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HOW'S THAT FOR OPENERS? |
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3/1/2006 8:43:05 AM |
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Marcos Baghdatis became just about the unlikeliest grand slam finalist in living memory, and Amelie Mauresmo got the grand-slam monkey off her back in Melbourne when Justine Henin-Hardenne retired in the Australian Open final.
Andy Murray rattled the hierarchy of men's tennis with his stunning victory in San Jose - after rattling the cages of the British press corps in Melbourne - and Roger Federer just keeps rolling along, winning in Doha and at the Australian Open.
The most successful women's player of the past decade, meanwhile, is ranked 46th in the world.
Yes, it's great to have Martina Hingis back - but in this case she is not the player in question. Hingis is 44th and flying, having entered the season with zero ranking points to her name.
Instead, the player teetering on the brink of dropping out of the top 50 is Serena Williams - who in the past 12 months has contested the sum of nine tournaments, winning not one and reaching just a solitary semi-final.
It is an awful shame that somebody so talented should be seeing her career apparently slip away.
Yet there has been a gradual decline in Serena's fortunes since she completed her 'Serena Slam' at the 2003 Australian Open, and added Wimbledon later that year.
She added a pair of routine tour titles in 2004 but fell short in the grand slams - and then began last year in style with victory at the Australian, before the rest of the year proved barren.
Hingis - fresh from three years in retirement herself - was recently asked whether she thought the Williams sisters, Serena and Venus, may be heading the same way.
"I can't just see them walking away from the game," said the presumably amused Swiss.
But many consider Serena's days at the top of the women's game to be over. To compete against the likes of Mauresmo, Lindsay Davenport, Henin-Hardenne, Kim Clijsters and Maria Sharapova - and maybe even the revitalised Hingis - it is imperative for any player to be playing regularly.
Hingis insisted when she returned to action that she is ready for the grind of the tour, the living out of a suitcase.
Serena has been bothered by a knee injury which caused her to withdraw from this week's Dubai tournament - and she has reportedly been struggling to keep her weight down as a result.
But only last month she claimed to be fighting fit.
"I feel amazing right now. I just feel like dancing. I can just hear this song, this Beyonce song 'Check On It'. I just feel like getting down, 'doing the eagle'," she remarked.
"I have a lot of energy right now - it's really hot. I'm feeling much better than I have at the (US) Open - Wimbledon, too."
Injury did not beat her in Australia....but Daniela Hantuchova of Slovakia did, quite emphatically.
That would suggest the knee is a red herring, perhaps that Serena is simply not the player she once was.
Losing a mountain of points by failing to defend her Australian title has banished Williams to an outpost of the world rankings where she stands directly between Jelena Kostanic and Roberta Vinci.
Plainly, and to disparage neither Kostanic nor Vinci, with her record Serena does not belong in such company.
Maybe commitment is an issue - she has various outside interests, notably fashion and acting.
But perhaps as one champion returns to the tour, another could do with a proper break.
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