TENNIS in DEPTH.

Maria Sharapova had Serbian basketball star Sasha Vujacic in her entourage ahead of Tuesday’s start while Caroline Wozniacki was snatching the last of a few precious days together with Rory McIlroy. McIroy had stopped by as part of his highly lucrative, late season globetrotting, which took him away to Shanghai on Sunday night, making the time to watch his his partner’s early morning practice session. Before departing he politely declined to discuss the recent upheavals in his management situation, and now leaves behind Wozniacki to pursue her goal of securing the year-end No 1 spot for the second year in a row. No such need for New Jersey Nets star Vujacic to venture far. Faced with a lockout over money in the NBA, he is plying his trade conveniently with an Istanbul team to keep himself busy, so is very much local to the week’s action. His biggest concern is a finger he broke while in action on Sunday. As the tournament is taking place in his temporary home stadium of the Sinan Erdem Dome he has little excuse not to watch his other half, who still has a chance to finish the year in the top spot.

Whoever triumphs, it is near impossible to define who is truly the best player in the world because of the starkly unpredictable and fluctuating state of the women’s game in 2011. Three of the biggest and best names in the sport – Kim Clijsters, Serena and Venus Williams – have not qualified because they simply have not been fit enough to play sufficient tournaments. And all four Grand Slam winners – Clijsters, Li Na, Petra Kvitova and Samantha Stosur – have been desperately inconsistent, although the last three have put enough points on the board to get into the top eight and compete this week for £3.1million of prize money.

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The eight competitors at the TEB BNP Paribas WTA Championships were split into their two round robin groups at the official draw ceremony Sunday night, with play set to begin at the $4.9-million year-end finale on Tuesday. Women’s Tennis Association officials briefed the eight players on the quake. The season-ending tournament runs from Tuesday to Sunday at Sinan Erdem Arena. Second-ranked Maria Sharapova said she received many phone calls and e-mails expressing concern. “I think it gives us an opportunity to sit down and say, ‘We’re very, very lucky and fortunate to be doing what we’re doing,”’ Sharapova said. “These things that happen around the world, you just never know where it can happen. I mean, this was only a few hours from here.” Top-ranked Caroline Wozniacki arrived in Istanbul on Thursday and wanted to pass along condolences on behalf of all the players. “All our thoughts are with everyone affected, and of course it’s never nice when something like this happens,” said Wozniacki, whose profile in Turkey has risen since she signed a commercial deal with a Turkish airline last year. “I definitely got a few messages yesterday and just asking if everything was OK, and if we’re all OK here.” At the draw ceremony Sunday, CEO Stacey Allaster said: “We will do whatever we can to support the people of Turkey in some small way through the power of sport.”

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His hard-fought victory kept world number 15 Monfils in the hunt for a place in the season-ending ATP World Finals in London. Nieminen saved three match points before driving a forehand wide to lose the contest in just under two hours. The 30-year-old Finn – ranked number 73 – was playing in his third Stockholm final. He lost there 10 years ago to Sjeng Schalken and in 2006 to James Blake, whom he beat in Saturday’s semi-finals. Monfils had been the only member of the world’s top 15 without a title in 2011 until this victory – a repeat of his win over Nieminen in Bangkok three weeks ago.

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The eighth seed overcame the world number five 4-6 6-4 6-4 despite struggling with a knee injury she suffered in her previous match. Both players received medical timeouts during the clash, with Zvonareva struggling with a shoulder problem in the deciding set. The Russian rushed into a 40-0 lead as she served to stay in the match at 4-5 but was unable to convert on each occasion as Cibulkova broke to clinch the win. Zvonareva admitted afterwards that she probably shouldn’t have competed the match due to her injury. ”I started having pain in my shoulder in the second set and I started thinking about it and was afraid it would get worse,” the world number five said. ”I’ve tried to fight through the pain but just couldn’t get it done. I probably should have stopped. ”I have this bad habit – I often keep on playing even when I have an injury and it doesn’t do me any good.” Cibulkova, the world number 20, will take on Russia’s Elena Vesnina in the semi-finals after she received a walkover following the withdrawal of Marion Bartoli through illness. It meant Poland’s Agnieszka Radwanska claimed the last available place at the season-ending WTA Championship in Istanbul. Bartoli had to win the Moscow tournament to qualify for the year-end event in Turkey at Radwanska’s expense, the Pole having gone out in the second round. ”I’m so happy to finally qualify for the Championships as one of the top eight singles players,” Radwanska said on the WTA website. ”Just a few weeks ago I didn’t think I had a chance of qualifying and I am now so happy to end my season in Istanbul.” There was another shock result later in the afternoon when sixth seed Svetlana Kuznetsova was hammered 6-1 6-2 by Kaia Kanepi of Estonia. And on a poor day for the home players, Lucie Safarova of the Czech Republic reomoved Vera Dushevina 6-4 6-4 to earn a clash with Kanepi for a place in the final.

