Davis wins Australian Open wild card

In the USA version of the Australian Open wild card playoffs, Lauren Davis--recent Orange Bowl and Eddie Herr champion--has emerged the winner. Davis defeated last year's winner, Coco Vandewegh, 6-2, 6-2.

Olivia Rogowska won the playoffs in Australia, and the French wild card, which is selected the old-fashioned (and, in my opinin, the right) way, went to Virginie Razzano.

Vandeweghe and Davis to compete for Australian Open wild card

Coco Vandeweghe is just a match away from winning her second consecutive Australian Open wild card. Today, in the semifinals of the USA wild card playoffs, Vandeweghe defeated Beatrice Capra 6-1, 6-4. Her opponent in the final will be Orange Bowl champion Lauren Davis, who defeated Krista Hardebeck 6-2, 6-1.

Italy defends Fed Cup title with a 3-1 victory

There was one bright moment for the USA Fed Cup team today: Melanie Oudin, looking very much like she did in the 2009 U.S. Open, soundly defeated Francesca Schiavone 6-3, 6-1 in the third rubber of the 2010 Fed Cup final. Bethanie Mattek-Sands was scheduled to play in this rubber, but after her cramping incident yesterday (Mattek-Sands told the press that she the only times she had ever cramped, she had been ill; it turns out that she arrived in San Diego with a sinus infection), USA captain Mary Joe Fernandez decided to keep her out of competition.

Oudin and Schiavone continually broke each other in the first set, then Oudin was able to hold for 5-3. That was all she needed. When she won the set, Italy's Flavia Pennetta left the stands and headed for the locker room, realizing that her services might be needed.

Though it would have been reasonable to assume that Schiavone would pull herself together for the second set, that assumption would have been wrong. Oudin held, then broke the error-prone Italian at love. Shiavone held at love after Oudin went up 3-0, and it seemed that the momentum would change. But by this time, Oudin was beating Schiavone at her own game. She regained her forehand form, and was able to slice and drop the ball and move Schiavone around successfully. Meanwhile, Schiavone made significant errors, and Oudin ended the match 6-3, 6-1 with an ace.

"I really approached it as 'I haven't had a big match in a while, I haven't played a top 10 player in a while, I had no fear'," Oudin said after the match.

Coco Vandeweghe (could her mother please start sitting with the Djokovic clan?) began her match against Flavia Pennetta by breaking the Italian. But it wasn't long before the USA's representative demonstrated enough inconsistency and poor movement to allow Pennetta to dominate. Tired though she may have been, Pennetta rose to the occasion and expertly defeated Vandeweghe 6-1, 6-2. Pennetta made a total of only eight unforced errors in the match.

Italy defeated the USA in the Fed Cup final last year, also. The Italian team also won the title in 2006.

It has been a great year for Italy. The team won another Fed Cup title, Schiavone won the French Open, and Pennetta was half of the tour's top doubles team.

Fed Cup final, day 1: Italy leads 2-0

Italy is now one match away from winning a second consecutive Fed Cup final. The defending champions won both singles rubbers against the USA today. In the first match, first-time Fed Cup player Coco Vandeweghe was defeated 6-2, 6-4 by Francesca Schiavone. Vandeweghe was visibly anxious in the first set, but calmed down in the second, and occasionally issued a challenge to Schiavone.

The second match had some high drama. A tired and physically down Flavia Pennetta--playing her 72nd singles match of the season (she has also played 64 doubles matches)--was still able to go up 5-1 in the first set. But then her opponent, Bethanie Mattek-Sands, won five straight games. Pennetta held, and a tiebreak ensued.

Mattek-Sands, who is always fun to watch, worked so hard to get into the tiebreak, but then experienced a loss of focus, which gave Pennetta the first set. "After a while, I was beginning to breathe," Pennetta commented later about the tight first set. "For a while, I wasn't breathing at all."

