Daniela Hantuchova defeated Dominika Cibulkova 4-6, 6-3, 6-0 in the semifinals in Monterrey today. However, rain prevented the second semifinal from being played. That match will be contested by Anastaija Sevastova and Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova.
Rain also prevented the doubles semifinal match featuring top seeds Anna-Lena Groenefeld and Vania King against Sara Errani and Roberta Vinci.
4 comments:
Diane totally off topic but thought you would find this interesting. News reports are that Sony Ericsson will continue as sponsor for WTA Tour. What I liked about the article was the latter part that mentioned that Venus, Melanie, and Billie Jean King went to a meeting along with Allaster and was instrumental in negotiating for Sony Ericsson to continue as a sponsor. I have no doubt that Venus is now being groomed to take up a leadership role in the WTA. Wonderful news for a Venus fan like myself and even more wonderful news for women's tennis.
http://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/article/65016
Thanks for posting this, Karen. I assumed Sony Ericsson--given its current woes--would stop sponsoring the tour altogether; this is a surprise to me. I'll write about it later.
No problem Diane. I think this is really good for women's tennis, especially coming on the heels of the men getting a full time sponsorship deal. Sounds like people have faith in tennis and in women's tennis especially. Recently a friend of mine made a comment on a message board about the commentary on women's matches. My friend took the position that every time commentators belabour the trials and tribulations of the women while they are calling matches the more fans get turned off women's tennis. My friend also made the point that you do not see this kind of negative commentary when it comes to men's tennis no matter how bad the top men are playing. I have to confess that I have never looked at it that way, but I agree with this view. Your thoughts?
I can speak only for U.S. commentators and those I hear on Tennis TV. I find the Tennis TV commentators to be more positive; I find them to be better commentators, in fact.
I don't have a problem with commentators pointing out the negative things that exist--the service problems of top players, the ever-changing number 1 spot, etc.--as long as they also point out the positive things about the tour. I think that non-broadcast media organizations are harder on the tour than TV commentators are, but then, they are hard on the men's tour, also.
Having said that, I do believe that the commentators sound different when they talk about men's tennis. They talk about the men as athletes most of the time, but they go all over the place when they talk about the women. That is not true of all of them, however. Some, like Darren Cahill, are there to talk about tennis and only tennis.
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