Kuznetsova wins in New Haven

Svetalana Kuznetsova won her first tournament of 2007 today, in New Haven

Mary Carrillo called it The Curse of Kuznetsova. Three of her Pilot Pen Tennis opponents retired in their matches against Svetlana Kuznetsova, including today's finalist, Agnes Szavay, whose back injury forced her to stop playing in the middle of the third set. A sluggish, error-prone Kuznetsova lost the first set, 4-6, but she picked her play up considerably in the second set, winning three games before her opponent had to retire. Of course, it helped that Szavay's movement was restricted.

Had she won today's match, Szavay would have become the first qualifier to win a Tier I or Tier II tournament in WTA recorded history.

Note to CBS commentators and umpire Lynn Welch: It just doesn't take that much effort to learn how to pronounce a player's name. You could, for instance, ask the player how to pronounce it. Or you could look it up on the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour website. It isn't hard to do...really. Her name is pronounced "SHAveye." I wish the players were more assertive about the pronunciation of their names, but at any rate, there is no excuse for the laziness and rudeness of the commentators and umpires.