Translated material
Nine for two
Federer and Nadal will try to surpass last year's record
Today in the American city of Indian Wells (California) the first tournament of this season in the Masters series, which has existed since 1990, starts. It includes nine competitions, which in terms of importance and the amount of the prize fund are second only to the Open Championships of Australia, Great Britain, France and the USA, which are part of the Grand Slam series, as well as the final tournament of the year, the Masters Cup.The Masters in Indian Wells and the subsequent competition in Miami have the largest format in the so-called super nine. There are 96 participants in the main singles draw. Tournaments take place on hard courts and last almost two weeks. In April and May, the clay Masters will take place in Monte Carlo, Rome and Hamburg, and in August the series will return overseas again - to the hard courts of Toronto, Canada, and Cincinnati, America. In October, the elite will gather in Madrid and again on hard court, while the last tournament will be held on synthetic surface in Paris. The Masters Cup is as usual scheduled for November in Shanghai.
Last year, the world number one, Swiss Roger Federer, and number two in the ATP ranking, Spaniard Rafael Nadal, set a new record in terms of the number of Masters won per season - four each. Federer won three titles in the USA and also distinguished himself in Germany, Nadal excelled in Monaco, Italy, Canada and in his homeland in Madrid. Neither the Swiss nor the Spaniard took part in the last Masters of the season, and the hitherto little-known Czech Tomas Berdych celebrated a sensational victory in Paris.
Nine tennis players from the top ten of the world rankings arrived in Indian Wells. The only player missing is Argentinean Guillermo Coria, whose favorite surface is clay. The first 32 seeded players, including the fifth racket of the tournament Nikolay Davydenko and Igor Andreev, will enter the fight from the second round. The best Russian tennis player at the moment, Davydenko, will meet with Briton Andy Murray or one of the qualifiers in the second round. An 18-year-old resident of Foggy Albion surprised all experts and fans in February by winning a tournament in San Jose. Moreover, in the semi-finals the Scot dealt with the American Andy Roddick, and in the decisive match for the trophy he defeated the Australian Lleyton Hewitt.
Andreev will have to play with the winner of the pair Tomas Behrend (Germany) - Dmitry Tursunov. Marat Safin and Mikhail Youzhny were partly lucky with the draw - one of the qualifying participants was waiting for them at the start of the tournament. Let us remind you that Marat, after a six-month break due to the treatment of his knees, returned to the ATP tour only in February. So far he has only had two fights this season: he defeated Davydenko and lost to the Belgian Olivier Rochus. The total prize fund of the competition is $3,169,600, the winner will receive 455 thousand. The “seeded” players already guaranteed themselves at least $8,700.
In parallel with the men's Masters, Indian Wells will host the second women's first category BTA tournament of the season. Unlike the representatives of the stronger sex, the two best rated tennis players in the world were missing from the competition here. Last year's winner, Belgian Kim Clijsters, on the advice of doctors, decided to take a three-week break from competing and will not defend her title. She will lose the ranking points she earned last year and will automatically give way at the top of the WTA classification to the Frenchwoman Amelie Mauresmo, who will become the first racket of the world without playing. In the absence of these two girls, the favorites are Justine Henin-Hardenne (Belgium), American Lindsay Davenport, Swiss Martina Hingis, who is rapidly regaining her former condition, who returned to tennis this season after a three-year break, and also, with some reservations, our Maria Sharapova.
After her June success on the Birmingham grass, the Russian woman has not been able to win a single tournament for seven months. This season she lost in both head-to-head matches with Henin-Ardenne, and with Hingis in 2006, Maria had an equal balance of personal meetings - 1:1. Just recently, Sharapova took first place in the ranking, and now she is already fifth. And the retreat could continue if Maria in North America performs worse than last spring. In Indian Wells she reached the semi-finals, and in Miami she played in the decisive match for the title.
Among Sharapova's compatriots, Elena Dementieva, Anastasia Myskina, Maria Kirilenko, Dinara Safina, Elena Vesnina, Ekaterina Bychkova, who defeated Henrietta Nadiova (Slovakia) in the first round - 6:3, 6:0, and Anastasia Rodionova, who started qualifying, will make up Sharapova's company. Myskina said that she will not play for the Russian national team at the Federation Cup this season, focusing on personal performances. There are no plans yet for Sharapova to participate in games for the national team.