Miscellany

Kim Clijsters defeated Venus Williams 6-1, 7-5 in the Diamond Games exhibition in Antwerp.

Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario has been ordered by the Spanish Supreme Court to pay $5.1 million in back taxes. The Spanish star maintained she was not a resident of Spain from 1989 to 1993, but the court rejected her claim. (via On the Baseline)

Mixed doubles is returning to the Olympic Games.

Dinara Safina has withdrawn from the Brisbane International tournament because of her back injury.

On January 7, Yanina Wickmayer will learn whether her one-year suspension will be lifted. She appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport to have the ban removed.

Roland Garros appettizer

If you get the Tennis Channel, then you got to see the last two sets of one of the great French Open finals--Graf v. Sanchez-Vicario in 1989. Time restrictions prevented the showing of the first set, except for a few moments of the tiebreak, but the second and third sets were wonderful. Graf was going for three straight Roland Garros titles, but Sanchez-Vacario--showing her full range of clay court brilliance--spun, lobbed, dropped, pulled Graf from side to side, continually pressured her forehand, and--of course--got back a hundred balls. When Graf served for the match, she was broken at love, then broken at love again. What a final!

Sanchez-Vicario def. Graf, 7-6, 3-6, 7-5

Sanchez-Vicario inducted into International Tennis Hall of Fame

Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario, the woman Bud Collins nicknamed the Barcelona Bumblebee, was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame today. The first Spanish woman to win the U.S. Open (1994), Sanchez-Vicario won the French Open three times, and she also holds ten Grand Slam doubles titles--six women's and four mixed. The indefatigable Spaniard also holds twenty-nine WTA career singles titles and sixty-seven doubles titles. She was on the tour for sixteen years, guiding Spain to all five of its Fed Cup victories, and--with two bronze and two silver medals--is the most decorated Olympian in Spanish history.

The Barcelona Bumblebee was probably the counter-puncher of all time on the women's tour, keeping her opponents on the court until all hours in lengthy rallies, in which she covered an amazing amount of ground. She was also the nemesis of the two greatest players of her generation--Steffi Graf and Monica Seles.

In recent years, Sanchez-Vicario, who speaks five languages fluently, has continued to play an active role in tennis. It was she who first noticed Russian star Svetlana Kuznetsova, who trained at Spain's famed Sanchez-Casal Academy (co-founded by Sanchez-Vicario's brother, a former doubles champion). Sanchez-Vicario put Kuznetsova in touch with Martina Navratilova and they became doubles partners. Kuznetsova credits much of her rise in the sport to the mentoring she received from both Navratilova and Sanchez-Vicario.