Black Tennis Pros

Zurich Open
October 15-21, 2007
Zurich, Switzerland



Round 1 - Singles

Serena Williams, USA vs. Patty Schnyder, SUI

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ATP Masters Series Madrid
October 15-21, 2007
Madrid, Spain








Round 1 - Singles

James Blake, USA vs Bye

Round 1 - Doubles

James Blake, USA and Eric Butorac, USA vs
Mariusz Fyrstenberg, POL, and Marcin Matkowski, POL

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Angela Haynes took home her third USTA Pro Circuit doubles title of the year on Sunday, October 7, when she teamed with veteran Mashona Washington of Houston to win the championship at the $50,000 USTA Women's Tennis Classic of Troy, Ala.

Unseeded in the draw, Haynes and Washington were easy winners in three of the four matches they played during the week. After cruising to a 6-0, 6-4 victory over Russians Ekaterina Afinogenova and Angelina Gabueva in the first round, they came back with a 4-6, 7-6 (4), 10-8 (8) upset thriller over No. 2 seeds Sunitha Rao and Christina Wheeler in the second round. They went on to eliminate the third-seeded duo of Maria-Fernanda Alves and Stephanie Dubois, 6-3, 6-2, in the semifinals and then stunned top-seeds Eva Hrdinova and Marie-Eve Pelletier, 6-4, 6-2, in the final.

Haynes, a 23-year-old lefty from Irvine, Calif., won the doubles title two weeks ago with Melinda Czink at the $75,000 event in Albuquerque, N.M., as well as the championship in May with Monique Adamczak at the $50,000 event in Indian Harbour Beach, Fla. She also reached doubles finals earlier this year in Allentown, Pa., and Carson, Calif., while teaming with Lindsay Lee-Waters.

Washington, 31, was playing in her first pro event since Fed Cup in July 2006, where she suffered a left knee injury that required surgery and ended her season.

Source - USTA (Sally Milano)

Technorati Tags: Sports Tennis Angela Haynes
Mashona Washington

As much as I would love to have seen American Serena Williams continue her dominance over Russian Elena Dementieva and win the Kremlin Cup, she was clearly out played; and to the victor goes the spoils.

Now let me say that of all the women on Tour, Elena is one of my favorites. She has a rotten serve, a fabulous ground game and a wonderful personality. She's been laughed at by the crowd when virtually double faulting a match away, yet she continues to play each ball as if that awful serve did not just happen. She seems to be a very friendly young woman and always has a lovely smile on her face. This woman is as tough as they come, especially in light of that rotten serve.

Today was Elena's first win over Serena and her first major title at home in Russia. Congratulations Elena!

Serena did not look sharp at all today, I don't know if something was wrong, or if it was just a rough day at the office. Whatever it was, she made it to the finals and had a good week. She's already locked up a place in the year-end championships and has plenty of time to bone up.

Keep your head up Serena, your next win is probably only a set away.

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Elena Dementieva Kremlin Cup

While watching a repeat of the Kremlin Cup semifinal between Serena Williams and Svetlana Kuznetsova, I listened at the commentating by former WTA Tour players Americans Katrina Adams and Corina Morariu. I pay more attention to the players in the original live broadcast, then if I get the opportunity to watch it again, I listen a little more to the commentating and watch for other things in the game

I must have been partly comatose to have missed the venom that Corina Morariu spewed this morning. What bitchiness!! I'm not very familiar with this woman. I do recall when she was stricken with Leukemia. Her WTA Tour bio reads that she was "off the Tour for the rest of the season after being diagnosed with acute promyelocytic leukemia in May; underwent chemotherapy, after which she was in remission. So it is obvious, since she is alive and well and sitting in a booth calling a tennis match, she knows the value of God's grace, mercy and blessings.

Well you wouldn't know it by her comments about Serena Williams at the top of the match:

"Serena is a bit arrogant"

"Not a traditionally beautiful looking tennis player"

"Power players make a lot of errors, especially Serena"

"Has brute strength, not a lot of feel, not a lot of finesse."

"Stats are incredible given that she's a part-time tennis player."

About Venus, when they discussed why she may have chosen to play the Asian circuit:

"It probably helps that they paid her some money to come and play"

Talk about a joke!! Venus could buy and sell Ms. Morariu three times over. The difference between their career earnings is so ugly I won't even post it.

DAMN!! Ms. Morariu, you must have been chompin' at the bit to get to a microphone and get all of that out. In language that you well understand, DOUBLE FAULT!!

Technorati Tags: Sports Tennis Serena Williams
Corina Morariu

The threepeat by American James Blake was not to be. After a 13-match string of success, Blake was defeated today by Sweden's own Thomas Johansson who saved five match points to knock off the top seed 3-6, 6-1, 7-6(7-3).

Blake had his opportunities to reach the final for a third straight year, but couldn't finish off his Swedish opponent.

Johansson saved a match point on his serve at 4-5 in the third set, then four more again on his own serve at 5-6 in the third. The momentum carried into the tiebreaker, as the 2002 Australian Open champ opened a 4-0 lead on the way to completing the triumph.

Technorati Tags: Sports Tennis James Blake
Stockholm Open Thomas Johansson

American Serena Williams turned the beat around on Russian Svetlana Kuznetsova with a 7-6(2), 6-1 win .

Serena put early pressure on the No. 2-ranked Kuznetsova, breaking her in the third game of the first set. But Kuznetsova leveled at 4-4 after Williams netted an easy forehand on the third break point.

Williams dominated the tiebreaker, going up 3-0 and 6-1 before clinching the first set.

The No. 7-ranked Williams then broke Kuznetsova in the second and fifth games of the second set to win in 1 hour, 28 minutes.

Williams has not dropped a set on the way to her third final this season. The eight-time Grand Slam champion is playing in Moscow for the first time in a decade.

Sports

Tennis

Serena Williams

Kremlin Cup

Svetlana Kuznetsova

American Venus Williams unable to continue her run in Bangkok as Italy's Flavia Pennetta stops her with a 6-4, 7-6 win to reach the Bangkok Open final on Saturday.

Pennetta held her nerve as Venus launched a determined fightback, the Italian emerging victorious in a marathon second set tiebreak to end her opponent's hopes of reaching a third straight WTA final.

"She played really well, she was eager," a sombre-looking Williams told reporters. "I made a lot of errors, a lot of mistakes. She did a good job of staying in the match.

"I wasn't surprised by her, she's capable of playing well."

Pennetta, world no. 49 said, "I was against such a great player. I just had to go for it, because anything can happen."

The seventh seed unleashed some powerful serves and venomous groundstrokes and chased everything the lofty American threw at her, breaking serve at 5-4 to take the first set.

Pennetta broke her opponent at 2-2 in the second and with the help of a succession of double faults and sloppy returns from Williams, opened up a comfortable 4-2 cushion.

However, the winner of 36 WTA titles came straight back, whacking a series of topspin-loaded forehands to turn the match around and move ahead 6-5.

Pennetta levelled to force a tense tiebreak, which she clung on win 10-8, punching the air with both fists and breathing a huge sigh of relief.

"That was one of the most beautiful wins of my career," Pennetta told reporters.

"When she came back, I started to think I'd lost my chance to win. I knew it would be a tough match. I was a little nervous but I played good tennis."

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Bangkok Open Flavia Pennetta