[DoctorTentonyya]

Progressing up Avenue Gordon Bennett was considerably easier today. The absence of touts was noticeable and those who remained appeared to be doing very slow business. Interest in the women’s semi-finals was negligible and before too long it was not hard to see why.

Those who champion the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour goes to great lengths to argue to the contrary but take Maria Sharapova, both Williams sisters and the Serbian duo of Jelena Jankovic and Ana Ivanovic out the scenario when it comes to the sharp end of the tournament and things dull down immeasurably.

Dinara Safina may have been the world’s top ranked player since April 20 and Svetlana Kuznetsova peaked at No 2 a couple of years ago but neither Russian could vaguely be termed box office when it comes to attracting the fans. Such is the public appeal of Dominika Cibulkova and Samantha Stosur, both could have wandered around the leafy avenues that flank the world’s greatest clay court tournament in total anonymity just a few minutes before walking onto court.
(...)
Apart from a few jousting points in the second set tie-break between Kuznetsova and Stosur, both contests failed to ignite anything approaching excitement. Before too long a cooling glass of white or perhaps a pression of beer was on most spectators’ minds, so disappointing was the tennis.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/spo...cle6433293.ece