentrate on every point. I was trying to move Sania around the court and it worked well for me today...
    "[Sania] had a great week this week. In Cincinnati [semis] we had so many unforced errors and it wasn't good to watch. But we were both playing better here." WTA story

    Sania said: "After I lost the first set [Anna] just dominated - hats off to her, she played her some great tennis this week. She comes up with her best in the final and I'm just really impressed."

    Both players prefer hard courts, but Anna now leads Sania 3-0 in career matches; and both of their prior meetings were earlier this year on hard courts, most recently in last week's Cincinnati semis, where Anna won, 6-2, 5-7, 6-3.

    Batting a thousand: Anna is now 6-0 in WTA singles finals, and has a 46-11 match record in 2007. Sania is now 1-2 in WTA singles finals and has a 20-12 match record for the year; she won her title in 2005 in the town where she resides, Hyderabad, India. Both players will be at career-highs when the new rankings come out on Monday, Anna at # 6, and Sania tying her previous best at # 31.

    Busy day: Both Sania (teamed with Shahar Peer) and Anna (with partner Victoria Azarenka) also reached the Stanford doubles final, which followed the singles after they rested a bit. This time Sania & Shahar prevailed, 6-4, 7-6(5) (Sania's 2nd doubles title in a row; she won in Cincinnati paired with Bethanie Mattek). The ladies can now move on down to San Diego, where Anna will be glad she has a 1st round bye; Sania will play her friend and doubles partner Shahar Peer in the 1st round, probably on Tuesday.

Bad Gastein, 2007:
    "How 'bout a Fresca?" In the Bad Gastein final on Sunday, 27-year-old top-seeded # 31 Francesca Schiavone of Italy (residence: London, England) won her first WTA singles title, eliminating an unsightly bagel by defeating unseeded 23-year-old # 83 Yvonne Meusberger from Seefeld, Austria.
    Former # 11 Francesca is a fine player, but previously had the unfortunate distinction of being 0-8 in WTA singles finals; she has won 6 WTA doubles titles. Yvonne, currently at her career-high ranking, was playing in her 1st WTA singles final; she has won 9 ITF singles titles and 3 ITF doubles titles. Francesca and Yvonne had played only once before, in the 1st round of this year's French Open, where Francesca also won, 6-2, 6-4.

    Francesca said: "[Yvonne] started playing much better in the second set, and I said to myself, 'If she's going to play like this then I'll raise my level too, and if she beats me like that then that's okay.' But I never thought about maybe losing the ninth final. You just have to focus point by point and not think about the past or future, just the present. When I hit that last shot, I had strong emotions." WTA story
    Yvonne said: "I was really happy to play the final. I was a little bit nervous, but I played a really great match and had a lot of fun. I kept fighting and always believed I could win, but at the end [Francesca] was really strong and fighting too."

Bad Gastein player's blog by Agnes Szavay

    The Bad Gastein tourney, on red clay, is new in 2007. Bad Gastein is located about 90 kilometers (56 miles) from Salzburg.

WTA SCOREBOARD: Stanford & Bad Gastein s=seed, #=rank, *=upset, LL=lucky loser ranks are for the previous week How do players get into the "draw"? The Bank of the West Classic  Stanford University, Palo Alto, California   NWS weather radar tourney time:        = GMT -7 hours        = US EDT -3 hours        = US PDT San Francisco Bay Area news - California news Weather Forecast | Weather Maps | Weather Radar   click for broader view   Stanford University tennis courts Lat.: 37.430637 Lon.: -122.16188 goto link for World Wind     Stanford: The 28-player main draw for Stanford has 8 seeds, with 4 1st-round byes. There are 4 qualifiers and 3 wild cards in the main draw. Qualifying finals are on Monday. Bank of the West Classic venue address: Taube Family Tennis Stadium, Stanford, CA 94305     2008 is the 38th year of the tourney that has become the Bank of the West Classic, the longest-running women-only pro tennis tournament. The Bank of the West Classic has been held at Stanford University's Taube Tennis Stadium since 1997. 37,226 people attended the 13 sessions in 2005. The tourney is owned and operated by IMG (International Management Group); Bank of the West has been the tourney's title sponsor since 1992. 2007: On Monday, July 23, at Stanford, during the press "all-access hour," 4th-seed and 2006 finalist Patty Schnyder autographed goods to be auctioned for charity, thus avoiding reporters endless intimations that her hair might not be entirely naturally curly, but, rather, assisted in some way by some chemical process or something or other... leaving it to straighter-haired young ladies such as 2nd seeded Marion Bartoli, top-seeded Anna Chakvetadze, and 3rd-seeded Daniela Hantuchova to explain to the members of the media, as modestly as possible, that they are so pretty not only because they have such good hair, but also because they are such good girls...

Stanford, 1st Rd, Mon 1pm, Tue 11am losers' prize: $4,175 US; points: 1

Stanford, 2nd Rd, Wed-Thu 11am losers' prize: $7,820 US; points: 35

Stanford, QFs, Fri noon losers' prize: $14,600 US; points: 70

Stanford, SFs, Sat 1pm losers' prize: $27,300 US; points: 125

Stanford, Final, Sun noon loser's prize: $51,000 US; points: 190 winner's prize: $95,500 US; points: 275

Stanford, Doubles Final, Sun 2pm+ losers' prize: $16,120 US winners' prize: $30,000 US Stanford, Qual Finals, Mon Jul 14 11am losers' prizes: q1 $640 1pt; q2 $1,195 3pts; q3 $2,230 10pts; qualifier 15 points Stanford, Withdrawals

Gastein Ladies,  Bad Gastein, Austria   tourney time:        = GMT +2 hours        = US EDT +6 hours        = US PDT +9 hours Austria News Weather Forecast | Weather Maps | Weather Radar     Bad Gastein: The 32-player main draw for Bad Gastein 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   Bad Gastein, Austria, area (close-up N/A) Latitude: 47.119906 Longitude: 13.130722 goto link for World Wind The Gastein Valley is a skiing area; Bad Gastein is at an altitude of 1000 meters, and is near Stubnerkogel, 2246 meters. 2007: On Sunday, July 22, Flavia Pennetta and Lourdes Dominguez Lino took a whirlybird ride from the airport to the tourney site... Also on Sunday, Austrian retired former WTA # 12 Judith (Weisner) Floimair attended the draw ceremony...

Bad Gastein, 1st Rd, Mon-Wed 10am losers' prize: $1,300 US; points: 1

Bad Gastein, 2nd Rd, Thu 10am losers' prize: $2,200 US; points: 20

Bad Gastein, QFs, Fri 11am losers' prize: $4,050 US; points: 35

Bad Gastein, SFs, Sat noon losers' prize: $7,700 US; points: 65

Bad Gastein, Final, Sun noon loser's prize: $14,650 US; points: 100 winner's prize: $28,000 US; points: 140

Bad Gastein, Doubles Final, Sun losers' prize: $4,350 US winners' prize: $8,250 US Bad Gastein, Qual Finals, Mon Jul 14 10am losers' prizes: q1 $200 1pt; q2 $350 3pts; q3 $650 4pts; qualifier 8 points Bad Gastein, Withdrawals

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.