TENNIS in DEPTH.

Of the sixteen players remaining in the Women’s draw at the Sony Ericsson in Miami, only five are in the top ten. They are Serena Williams, Elena Dementieva, Venus Williams, Svetlana Kuznetsova and Victoria Azarenka. The Williams sisters are both in the top half of the draw and are on course to determine which one goes on to the final. Who will make it from the bottom half is unpredictable. Yesterday Safina, Zvonareva, Petrova, and Ivanovic joined Jankovic in the losers column, and it makes one wonder about the status of the women’s game. On the one hand it is a much more interesting set of circumstances when the outcome of a match is in the balance, when every match is wide open, and the winner not necessarily the highest ranked player. But it is also a reflection on the robotic nature of the game, where many of the players have become clones of each other and where it is often difficult to determine whether one player exerts any superior quality over their opponent. Except for the glamorous clothes it’s sometimes difficult to distinguish one from the other.

With just a couple of exceptions there is little to choose between any of the top 25 players, and unless a particular player brings her A game, she is vulnerable to defeat. Consistency and athleticism are the two qualities that have become the most important, and not the quality of the shot making or the construction of the points, as all the players are in the same groove and quite capable of hitting the ball from corner to corner. The unforced error count has become more significant in determining the winner than the number of winning shots she produces. The winner of most matches is decided by the one who makes the least number of errors, and this is not a healthy formula for improving the sport.

Thank God for the Williams sisters! They add colour (pun intended) to the game, they bring a combination of power and court sense to their matches, and a degree of individuality that is missing with most other players. It is small wonder that Kim Clijsters is coming back, I’m sure as she watches from home she has convinced herself that she can beat most of the current crop of players. I doubt that she can!

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