Czink and Rybarikova out of Estoril Open in 1st round

5th seed Melinda Czink and 6th seed Magdalena Rybarikova were both upset today at the Estoril Open. Stephanie Voegele defeated Czink 6-4, 6-3, and Jarmila Groth defeated Rybarikova, also 6-4, 6-3.

Also leaving in the first round was Alize Cornet, who lost to Michelle Larcher De Brito in a match that lasted almost 2 hours and 47 minutes. De Brito emerged the victor, 6-3, 4-6, 6-3. Cornet hit nine aces, but had a lot of trouble with her second serve. Larcher De Brito double-faulted nine times, which is characteristic of her. This was probably a frustrating event to watch. Cornet once had such promise, and Larcher De Brito was considered a star on the rise. To her credit, Larcher De Brito is a very good ball-striker who finds a lot of angles, but the double faults and the sometimes wild hitting get her into trouble. She's still quite young, though, and has time to clean up those problems.

Henin gets past Czink

In a Brisbane International quarterfinal match that lasted two hours and twenty minutes, wild card Justine Henin emerged the winner against Melinda Czink, who saved five match points. Henin defeated Czink 6-2, 3-6, 7-6, holding on to an early mini-break in the tiebreak.

Kim Clijsters also won her quarterfinal match, defeating Lucie Safarova 6-1, 0-6, 6-4. Ana Ivanovic defeated Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova 6-2, 7-6, and Andrea Petkovic upset 4th seed Daniela Hantuchova 6-4, 6-2.

In the semifinals, Henin will play Ivanovic, and Clijsters will play Petkovic.

Miscellany

Sorana Cirstea, with Victor Hanescu, will represent Romania in 2010 Hopman Cup competiton.

Mallory Cecil has signed a multi-year representation agreement with Lagardere. Cecil won the NCAA singles championship as a freshman, and was the first ACC player to ever win the NCAA Division 1 singles and the NCAA Division 1 team championships in the same year. She finished 2009 as the top-ranked collegiate player in the U.S., and won both the Honda Sports Award and the ITA Player of the Year award. Cecil was named Duke University Most Valuable Player, and ACC Rookie of the Year. This summer, she decided to leave school and play professional tennis.

The website, MarionBartoli.net, has been discontinued.

Serena Williams and her legal team have not yet decided whether Williams will personally make her case to the ITF regarding the incident which occurred during the U.S. Open.

One more time...Maleness is not synonymous with courage and positive aggression. It was bad enough last year when Serena Williams said she had to "man up." In Tokyo this week, Lindsay Davenport said that Maria Sharapova played "balls-out tennis." (For all the etymology experts out that--yes, it's possible that the term originally had a non-sexual meaning, but its meaning for a long, long time has been related to male anatomy and hormones.) To equate courage and positive aggression with only the male gender is inappropriate in any case, but to do so while talking about a women's sporting event is sexism of the most ridiculous nature.

Dominika Cibulkova has begun playing tennis again.

You can learn some things about Melinda Czink here.

Czink wins first title

Melinda Czink, a left-hander from Hungary, won her first Sony Ericsson WTA Tour title today, defeating (also left-handed) Lucie Safarova, 4-6, 6-3, 7-5 in Quebec City. Czink, who was seeded 5th at the tournament, made her top 50 debut in August.

Top seeds Vania King and Barbora Zahlavova Strycova won the doubles championship, defeating Sofia Arvidsson and Severine Bremond Baltrame, 6-1, 6-3.

Safarova and Czink to meet in Quebec City final

4th seed Lucie Safarova and 5th seed Melinda Czink will meet tomorrow to determine who is the 2009 Bell Challenge champion. Safarova defeated 8th seed Julia Goerges 6-3, 6-2.

Czink got the better of 3rd seed Aleksandra Wozniak, defeating the local favorite 6-3, 6-3.

In doubles, Sofia Arvidsson and Severine Bremond Beltrame defeated 4th seeds Alla Kudryavtseva and Riza Zalameda, 7-5, 6-2. Arvidsson and Bremond Beltrame will play in the final against Vania King and Barbora Zahlavova Strycova. They defeated Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Aleksandra Wozniak, 6-4, 4-6, 10-5.

Three upsets today in Fes

Melinda Czink, moving forward with her best season to date, defeated 3rd seed Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, 7-6, 3-6, 6-3, today in Fes. Polona Hercog upset 7th seed and Barcelona champion Roberta Vinci, and Lucie Hradecka upset 8th seed Shahar Peer.

Also, Marta Domachowska defeated lucky loser Eva Fernandez-Brugues, and advanced to the third round. And Klara Zakopalova took top seed Anabel Medina Garrigues to three sets, but Medina Garrigues prevailed.

