Maria Kirilenko will start her 2006 red-clay campaign in Warsaw, where she drew former world number one and five time grand slam champion Martina Hingis.

Kirilenko, currently ranked twenty second in the world, will have her hands full with Hingis, to whom she already lost this year in Tokyo [Pan Pacific Open]. Back then Kirilenko experienced, possibly for the first time, how it feels to play someone who will not overpower you, but simply outsmarts you. No wonder she ended up losing 6:2 and 6:1.

But now Maria should be ready to face once again the Swiss miss since she has forced big names such as Davenport, Kuznetsova and Sharapova to go through three sets before losing.

She also featured last week’s Russian squad for Fed Cup playing alongside with Dementieva, Petrova and Safina. She was assigned a rubber versus Kim Clijsters, her first ever Fed Cup rubber, but the nerves hit her during the first set which she eventually dropped 6:1. She regrouped in the second and went toe-to-toe with the Belgian until 4 all when she finally lost.

She may take advantage of Hingis’ layoff since Miami and eventually cause an “upset” as some would say, although she is the highest ranked of the two! But considering she beats the Swiss she probably won’t be able to celebrate much since Venus Williams will possibly be waiting in the second round.

After that the ranks tell that Kuznetsova will be her next opponent so not good news again since she lost to Kuznetsova back in Doha in three sets. Further in the draw Schnyder seems the player to beat, although others like Groenefeld and Kirilenko’s doubles partner Ivanovic will try to stop the Swiss player and seed number two this week.

For the final Kim Clijsters or Elena Dementieva will probably be the target.

Looking at things like that it doesn’t inspire much confidence but Maria has proven she can fight with anyone out there, sometimes winning sometimes losing, but always fighting.

Martina Hingis’ quest for her 41st singles titles and 7th clay court title continues at the 11th staging of the J & S Cup at the Warszawianka Tennis Centre in Warsaw, Poland. The tournament, a 600,000-dollar Tier II event, offers its winner $95,500 and $51,000 for its runner-up.

Four of the women’s top ten players are scheduled to play. Leading the pack is world number two Belgium’s Kim Clijsters seeded first. Swiss Patty Schnyder, who had an impressive run at the Family Circle Cup a fortnight ago, is seeded second. Seeded third and fourth respectively are Russians Elena Dementieva and Svetlana Kuznetsova. Italian Francesca Schiavone is seeded fifth, while another Russian, Anastasia Myskina, is seeded sixth, and 2004 champion Venus Williams is seeded seventh. The last three seeds to complete the top ten seeds are fully pumped-up German Anna-Lena Groenefeld, Slovak Daniela Hantuchova and Serbian Ana Ivanovic who are seeded respectively at eighth, ninth and tenth.

Martina Hingis is seeded at fourteenth, the highest seeding she’s had since her much-awaited comeback in January 2006. In the first round Martina will be up against Russian Maria Kirilenko who is the seeded twelfth. Maria Kirilenko poses no problem to Martina Hingis in as much as Hingis beat her in the quarterfinals at the 2006 staging of the Toray Pan Pacific Open in Japan.

Should Hingis prevail over Kirilenko, the second round promises a much-awaited match between her and Venus Williams, the seventh seed. Venus and Martina were rivals during Martina’s reign atop women’s tennis. Although Martina leads in their career head-to-head-wins at 10 against Venus’ 9, Martina Hingis was beaten by Venus during their last two meetings, both at the semifinal rounds in 2001 at the Ericsson Open, played on hard court, and in 2002 at a tournament in Hamburg, Germany, which was played on clay surface.

A fourth quarter face-off with Svetlana Kuznetsova is possible should Martina win over Venus. Martina then stands a chance to avenge her third-round loss to Kuznetsova at the Nasdaq 100 in Miami earlier this year.

In the finals, Martina’s possible opponent might be Anastasia Myskina or Elena Dementieva.

The singles’ main draw has been released for this week’s J&S Cup from Warsaw, Poland. Elena Dementieva, due to her ranking, was awarded the number three seed position and therefore a first round bye.

But this is a tough tournament just to start and round two will already provide Elena a tough match-up. Technically she is meant to meet Daniela Hantuchova, who is playing a qualifier in the first round. In the head-to-head Dementieva leads the series 6-3 but the last meeting was clamed by the Slovakian who won a semi-final clash in Los Angeles last year in straight sets.

Should Dementieva advance she is likely to get old rival Anastasia Myskina. Myskina leads the head-to-head record by 9-6 but the last meeting was claimed by the blonde this year in the semi-finals of Tokyo by the score of 6-4; 3-6; 6-4.

Looking a bit deeper in the draw and world number two, Kim Clijsters, looms ahead for a possible semi-final showdown. After dropping seven of the first eight meetings with Clijsters, Dementieva has proved to be a thorn on the Belgian’s side claming two of the last four meetings, including a Fed Cup rubber last weekend in straight sets, and taking the Belgian to three sets in Antwerp earlier this year. The series stand at 9-3 in favour to Clijsters with the last meeting being claimed by the Russian.

In case of downing the number one seed and world’s number two, Dementieva may face one of the following players: Venus Williams, Martina Hingis, Svetlana Kuznetsova or Patty Schnyder the number two seed this week. For more information on the results from Warsaw please visit www.dementieva.lawntennisnews.com or head to www.lawntennisnews.com

World number nine Elena Dementieva heads to Warsaw next week to play the J&S Cup in Poland, as a starter for her clay court season.

Dementieva will headline the field along with Kim Clijsters, who was beaten by Dementieva last weekend in Fed Cup action in Liege, Patty Schnyder, Venus Williams, Anastasia Myskina, Francesca Schiavone, and Svetlana Kuznetsova, among others, all hoping to dethrone 2005 champion, and this year’s withdrawal, Justine Henin-Hardenne. Also competing this week will be Martina Hingis the former world number one who returns to the courts after being out for about a month.

This is the first time Dementieva plays Warsaw. Her next tournament will be the Qatar Total Open from Germany.

For more details, match analysis and previews of Warsaw please comeback to our site all week long.

Maria Sharapova, preparing in Mexico for the claycourt season, has injured her foot during practice because of it she was forced to cancel her exhibition matches in Mexico where she would play Gisela Dulko.

An MRI showed that Maria has inflammation in her right metatarsal joint with associated soft tissue swelling of the posterior tibialis insertion. She will recover fully, but cannot play tennis for the next few days,” according to Dr. Mark Lindsay.

She should be playing again in a week according to him. She is currently preparing for the Masters tournament in Rome.