Black Tennis Pros

While in Las Vegas, Serena Williams hung out at the Zappos Headquarters with CEO Tony Hsieh. In answering some questions from Zappos Twitter readers, Serena talks Wii Sports Tennis, music, being a role model and more.

DOUBLES

Final Round

Ellah Nze, USA and Rebecca Marino, CAN WINNERS!!
defeated
Courtney B. Dolehide, USA and Kirsten Flower, USA
7-5, 6-3

Ellah Nze, USA and Rebecca Marino, CAN

What a fantabulous surprise!

So I hike over to the 2009 Black Web Awards to vote for SjP of Sojourner's Place (she's been nominated for Best Online Commentator), and what do I find? Black Tennis Pro's has been nominated for Best Site for Black Athletes!

I don't know who found such favor in this site, but thank you very much, I appreciate the honor.

Black Tennis Pro's can be voted for here.

For those of you not familiar with the Black Web Awards, here is a snippet of their purpose:

"Launched in the Spring of 2006, the Black Web Awards began as an effort to highlight the myriad of original, positive websites with content from the Black perspective. Hosted exclusively at BlackWebAwards.com, the BlackWebAwards endeavored to produce an original event where the internet public both nominated and later vote for their favorite websites in one of just under one hundred categories ranging from religion and politics to entertainment and culture."

Since I can't even begin to describe what happened to American James Blake in his defeat by German Nicolas Kiefer, here are the quarterfinal highlights.

MONTREAL — Wimbledon champion Venus Williams has withdrawn from next week's Rogers Cup women's tennis tournament with a knee injury.

Tournament director Eugene Lapierre said Friday Williams did not want to risk aggravating the tendinitis in her knee ahead of the Beijing Olympics.

She was the lone late withdrawal from the tier-1 event before the draw on Friday.

This year's tournament boasts seven of the world's top-10 players.

Today in Toronto, Canada in the second week of the Olympus U.S. Open Series at the Rogers Masters, American James Blake will play German Nicolas Kiefer in a quarterfinal match in the Rexall Centre.

Blake has the historical upper hand over Kiefer whom he has defeated three times. I am hoping that along with his talent, he will use that mental edge to come out on top of this match.

Last week in Indianapolis Blake made it to the semifinal round, but was knocked out by Dmitry Tursunov. Yesterday Blake knocked Tursunov out of the third round of the Rogers Masters. I wonder "whose got next" between these two?

Blake will have to be on his p's and q's tomorrow. Keifer may not be ranked nearly as high, but I've seen him play many times and he can definitely present a serious battle for any opponent.

Top seeds and two-time Rogers Cup champions Bob and Mike Bryan opened their title campaign in Toronto by defeating Spaniards Feliciano Lopez and Fernando Verdasco 7-5, 6-2 to reach the quarterfinals.

They next face Croat Mario Ancic and South African Jeff Coetzee, who reached the quarterfinals with back-to-back wins Thursday. They needed 54 minutes to get by Fernando Gonzalez and Andre Sa 6-3, 6-2 in their first round match, and then ousted Czech No. 8 seeds Martin Damm and Pavel Vizner 6-4, 6-3. Vizner won the Canada title last year with Indian Mahesh Bhupathi.