Kim Clijsters 31st title….and her first since Hasselt last year ! In the 1st set Clijsters went up 3-1 but Kuznetsova won 3 games in a row and took over 3-4. then it went with serve till 6-5 and Kim Clijsters serving for the set. She fell behind 15-40, but battled her way back in business with a second serve ace to deuce. After some deuces with alternating advantage, Clijsters ended it with a stunning forehand. Already missed a setpoint with an erratic smash, hit with the frame and going into orbit I think.

1st set stats Clijsters/Kuznetsova
1st serve: 65% - 68%
Aces/DF’s: 2/1 - 0/0
Winners/U.E.’s: 11/11 - 11/17
Breakpoints; 2/5 - 1/4

A close set, but Clijsters was in the driving seat.

In the 2nd set Clijsters took over completely, while Sveta Kuznetsova played her wellknown agressive game but committed too many Unforced Errors. Clijsters started with a break but was broken right away to 1-1. Then she went up till 4-1 before Kuznetsova could break her again 4-2, while she lost all her servegames. Clijsters won the next 2 games and served it out after some deuces, hitting her 3rd ace at the right moment.

Matchstatistics: Clijsters/Kuznetsova
1st serve: 58% - 61%
Aces/DF’s: 3/3 - 2/2
Winners/U.E.’s: 21/18 - 25/35
Breakpoints; 6/10 - 3/8
Total points: 74 - 58

It shows that Kim Clijsters played a very solid 2nd set with 10 winners for only 7 Unforced Errors (of which 2 Double Faults). Sveta had 14 winners against 18 Unforced Errors…so Kim Clijsters’ balance was clearly superior ! Sveta Kuznetsova going too much for winners and failing IMO.
A pitty for Sveta Kuznetsova who played her 3rd final here in a row. lost 2004 against Venus Williams, 2005 against Justine Henin-Hardenne, 2006 against Kim Clijsters.
But an excellent claycourt start for Kim ! The FedCup on clay must have helped her anyhow, and her semifinal against Elena Dementieva (with big rallies) was a perfect preparation for her final against Sveta Kuznetsova.

Both Sveta and Kim still have to play their respective semis. One would rather think Anna will be an easy victim for Sveta, but with Anna you never know. She did beat Jankovic, Hantuchova and Ivanovic in a row…. and Kim is not ready yet with Elena either. But she will go for it anyway.

Kuznetsova is up for a tough match versus Anna, who has beaten an impressive list of players before reaching the semi finale including; Jankovic, Hantuchova, Ivanovic.

Kim Clijsters has setup a match versus Russian Elena Dementieva to whom she lost in the Fedcup but it has to be noted that that was Kim’s first match since her early exit at the NASDAQ Miami.

World number 9, and number three seed this week, Elena Dementieva put to an end an already impressive run by Polish teenager Agnieska Radwanska in a three set marathon 5:7; 6:3; 6:1.

Radwanska felt in her skin what most players feel when playing a three set versus Dementieva. After going neck-to-neck until 5-5, Radwanska managed to grab the decisive break to take the first set away by seven games to five.

But Dementieva had just found her groove. After heating up during the first set she raced to a 3-0 lead in the second set. After that both players went with serve until Elena finally closed the second set by six games to three. Radwanska must have felt at this point that she might have made the worst mistake you can possibly do against Dementieva on a tennis court – play a third set!

Again the Russian blonde fired her way to a 5-0 lead, before dropping a game. After that it was game, set and match for Elena, who once again proved she rules three setters.

Next up for Elena is Kim Clijsters. The Belgian dismissed Italian Francesca Schiavone with a double 6:4, after trailing 3-0 first set. In the head-to-head versus Clijsters things have looked worse for the Russian, although they still aren’t too pleasing. The Belgian leads the series 9-3, with the Russia claiming two of the last four matches, including a Fed Cup rubber two weeks ago in Liege, Belgium. This year the players are tied at one win a piece with Clijsters’ win coming in three sets in Antwerp earlier in the year. Should Elena advance it will mark her third final of the season after claiming Tokyo [Pan Pacific Open] and finishing runner-up in Indian Wells to Maria Sharapova.

Other results on Friday include a battle of teens between Ana Ivanovic and Anna Chakvetadze, with the last emerging victorious in a three set win 4:6; 6:2; 6:4. Svetlana Kuznetsova sent packing former Warsaw champion Venus Williams in a quite one-sided match that ended 6:4; 6:2.

This is the 11th edition of the J&S Cup. In its first seven years it was held as either a Tier III or Tier IV event. The tournament was elevated to Tier II status in 2003, with winners since then being Mauresmo (2003), Williams (2004) and Henin-Hardenne (2005). This year’s champion takes home $95,500, while the runner-up pockets $51,000.

Patty Schnyder failed in her this years debut match on the european red clay. After a first round bye the second seeded Swiss lost today against Ana Ivanovic 3-6 2-6.

Patty won all her four previous matches against Ivanovic but today the 18-year-old Serbian star was really under fire.

She broke the Swiss four times and had always the control over the match. The world number eight from Switzerland never found her rhythm today. Ivanovic’s dominance held on over the whole match and after 74 minutes she got a deserved win. In the tomorrow’s quarterfinals the Serbian will face Russia’s Anna Chakvetadze, who beat Daniela Hantuchova fom Slovakia today.

Patty’s next tournament will be the Qatar Total German Open in Berlin, which starts on May 8th.

In a much anticipated rematch between old rivals, Martina Hingis couldn’t manage to capitalize on an early lead and a cramping Venus Williams to eventually go down 6-4 5-7 4-6 in the 2nd round of the J&S Cup in Warsaw, Poland.

Nerves and lack of match play clearly played a huge part for both players. After a difficult 1st round against Maria Kirilenko, this was only Hingis’s 2nd match on red clay in 4 years. Williams, on the other hand, was playing her 3rd match of the season after losing in the 1st round at the Australian Open and winning her first match against a Polish wild card in Warsaw.

This encounter started with what has become the story of the match – breaks of serves. At 4-4, Hingis managed to hold serve & break Williams for a 6-4 lead on her 4th set point.

Hingis immediately raced to a 3-0 lead in the 2nd set and looked like she had the match on her hands. Williams quickly regained her focus & leveled it to 3-3. Each player then held serve until Hingis was leading 6-4 5-4, 30-0, when she apparently got frustrated with what she believed was a bad line call. She quickly lost her concentration and perhaps a bit of confidence, thereby allowing Williams to take the 2nd set 7-5

At 1-1 in the 3rd set, Williams was clearly cramping and asked for an injury time-out. It would have been a different story if Hingis was able to take advantage of Williams’ lack of fitness, but she wasn’t able to. They kept holding serve and breaking each other, game per game, until 4-4. At this stage, Hingis wasn’t able to capitalize on a game point and surrendered her serve. Williams served for the match and won 4-6, 7-5, 6-4 after more than 2½ hours of play.

This should be an extremely tough loss for Hingis to swallow, as she led a set and 3-0, then 5-4 30-0, and lost it. Their head-to-head is now tied at 10-10. She hit 12 winners to Venus’ 53, and 39 unforced errors to Venus’ 80. In the end, those who watched the match state that it was Hingis’s weak serves, passive play at crucial times and inability to convert important points that lost her the match. Whether it was a bad day, lack of confidence or lack of practice on clay, she certainly has a lot to improve on for the next tournament.

While today was definitely a setback, Hingis gets a few extra days to prepare for Berlin, which begins next Monday, and then she heads for Rome beginning May 15. Here’s to hoping she makes a better showing in her next clay tournaments!