By this time, the two players had competed for an hour and 23 minutes. Several games into the second set, Mattek-Sands began to cramp. Pennetta knew that something was going on, but--she revealed later--she didn't know what it was, and she allowed her confusion to overcome her focus. As a result, Mattek-Sands, who received routine treatment during a changeover, was able to hang in for a while against the Italian. Pennetta won the set 6-2, however.

Mattek-Sands is scheduled to play Francesca Schiavone in tomorrow's first match, but, of course, whether she plays depends on how well she recovers from the cramping. Vandeweghe is scheduled to play Pennetta, though there was some talk today about substituting Melanie Oudin. Mattek-Sands' health will dictate some of the decisions that USA captain Mary Joe Fernandez makes tomorrow.

The Italian players both displayed end-of-the-season weariness. "You arrive 'finished'," Schiavone said of the fatigue involved in traveling from Doha to California; Pennetta said she had not been feeling too good all week.

Vandeweghe named to USA Fed Cup team

Coco Vandeweghe has been named by captain Mary Joe Fernandez to the USA Fed Cup team that will compete in the final against Italy. Vandeweghe joins Melanie Oudin, Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Liezel Huber. Vandeweghe, who began the 2010 season with a ranking of 322, is now ranked number 115 in the world.

Fernandez has not yet announced who will play singles for the team, and substitutions can be made during Fed Cup weekend. The final will be played November 6 and 7 in San Diego.

Miscellany

Kim Clijsters reports that she is pain-free. Clijsters developed an infection on the bottom of her foot after undergoing a mole-removal procedure.

Justine Henin, by the way, reports that she is also pain-free.

Bethanie Mattek-Sands tells us that the most requested cocktail from her personal bar is a concoction called the Italian Wedding Cake. You can get details in her latest USA Today blog entry.

Coco Vandeweghe says she originally considered playing college basketball, but changed to tennis because she did not really enjoy playing on a team.

Amelie Mauresmo was on hand recently to celebrate Yannick Noah's 50th birthday, and you should check out this cake.

Vandeweghe advances to Tokyo quarterfinals

World number 172 Coco Vandeweghe hit her way into the quarterfinals in Tokyo today when she defeated Julia Goerges 6-3, 6-0 in the third round. Vandeweghe is the only qualifier remaining in the tournament. Kaia Kanepi upset 3rd seed Jelena Jankovic 6-4, 6-4, and top seed Caroline Wozniacki defeated 16th seed Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova 6-1, 6-2. Wozniaki has also become the first player designated to compete in the WTA Championships in Doha.

Also winning today were 2nd seed Vera Zvonareva (def. qualifier Roberta Vinci), 5th seed Francesca Schiavone (def. wild card Kimiko Date Krumm), 6th seed Agnieszka Radwanska (def. Andrea Petkovic), 7th seed Elena Dementieva (def. Flavia Pennetta), and 8th seed Victoria Azarenka (def. Marion Bartoli, who retired because of a viral illness).

In doubles, tops seeds Gisela Dulko and Flavia Pennetta moved to the second round. Wimbledon and U.S. Open champions Vania King and Yaroslava Shvedova, however, were defeated 7-6, 6-2 by Tathiana Garbin and Francesca Schiavone.

Here is the singles quarterfinal draw:

Wozniacki vs. Radwanska
Vandeweghe vs. Azarenka
Schiavone vs. Kanepi
Dementieva vs. Zvonareva

U.S. Open miscellany

As Cole Porter said, brush up your Shakespeare! You've never before experienced this deconstruction of Hamlet.

During Arthur Ashe Kids' Day, both Roger Federer and Kim Clijsters were interviewed. Federer, the father of one-year-old twins, was asked about this year's Open compared with last year's; Clijsters was asked how she "balances" playing tennis and being a mother.

The U.S. Open promotional spot with the players on famous leaning New York skyscrapers is wonderful.

Geoff MacDonald suggests we watch Victoria Azarenka, Kaia Kanepi and Coco Vandeweghe.

There are great practice and training photos all over Forty Deuce.

Cibulkova--good for her--was the lone player to attend the Dunlop party, where she tended bar.

