WTA May 3-8: Rome & Estoril Internazionali d' Italia Alice Cup Rome, ITA  PREMIER 5 $2,000,000 56m/32q/28d outdoor: red clay Live Scores draws: WTA tourney: draw, .pdf - OOP & results pics: Y!: sports - news | tourney - WTA Rome: weather - map Rome News - Italy News # , # # , # Estoril Open, Estoril, POR +ATP INTL $220,000 32m/32q/16d outdoor: red clay Live Scores draws: WTA results - order of play - draw pics: Y!: sports - news | tourney - WTA Estoril: weather radar - forecast # , # # , #

Tourney pages: Rome: 2008 - 2007 - 2006 - 2005 - 2004 - 2003 Rome & Estoril: 2009   Estoril: 2008 - 2007 - 2006 - 2005 - 2004 previous other tourney pages next Rome 2009: #1 Dinara Safina 5'11½" 154½lb RH 2H-BH Estoril 2009: #83 Yanina Wickmayer 6'0" 150lb RH 2H-BH

    The Rome & Estoril 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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  Rome, 2009:

    On Saturday in Rome, in the final of the Internazionali d' Italia Alice Cup (aka the Italian Open), 23-year-old top-seeded # 1 Dinara Safina of Russia (residence: Monte Carlo, Monaco) defeated last week's champion in Stuttgart, 23-year-old 7th-seeded # 9 Svetlana Kuznetsova of Russia (who also resides in Monte Carlo), 6-3, 6-2 (Dinara is shown with the hardware after the match). Dinara's prize is $350,000; Svetlana's is $175,000.

    Dinara said: "Today [Svetlana] was making way more unforced errors than she usually does... I was trying to get her off the baseline, because she feels very confident on the baseline... I had in my head that I had lost three finals this year. I was like ‘I don't want to have this that I'm losing finals’. I'm really happy that I could win the final today." tourney story

    Svetlana said: "Dinara was playing good tennis... I could not manage to play my game at all today... It was like a little bit Christmas today—I was giving too much presents. She was taking her chances and she was attacking and she was doing the right thing, and I was not." tourney story

    Dinara now leads Svetlana 8-5 in career matches, but Svetlana won their previous meeting, six days ago in the Stuttgart final, 6-4, 6-3. They are tied at 4-4 on clay.

    Valencia-trained 2009 Australian Open finalist Dinara is now 10-10 in WTA singles finals; she won titles last year in Tokyo (Pan Pacific), Montreal, LA and Berlin, and reached the French Open final, where she lost to Ana Ivanovic. Dinara has a 23-6 match record this season.
    Barcelona-trained 2004 US Open champion Svetlana is now 10-18 in WTA singles finals; she won last week at Stuttgart, and reached the finals at Sydney, Dubai, and Indian Wells last year. Svetlana is 21-6 in matches this year.

  Estoril, 2009:

    In the Estoril final on Saturday, 19-year-old unseeded # 83 Yanina Wickmayer from Deurne, Belgium, won her first WTA singles title by defeating 19-year-old 6th-seeded # 51 Ekaterina Makarova from Moscow, Russia, 7-5, 6-2 (Yanina is shown with the glassware after the match). Yanina's prize is $37,000; Ekaterina's is $19,000.

    Yanina said: "I've been playing well for a few weeks now. I didn't have great results but I've been practicing really well... I beat some good players this week, two or three seeded players, so I'm very happy." WTA story

    Ekaterina said: "Maybe I was a bit nervous today, but I'm happy to have made the final... Yanina is a really good player. At the start she missed a bit, but then she played without mistakes and maybe I was waiting for her to make them. She was the better player today."

    Yanina and Ekaterina had never before met on the field of combat.
    Yanina is now 1-1 in WTA singles finals; she reached her first final last year at Birmingham. She has won 9 ITF singles titles and 8 ITF doubles titles. Yanina has a 15-8 singles match record this season.
    Ekaterina is now 0-2 in WTA singles finals; but she had never progressed past the quarterfinals in WTA singles until she reached her first final one week ago in Fès. She has won 3 ITF singles titles and 9 ITF doubles titles. Ekaterina has a 13-8 singles match record in 2009.

