Black Tennis Pros

Round 1 - Singles

James Blake, USA vs. BYE


Round 1 - Doubles

Jeff Coetzee, RSA and Kevin Ullyett, ZIM
vs.
BYE



Round 1 - Singles

Younes El Aynaoui, MAR vs. Alexandre Sidorenko, FRA

Gael Monfils, FRA vs. Igor Andreev, RUS


Round - Qualifying Final

Julio Silva, BRA defeated by Younes El Aynaoui, MAR
6-3, 6-4



Round 1 - Singles

Alexandra Stevenson, USA vs. Mary Gambale, USA

Angela Haynes, USA vs. Abigail Spears, USA

Raquel Kops-Jones, USA vs. Qualifier/Lucky Loser


Round 1 - Doubles

Angela Haynes, USA and Mashona Washington, USA
vs.
Mary Gambale, USA and Petra Rampre, SLO

Shenay Perry, USA and Carly Gullickson, USA
vs.
Kristy Frilling, USA and Lauren Herring, USA

Raquel Kops-Jones, USA and Abigail Spears, USA
vs.
Sharon Fichman, CAN and Neha Uberoi, USA


Round 2 - Qualifying Singles

Mashona Washington, USA vs. Lauren Herring



Vero Beach, Florida

Round 1 - Singles

Marcus Fugate, USA vs. Milos Raonic, CAN


Round 1 - Doubles

Marcus Fugate, USA and Lance Vodicka, USA
vs.
Stephen Bass, USA and Adam Fass, USA


Round 3 - Qualifying Singles

Jarmere Jenkins, USA defeated by David Jonathan, CAN
1-6, 6-3, 4-6


Final Round - Qualifying Singles

Marcus Fugate, USA defeated Sergio Rojas, PER
6-1, 6-1

Timothy Neilly, USA defeated by Paul Todd
4-6, 1-6

Monte Carlo Masters Series

Semifinal Round - Doubles

Jeff Coetzee, RSA and Wesley Moodie, RSA
defeated by
Mahesh Bhupathi, (IND) and Mark Knowles, BAH
6-0, 7-5


Fed Cup - Semifinal Round

USA 2 - Russia 3 (Results in detail)


Baton Rouge Pro Tennis Classic, Baton Rouge, LA

Final Round - Doubles

Phillip Simmonds, USA and Tim Smyczek, USA
defeated
Ryan Harrison, USA and Michael Venus, USA
2-6, 6-1, 10/4



Movie Gallery Pro Classic 2008

Semifinal Round - Singles

Jamea Jackson, USA defeated by Bethanie Mattek, USA
6-4, 6-3

Entry #1 - Thursday, April 17
Entry #2 - Wedneday, April 23
Entry #3 - Thursday, April 24
Entry #4 - Friday, April 25 (and #5)

Entry # 6 - Sunday, April 27

Today I asked the team to play every point and I thought all the players did a wonderful job of doing that.

Vania played great and it was really nice to see Ahsha win her match against Vesnina. Ahsha served unbelievably well and I think it was amazing that she was able to keep her serve on that level for the whole match. That kind of serving is a high level for anyone and is Grand Slam material.

The doubles match was a lot of fun and it was nice to see Liezel and Vania pull off a win. All of the girls were into it and it was a good show from a fan’s and coach’s point of view.

We found out this morning about 10:15 a.m. at practice that Kuznetsova and Chakvetadze were not going to play singles and instead Zvonareva and Vesnina were playing. I was not too surprised as I had a feeling yesterday that it might happen.

It has been an amazing experience the past five years leading the U.S. team and this is now my last tie as U.S. Fed Cup Captain.

Looking back, one tie that stands out for me is when we played Belgium in 2006 because a lot of the staff and I got sick with some kind of bug. It affected about 13 of 20 people on the trip and it was the sickest I had been in a long time. Luckily, however, most of the players were fine.

And in the past five years I have coached so many different players. I have had a little bit of everyone on my teams from the Grand Slam champions like Venus, Serena and Lindsay to the young ones. And I have had the pleasure of watching so many players, like Vania and Madison, grow up.

Source

To celebrate a lot of hard work resulting in rapid blog growth, Marcus Hochstadt of Internet Business Guide is holding the mother of all parties/contests.

Here's a list of contributions that I have never seen the likes of before:

Entry #1 - Thursday, April 17
Entry #2 - Wedneday, April 23
Entry #3 - Thursday, April 24

Entry #4 - Friday, April 25

There were no surprises at the draw ceremony today with the Russian lineup. Vania will face Anna in the first match tomorrow and then Ahsha plays Svetlana.

Vania and Anna played the first match last year in Stowe, which Anna won. I think Anna was playing extremely well in that match, however, I think Vania is playing much better now than she was then.

Then it will be Ahsha’s first Fed Cup match and it is going to be interesting to see how she handles everything. Ahsha and Svetlana have never played but they have similar styles. They both have big forehands, bomb serves and as far as power is concerned, they are very strong.

World rankings do not always tell the whole story about how good a player is. There could be a lot of reasons why someone is ranked where they are such as lack of playing time due to injury. Ahsha had a knee injury right after she had such a great US Open in 2007 and jumped up in the rankings - that takes away some momentum right there.