Miscellany

The Williams sisters are scheduled to play for team USA in the Fed Cup final in November. Serena previously said that she usually "cannot walk" by November, and Venus's knee is giving her trouble, so those who cheer for the USA will have to wait and see if the pair are healthy enough to compete.

Here is Bobby Chintapalli's interview with Vera Zvonareva.

Lindsay Davenport deconstructs Sam Stosur's kick serve (thanks to Forty Deuce for finding this).

You can get to know Coco Vandeweghe.

The tour's "Looking Back at a Legend" series continues with a feature on Margaret Court.

Sam Stosur has withdrawn from the 2010 Commonwealth Games. Anastasia Rodionova announced yesterday that she will play on the Australian team.

Vandeweghe gets wild card to Australian Open

Coco Vandeweghe, playing in the first three-set match of the Australian Open wild card playoff tournament in Atlanta, defeated Christina McHale 7-6, 0-6, 6-3 in today's final.

McHale was last year's wild card playoff winner, but she had to retire in the first round of the Open because of severe cramping. Vandeweghe, the 2008 U.S. Open junior champion, turned 18 yesterday.

"...my daughter is being warmed up by an old lady in flip-flops"

Right before CoCo Vandeweghe played in her first-ever main draw event, the Sony Ericsson Open, she warmed up with Lindsay Davenport. Davenport, impressed with Vandewegh, asked who her coach was, and the junior player replied that she did not have one. She didn't even have a hitting partner, other than her mother, who took to the courts in sandals.

"I had blisters on my feet for a week," Tauna Vandeweghe said. "That was the first wake-up call for us. I said to myself: 'This is ridiculous. These other girls have coaches, nutritionists, everything, and my daughter is being warmed up by an old lady in flip-flops."

Tauna Vandeweghe is hardly an "old lady," but her point was well made. Her daughter now has not one, but two, coaches--both of them former (and current) coaches of Davenport. Robert Van't Hof and Adam Peterson now coach the young player, and she shares an agent with Maria Sharapova. Vandeweghe's parents were careful not to push her into too much too soon, but the family feels that now is the right time for her to enter a more intense level of sport.

Vandeweghe was pleasant to watch in the U.S. Open main draw (as was her Snezana-like mother), though she had the misfortune of drawing Jelena Jankovic in the first round), though she did not impress me as much as Kristie Ahn. When she lost in the main draw, she went back over to juniors and won the U.S. Open title.

CoCo Vandeweghe is only sixteen years old, and she is worth watching.

Vandeweghe wins U.S. Open in juniors

Coco Vandeweghe won the junior girls' U.S. Open final today, defeating Gabriela Paz, 7-6, 6-1. Vandeweghe is the first American girl to the win the U.S. Open in juniors since Tara Snyder won in 1995.

Lertcheewakarn defeated in 3rd round

Wimbledon finalist Noppawan Lertcheewakarn lost her third round match today at the U.S. Open. She was defeated by Gabriela Paz, 6-3, 6-4. Lertcheewakarn, seeded number 3, had several break points when Paz served for the match, but failed to convert any of them. Paz won on her first match point.

Meanwhile, some American girls have been doing quite well at the U.S. Open. Number 2 seed Melanie Oudin defeated U.S. player Asia Muhammad, Madison Brengle defeated U.S. player Christina McHale, Coco Vandewegh defeated Katarzyna Piter, and Gail Brodsky defeated Ajla Tomljanovic. There are four Americans in the quarterfinals, and only one--Melanie Oudin--is seeded. Her opponent is Brengle, so at least one American will be eliminated.

Vandewegh defeats Ahn in 2nd round of juniors

I was very impressed with Kristie Ahn when I saw her play Dinara Safina in the first round of the U.S. Open--so impressed, I'm a bit surprised that she has gone out in the second round of the junior tournament. She was defeated this morning by another up and coming American player, Coco Vandewegh, 6-3, 6-4.

American Gail Brodsky has also advanced to the third round.