    Estoril Player's Blog by Iveta Benesova

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WTA SCOREBOARD: Rome s=seed, #=rank, *=upset, LL=lucky loser ranks are for the previous week How do players get into the "draw"? Italian Open,  Rome, Italy   tourney time:        = GMT +2 hours        = US EDT +6 hours        = US PDT +9 hours Italy News Weather Forecast | Weather Maps | Weather Radar Rome: The 56-player main draw for Rome has 16 seeds, with 8 1st-round byes. There are 8 qualifiers and 5 wild cards in the main draw.     Qualifying finals are on Saturday.   click for broader view   Tennis stadia at Foro Italico, Viale delle Olimpiadi Latitude: 41.929318 Longitude: 12.457477 goto link for World Wind 2009: On Saturday, May 2, Ana Ivanovic and Victoria Azarenka played a little rooftop tennis and admired the view of Rome... On Monday, players including Serena Willliams, 2007 & '08 tourney champ Jelena Jankovic, Ana, & Dinara Safina played Meet the Press...

Rome, 1st Rnd, Sun-Mon 1pm loser's prize: $5,400 US; points: 1

Rome, 2nd Round, Mon-Tue 1pm losers' prize: $10,275 US; points: 70

Rome, 3rd Round, Wed 1pm losers' prize: $20,000 US; points: 125

Rome, QFs, Thu 1pm losers' prize: $40,000 US; points: 225

Rome, SFs, Fri 1:30pm & 4pm loser's prize: $87,500 US; points: 395

Rome, Final, Sat 4pm loser's prize: $175,000 US; points: 620 winner's prize: $350,000 US; points: 900

Rome, Doubles Final, Sat 1:30pm losers' prize: $50,000 US winners' prize: $100,000 US Rome, Qual Finals, Sat May 1 noon losers' prizes: q1 $1,500 1pt; q2 $2,900 20pts; qualifier 30 points Rome, Withdrawals

Estoril Open,  Estoril, Portugal   tourney time:        = GMT +1 hour        = US EDT +5 hours        = US PDT +8 hours Portugal News - Portugal Weather Radar Weather Forecast | Weather Maps | Weather Radar     Estoril: The 32-player main draw for Estoril 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   Estadio Nacional   Estoril map - venue map Latitude: 38.707683 Longitude: -9.253299 goto link for World Wind 2009: On Sunday, May 3, 16-year-old Portuguese # 1 Michelle Larcher de Brito did a little flag waving after winning her 2nd round qualifying match... On Monday, Michelle's compatriot Neuza Silva celebrated her 26th birthday... Also on Monday, Sabine Lisicki was admitted to a fine pastry bakery, only after being sworn to secrecy about the process by which dough, etc., becomes actual food...

Estoril, 1st Round, Mon-Tue 11am loser's prize: $1,725 US; points: 1

Estoril, 2nd Round, Wed 11am loser's prize: $2,950 US; points: 30

Estoril, QFs, Thu 11am loser's prize: $5,340 US; points: 70

Estoril, SFs, Fri 11am loser's prize: $10,200 US; points: 130

Estoril, Final, Sat 12:35pm loser's prize: $19,000 US; points: 200 winner's prize: $37,000 US; points: 280

Estoril, Doubles Final, Sat noon loser's prize: $5,750 US winner's prize: $11,000 US Estoril, Qual Finals, Mon May 3 11am losers' prizes: q1 $265 1pt; q2 $460 6pts; q3 $860 10pts; qualifier 16 points Estoril, Withdrawals

    (Apr 28, 2009) Former WTA # 1 Maria Sharapova has withdrawn from next week's Italian Open in Rome, and from the following week's Madrid Open as well. Maria's right shoulder has still not fully recovered from a torn rotator cuff tendon she incurred in March of last year (Maria played injured until late July, when the tear was detected in an April MRI scan.) There has as yet been no statement on Maria's official website. Maria's WTA ranking has fallen to # 64 while she has been recovering from the injury. Maria currently remains on the French Open entry list, and is on the entry list for the AEGON Classic in Birmingham, England, which was released today.

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

Current WTA Results & Tennis News (tennis home page) - 2010 WTA Schedule with links & photos

Link to many postmatch interview & match highlight videos of WTA players at the 2009 WTA Player Videos page.

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