TENNIS in DEPTH.

Third seed Aravane Rezai was the day’s biggest casualty as she crashed 6-3 6-0 to Spanish wild card Estrella Cabeza Candela, who at 258 is ranked more than 200 places below Rezai in the world rankings.

Former world number one Dinara Safina was made to work for her place in the second round of the Andalucia Tennis Experience tournament in Marbella. Safina fought back from losing the first set to triumph 3-6 6-2 6-4 and continue her recent improvement. Safina, now world number 81, recently made the last 16 in Indian Wells.

Second seed Svetlana Kuznetsova beat German qualifier Mona Barthel 4-6 7-6 (7-4) 6-4 and other winners included Tsvetana Pironkova, Kristina Barrois, Agnes Szavay and Lourdes Dominguez Lino.

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Kim Clijsters will be sidelined for a month with shoulder and wrist injuries, forcing her out of Belgium’s Fed Cup semifinal next week against the Czech Republic. The U.S. Open and Australian Open champion said a busy spring schedule overexerted her right shoulder and wrist. She will not be able to hold a tennis racket for the next couple of weeks while she recovers. Clijsters will also miss the Madrid Open in the first week of May but hopes to resume her season on clay in Rome on May 9, giving her two weeks to prepare for the French Open.

“I don’t want to force anything,” she said on her website. “I want to avoid at all cost that this becomes chronic.” Despite promises to take it easy and limit her tournaments, Clijsters acknowledged she had already taken on too much this year. After she capped a stint Down Under with victory in the Australian Open, she played Fed Cup and Paris in February before moving to the United States for two long tournaments. First, she pulled out of Indian Wells in the fourth round with a shoulder injury and lost in the quarterfinals in Miami last week to eventual champion Victoria Azarenka with a strangely listless performance. Even then, the signs were already there. “I felt something was not quite right,” Clijsters said. “There were too many successive aches and pains that just didn’t want to disappear. It gets into your head.”

The injury is a bitter blow to Belgium, which face a strong challenge from the Czech Republic at home in Charleroi next week. Early in the season, Justine Henin was forced into retirement because of injury. So instead of featuring two of the game’s greatest players, Belgium will be relying on No. 23 Yanina Wickmayer and No. 103 Kirsten Flipkens to face the Czechs. “I was really looking forward to that Fed Cup,” Clijsters said. She wants a good showing at Roland Garros, where she was twice a losing finalist and forced to miss it last year.

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Czech Republic has named a full strength squad to face Belgium in the Fed Cup by BNP Paribas semifinal clash in Charleroi. Australian Open quarterfinalist and world No. 18 Petra Kvitova will lead the Czech team as the visitors look to reach the Fed Cup final for the first time in 23 years. Czech captain Petr Pala also nominated Lucie Safarova, Iveta Benesova and Barbora Zahlavova Strycova to take on the Belgians on 16-17 April. The tie could see a rematch of this year’s Open Gaz de France final between Kvitova and Kim Clijsters, which the Czech won 64 63. The Czechs reached the semifinals after Safarova and Kvitova won the first three rubbers of their first round tie against the Slovak Republic, while Belgium overcame USA 4-1 in its opening round encounter.

German captain Barbara Rittner has named her nation’s Fed Cup team for the World Group play-off tie against USA. In-form Andrea Petkovic, who surprised world No. 1 Caroline Wozniacki in Miami earlier this week, will carry the weight of home expectation against the American team in Stuttgart. Julia Goerges, Sabine Lisicki and Anna-Lena Groenefeld make up the team looking to bring to an end USA’s proud history in the top flight of the competition. The Germans are looking for an immediate return to the World Group after losing their play-off to France at the same stage of the competition last year

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This year’s US Men’s Clay Court Championships at the River Oaks Country Club features a solid field led by top seed and World No. 11 Mardy Fish, who is the top American on the ATP World Tour, No. 2 seed and last year’s finalist Sam Querrey, No. 3 Guillermo Garcia-Lopez of Spain, No. 4 John Isner, No. 5 Benjamin Becker of Germany, No. 6 Kei Nishikori of Japan, No. 7 Pablo Cuevas of Uruguay, and No. 8 Grigor Dimitrov of Bulgaria. This is the only ATP World Tour 250 clay court tournament in the United States. On Monday’s schedule, there are four qualifying, three singles main draw and two doubles matches. The first singles match on Stadium features South Americans Ricardo Mello of Brazil and Cuevas. Mello won the previous ATP World Tour meeting last year. In the second match,Grigor Dimitrov, who is the only teenager in the Top 100, plays the oldest player in the field, 34-year-old Rainer Schuettler of Germany.

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The Serbian won 4-6 6-3 7-6 (7/4) to pick up his 24th straight win this year, backing up his Indian Wells final win over Nadal a fortnight ago. After Nadal had bludgeoned his way to the first set, Djokovic’s defence improved in the second and, with a firm base to steady him, he began to work his durable opponent around the court more and more. He eventually ground him down in a third-set tie-break to pick up his fourth title of the year in three hours and 21 minutes. Djokovic went into the final having not lost his serve throughout the tournament, but did so in the first set as Nadal went ahead with a stunning backhand down the line. The Australian Open champion then had two break points of his own, but Nadal stayed in an incredible rally to save one and then Djokovic netted when coming in to cancel out the other, before Nadal saved a third to move 3-1 up.