For tonight, the players are all getting together and having their own private dinner. I like to let them have fun, relax and just get ready the night before play starts.


Entry #5 - Saturday, April 26

In Vania’s match today against Anna, I thought a couple points here and there and Vania would have won. Immediately after the match, as we were walking back to the locker room, I told her, ‘That should have been your match.’

In the second match, Ahsha faced Svetlana and you know Svetlana is going to play well. It (clay) is one of her favorite surfaces, she plays well on it and she is a Grand Slam winner. And Ahsha realized she could actually stay with her.

The score does not indicate how close the match was - there were really good points in there and it was not like Ahsha got blown off the court. If someone looks at the scores, it looks like she got blown away but it was actually a pretty good match.

I was very proud of both Vania and Ahsha today. They did just what we asked – they went out and played their hardest.

Tomorrow, Vania and Svetlana play first. I told Vania for tomorrow, ‘When you have opportunities, you have to take them.’ Anytime you play a top ten player you are only going to get one or two opportunities here and there. Top ten players are not missing often so when they do, you have to take advantage of those chances.

Tonight, the girls are all in good spirits. They know they went out there, tried their best and laid it all on the line.

Source

USA 0 - Russia 2, and this is how the story begins.

The USA arrived here depleted but not desperate with captain Zina Garrison calling on her squad to forget the opposition, focus only on themselves and to learn from not just the play on court but the week leading up to the tie. That was evident from early morning practice on Saturday when all but their two singles players were courtside in the Luzniki stadium.

Courtside they stayed as play kicked off with World No. 7 Anna Chakvetadze, who in fairness had it far from all her own way, in a 6-4, 7-5 win over 19-year old Vania King.

Chakvetadze hasn't done a lot of winning this year and it showed at times as King, who was playing without any pressure, took it to her opponent. The only break in set one came in game five, with the American choosing to move forwards caught out from thirty all by Chakvetadze's defensive skills. The Russian holding on and serving out the set to love.

It looked as though the writing was on the wall when history repeated itself and Chakvetadze again broke in game five of the second set but King, who comes from a family of tennis players, was not to lay down lightly.

If the first match was competitive, the gulf in class was more evident in the second. Ahsha Rolle, a Floridian making her debut in Fed Cup, was outclassed by Svetlana Kuznetsova 6-2, 6-1 in under an hour.

It was Kuznetsova's first competitive match on clay since Roland Garros and she'll be grateful to have eased her way back onto the dirt. Rolle was broken twice in the opening set and Kuznetsova raced through the second set gaining in confidence, at times she admitted to over confidence. "I wanted to play too good, I saw the difference in the level and I wanted to play too good, I wanted to practise some shots but in the end I’m happy," admitted the World No 4.

For Rolle it was somewhat of a baptism by fire, representing her country at this level for the first time. "You want to do as best you can for your country, but now I know how the World No. 4 plays so I know now I have to go back and work even harder.”

It was 1980 when the USA produced one of the biggest sporting shocks of all time, the so called "Miracle on Ice" when the U.S. ice hockey team, largely made of up of collegiate and amateur players, pulled off a 4-3 semifinal win on their way to the gold medal at the winter Olympics in Lake Placid.

Victory here in Moscow in this Fed Cup by BNP Paribas semifinal wouldn't top that achievement, but it wouldn't be too far off. Such was the surprise back then a movie was made of the feat, one that U.S. Captain Zina Garrison admitted to being one of her favourites of all time.

Whether or not they can draw any kind of inspiration from that remains to be seen but it’s the Russians that will begin this tie as firm favourites to reach a fourth Fed Cup final in five years.

Without either Williams sister or Lindsay Davenport, who fell ill whilst playing in Charleston last week, the opening tie will pit World No. 115 Vania King up against Russia's No. 2 singles player Anna Chakvetadze. Second up Ahsha Rolle, who is making her debut in the competition, faces the daunting task of meeting Svetlana Kuznetsova.

The full schedule for the weekend is as follows:

Saturday
Vania King, USA vs. Anna Chakvetadze RUS
Ahsha Rolle, USA vs. Svetlana Kuznetsova RUS

Sunday
Vania King, USA vs. Svetlana Kuznetsova RUS
Ahsha Rolle, USA vs. Anna Chakvetadze RUS
Liezel Huber/Vania King USA vs. Elena Vesnina/Vera Zvonareva RUS

Monte Carlo Masters Series

Quarterfinal Round - Doubles

Jeff Coetzee, RSA and Wesley Moodie, RSA
defeated
Bob Bryan, USA and Mike Bryan, USA
4-6, 6-4, 10/8


Baton Rouge Pro Tennis Classic, Baton Rouge, LA

Semifinal Round - Doubles

Phillip Simmonds, USA and Tim Smyczek, USA
defeated
Catalin Gard, ROU and Andis Juska, LAT
6-2, 6-4


Movie Gallery Pro Classic 2008

Quarterfinal Round - Singles

Jamea Jackson, USA defeated Tetiana Luzhanska, UKR
2-6, 6-3, 6-2