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 The fourth-ranked Czech has struggled with her form since claiming her first Grand Slam title at the All England Club back in June. But she bounced back in style to beat seventh-seeded Cibulkova 6-4 6-1 in 90 minutes and clinch her fifth title of the season and sixth overall. Kvitova broke her Slovakian opponent’s serve six times during the match in Linz, Austria, a tournament she only decided to enter at short notice. The Czech took Cibulkova’s serve in the opening game and dominated her own service games until the eighth game, when Cibulkova broke to level the first set at 4-4. Kvitova however broke back in the next game and served out the set to grab a 1-0 lead before easing through the second set to take the match. The 21-year-old is the first Czech to win the tournament since Jana Novotna in 1998, who was also the winner at Wimbledon that same year. “Dominika has played really this week and many games were close today,” said Kvitova. “I am not thinking about my ranking. I am just working on my tennis to get better and better.” Cibulkova, who along with 16th-ranked Peng Shuai is the only player in the current top 30 without a WTA title, was appearing in her first final since Montreal in 2008. “It was a great week for me. It feels good that I finally got into a final again,” she said.

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Marion Bartoli claimed her second tournament of the season after playing twice on the final day of the Japan Open. Second seed Bartoli beat US Open champion Sam Stosur 6-3 6-4 in the final at the Utsubo Tennis Centre in Osaka, taking an hour and 14 minutes to clinch the final. Frenchwoman Bartoli added to the Eastbourne tournament in the summer to make it two victories on the WTA Tour this season after a busy Sunday in Japan. Rain delays in Japan had forced Saturday’s semi-final to be held over to Sunday meaning both Bartoli and Stosur had to play their semi-finals first before facing each other in the final later in the day. Bartoli broke top seeded Stosur twice in the first set and was dominant on her own serve, not being broken once in the match, to help her to sweep through the second set to victory. Bartoli had earlier beaten third-seeded Angelique Kerber of Germany 6-1 7-6 in one semi-final while Stosur knocked out unseeded Zie Jheng of China 7-6 3-6 6-3. It was a third defeat in four finals for Stosur this season, with the world number six losing in Rome and Toronto but saving her one win for Flushing Meadows in the US Open. Bartoli, ranked world number 11, now has seven WTA Tour titles to her name after her energetic victory.

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Defending champion Andy Murray defeated David Ferrer 7-5 6-4 to win the Shanghai Masters, ensuring he will move above Roger Federer to No.3 in the ATP world rankings. It is a third straight title for the 24-year-old Scot, who had claimed consecutive tournament wins in Bangkok and Tokyo before heading to China. Currently ranked fourth, he has also won 25 of his 26 matches since mid-August, the only loss coming to Rafael Nadal in the semi-finals of the US Open. It will be the first time Federer has fallen out of the top three since June 2003, just before he won his first Wimbledon title. Coming into the match, Murray had won all four of his meetings with Ferrer on hard courts, including the semi-finals in Tokyo last week.

The first game of the match at the Qi Zhong stadium lasted nearly 10 minutes with a succession of lengthy baseline rallies before Murray broke the Ferrer serve – only for the world No.5 to break straight back in the second game. The rest of the first set went with serve until the Spaniard double-faulted in the 11th game to give second seed Murray another break and a 6-5 lead. Murray went on to seal the set with an ace. The second set started exactly as the first had, Murray taking the early break only for Ferrer to pull level at 1-1, with the Scot smashing a ball into the ground in frustration. But Ferrer missed a simple smash to hand Murray two break points in the following game and he made no mistake, hoisting up a winning lob from behind the baseline to win the game before serving out to seal the match and his eighth Masters title in an hour and 45 minutes. Asked about climbing to three in the world, Murray told Sky Sports: “It’s not something I aimed for at the start of the year. You want to try to finish at number one if you can. “After the US Open that wasn’t possible. I needed to reassess my goals. I wanted to finish the year at three if possible. I haven’t done that before. “That still isn’t complete. I’m still going to have to win some more matches to do that. “But the last three weeks have been very good. I’ve had a good mindset and fought really hard in all the matches. Here I got a bit tired but I wanted to keep the run going.

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