A howling wind was making hitting tricky and Djokovic planted a forehand wide to give Nadal another break of serve, before the Spaniard moved four games clear at 5-1 after foxing Djokovic with a stunning display of top-spin forehands. Djokovic held to 2-5 then broke Nadal for only the second time in the tournament, before Nadal closed out the set 6-4. A thrilling drop-shot recovery from Djokovic kicked off the second set, with Nadal broken and Djokovic cementing the break as he scorched clear at 3-0. A wonderful lob from Djokovic was the highlight of the fifth game as he moved 4-1 up, before Nadal saved three break points to stay in touch. Djokovic kept his serve together, though, to win the set 6-3.

Nadal came through a tense deuce at the start of the deciding set, with both players making vital holds as it went to 2-2, although Nadal missed a chance at 0-30 on his opponent’s serve. A booming forehand winner from Nadal helped him win the fifth and seventh games, but, as the Mallorcan ramped up his game, Djokovic’s stunning defence and counter-attacking ability kept him level through to the tie-break. Nadal conceded a mini-break with the first point with a long forehand, but a punishing left-hand bullet earned him the break back instantly. It got worse for Djokovic as he netted to go 2-1 down, but he then found a way through some incredible Nadal defence for a fourth mini-break to go 2-2. The fifth point was also a break as Nadal sent down a double fault, before Djokovic finally held a point with a big serve that forced Nadal to go wide and 4-2 down. A wide backhand from Nadal then put Djokovic on the brink, and, after another break to go to 6-2 up, Nadal went long one final time to end the contest.

Nadal, who now goes into his favourite part of the season, on clay, was magnanimous in defeat. He said: “What Novak is doing at the start of this season is something difficult to repeat so well done to him and his team. ”Today I had some good chances but Novak was too good for me this afternoon.” Djokovic, winning the trophy for the second time, added: “It was very close and it really could have gone either way.

“It was one of the best finals I ever played in in my life and it’s always a great pleasure and honour playing against Rafa who is a good friend and a great champion.”

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Victoria Azarenka lifted the Sony Ericsson Open title in Miami for the second time thanks to a polished win over Maria Sharapova. Azarenka, who stunned Serena Williams to lift the trophy in 2009, was often in devastating form against the Russian as she swept to a 6-1 6-4 victory. Sharapova, who returns to the world top 10 despite the defeat, won four of her five games on Azarenka’s serve as she embarrassingly held serve just once.

The tone for the clash was set in the first game as Sharapova had a long and fruitless fight to hold her serve, before breaking back instantly at 1-1. That proved to be her last contribution of the set as Azarenka stormed clear, breaking back instantly, holding, breaking again thanks to a sweet backhand pass and then holding and breaking again. The second set looked to be following a similar patter as Azarenka held serve and then took advantage of a double fault to break to 2-0. At 3-0 she saved game points to break again, before Sharapova mounted a revival, breaking and then holding serve for the first time. She won her third game on the spin with another break to go 4-3, but another double fault put Azarenka at 5-3 and on the brink of the win.

Azarenka displayed nerves on her serve and lost it again with a double fault but, in keeping with the set, broke back instantly to take the title.

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For a young man who has rocketed up the tennis ladder, single-handedly put Canadian men’s tennis back on the map and drawn praise from the best in the game, Milos Raonic seems to be taking it all in stride. On the remarkable run that pushed him from No. 156 in the world rankings a year ago to No. 34: “A lot has happened the last three months, that’s for sure, and a lot has changed.”

On drawing raves from some of the biggest names in the game: “It’s sort of nice to have that kind of attention … The main thing is not to let that go to your head.” As if. Handling his first news conference at home after his meteoric rise through the tennis ranks, the 20-year-old Thornhill resident with the booming serve came across as someone who wasn’t about to let anything go to his head. If anything, he seemed more like a young man amazed with the way his life has changed in the past three months but hardly overwhelmed by life at the top. He’s still thrilled by the thought of playing the tournaments he watched as a kid, and lining up against some of the players he idolized as a young teen. “I get to go to nicer tournaments and come to events like this,” he said when asked how his life had changed since his breakthrough performance at the Australian Open. “It’s really amazing.

Though he’s only been back home a few days after being knocked out in the first round of the Sony Ericsson Open last week, he’s already tasted the rarefied air of celebrity life. He was a featured guest at Wednesday’s Toronto Raptors game, hitting balls into a cheering crowd that a year ago might have assumed he was a team ball boy. Facing a media horde much bigger than any Canadian tennis player has seen in some time, Raonic talked about the importance of not letting all the adulation and publicity go to his head. “I have all these experiences and it’s easy to get carried away,” he said. “It’s easy to get your ego too big. I just want to stay humble about everything.” If he doesn’t, he says his friends and family will act as a safeguard. “They’ll be the first to tell me if anything does change,” he said. Raonic is enjoying a few days off, but will soon get back into the grind of training for the start of the clay court tour that starts April 9 in Monte Carlo. He says he has only one goal: to get better.

He says he’s happy with his performance, but not satisfied. “It’s not where I want to be,” he said.

Chris Zelkovich

Sports Reporter Toronto Star

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Ah, woe is me, oh Judy dear!

A man of strife ye’ve born me:

For sair contention I maun bear;

They hate, revile, and scorn me.

I ne’er could lend on bill or band,

That five per cent. might blest me;

And borrowing, on the tither hand,

The deil a ane wad trust me.

Yet I, a coin-denied wight,

By Rafa quite discarded;

Ye see how I am, day and night,

By lad and lass blackguarded!

Adapted with permission from an ‘Ode to a wee Murray’ by Robert Burns.

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