Bartoli goes to Charleston semifinals with win over Czink

Winning with 82% of her first serves in the day's last quarterfinal in Charleston, Marion Bartoli made it tough for Melinda Czink to make an impact. In the first set, which Bartoli took, 6-4, the Frenchwoman demonstrated a very effective first serve, which neutralized the problems she was having with her second serve. In the second set, she was highly successful with both serves. She also stayed busy exploiting Czink's unstable backhand, which produced error after error for the woman who--just the day before--had taken out 4th seed Nadia Petrova.

Czink had forehand issues, too, often making late impact with the ball. There were, however, some good exchanges between the two, and the crowd--desperate for a three-set match--gave Czink a lot of encouragement. But there was little she could do, as the ever-aggressive Bartoli broke her five times and emerged the victor with a 6-4, 6-1 scoreline.

Family Circle Cup, day 4--Petrova upset by Czink, Zvonareva upset by surface

Top seed Elena Dementieva cruised through her match against Varvara Lepchenko

Melinda Czink took out former Cup champion Nadia Petrova in three sets

By the time I got to the Nadia Petrova-Melinda Czink match in the stadium (I'd been watching the match between Elena Vesnina and Victoriya Kutuzova), Petrova, the 4th seed, had taken the first set 6-3, and it was 4-all in the second. Czink won that set, and after that, she steadied herself and waited for Petrova to make errors.

She didn't have to wait long. Petrova--who hit thirteen aces in the match (Czink hit ten)--began to struggle with her second serve, and before long, she began to struggle with just about everything. She served for the match at 5-4, and was broken at love. About that time, the wind picked up, making things even more complicated. Petrova saved a match point when she served at 5-6, 15-40, but Czink took the final set 7-5, and the 2006 Family Circle Cup champion walked off the court without even been acknowledged by match announcer Murphy Jensen.

I saw Czink play here in 2007, and she was unimpressive. She has obviously been working very hard; she is having quite a nice season.

The first set of that Vesnina-Kutuzova match, by the way, was worth seeing. Kutusova easily went up 5-1 in the first set, then Vesnina--out of nowhere--leveled the match at 5-all. Kutozova went on to hold a set point, but Vesnina saved it, and won the set in a tiebreak. I left after that, and when I went outside the stadium to check the scores, Vesnina was up 4-2 in the second set. She then went up 5-2, and Kutuzova won three games in a row, to put it at 5-all. She was broken again, however, and Vesnina won the match 7-6, 7-5.

Kutusova has a formidable forehand, and her backhand is nothing to sneeze at, either. But in this match, Vesnina was the stronger, cleaner hitter, and she was able to control more of the rallies.

5th seed Caroline Wozniacki, who has been playing under the radar in Charleston, quietly put away 10th seed Peng Shuai, 6-3, 6-4, while top seed Elena Dementieva had an easy time of it with Varvara Lepchenko, defeating her 6-1, 6-1 in just over an hour.

Not having as easy a time was 7th seed Dominika Cibulkova, who was challenged by the new and improved Anastasia Rodionova. I saw only a little of this match, which Cibulkova won, 6-7, 6-2, 6-3.

The most unfortunate event of the day was an untimely slip on the clay by 3rd seed Vera Zvonareva, who many of us thought was poised to win the tournament. Zvonareva was playing Virginie Razzano, and the score was 1-all in the first set when the Russian fell. She was unable to get up, and was in a lot of pain from twisting her ankle. She was helped off of the court and taken away by the medics, sending Razzano to the quarterfinals.

In 2006, Zvonareva hurt her wrist in Charleston and was out for months, though she did avoid surgery. Last year, she was the finalist--and now this. Today, I was still sad from Patty Schnyder's second round loss, and Zvonareva's retirement really did me in. I just hope that she does not miss the entire clay court season. She is staying in our hotel, and I wonder whether we will see her hobbling around in the morning. Wherever she is--I wish her a very fast recovery.

There was another retirement this evening: The 2nd-seeded doubles team of Chuang Chia-Jung and Elena Vesnina retired after they lost the first set (1-6) of their quarterfinal match against Liga Dekmeijere and Patty Schnyder. The retirement was the result of a shoulder injury sustained by Chuang.

In the other doubles quarterfinal played today, the number 4 seeds--Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Nadia Petrova--defeated Mariya Koryttseva and Galina Voskoboeva, 6-0, 6-4. Petrova had her moments, but it was Mattek-Sands who did the real work--whizzing groundstrokes past her opponents over and over.

Quote of the day

"Don't make faces!"

Melinda Czink, to her coach, sitting in the stands during her doubles match