A Look at the End of the Women's Tennis Season

There's lots to get to this post-U.S. Open, and in the post-season, I'll try to get to it a little at a time. For today, I plan to tackle some of the happenings following the U.S. Open.
I'm not going to do that, though, before giving a shout-out to Kim Clijsters, who successfully defended her title from 2009. Clijsters has always been one of the top players on hard courts, but in her first career, that wasn't necessarily reflected in her Grand Slam haul. In her second career, well, it's a different story. She's played four Slams, had a couple odd losses . . . and won two U.S. Opens, and it's hard not to imagine her being a major factor in Australia at the start of the new season.
Now for the rest of the field.
• Not-so-sweet Caroline: Caroline Wozniacki is only 20-years-old, a downright infant in modern tennis terms, but she's the one on top of the rankings for . . . goodness only knows how long. Clijsters and Vera Zvonareva are both within shooting distance in Australia, but they would likely have to win to take over the top spot, and Wozniacki doesn't have too much to defend herself.
Still, her spot at the top feels kind of . . . unfulfilling. A lot of the reason for that is that she didn't exactly put in a dominant year by No. 1 standards (seven titles), and she doesn't have a Grand Slam title to her name. Goodness, in the past 12 months, she doesn't even have a final. She entered the U.S. Open as the top seed following Serena Williams' withdrawal and got beaten in the semifinal (her only one of the year) by Zvonareva. At the WTA championships last week, she lost to Samantha Stosur and Clijsters in the finals. To her credit, she did win back-to-back premier events in Tokyo and Beijing, the biggest titles of her career to date. Ask Jelena Jankovic and Dinara Safina how much those titles mean, though. No, she'll need a Slam, and pretty soon. If not, well, ask Jankovic and Safina how much fun the ensuing pressure can be.
• Vera, Vera close, but no cigar: Imagine your reaction if I'd told you at the start of this year that, not only would Vera Zvonareva end the year as the top-ranked Russian, but that she would be No. 2 in the world! I don't think I would have believed that, yet here we are, back-to-back Grand Slam finals (Wimbledon and the U.S. Open) later, and she is ranked second-best for the year – and she can gain lots of points from the first half of 2011. But she's also going in with expectations for the first time. Whether she lives up to expectations or has a meltdown, which she is known for, it will make for a fascinating show. Big battle with Clijsters for that No. 2 ranking looming in Australia.
• The great disappearing act: Has any two-time Grand Slam winner ever failed to finish the year No. 1? Believe it or not, yes. Most recently, in 2006 Amelie Mauresmo won the Australian Open and Wimbledon but finished behind Justine Henin, and in 1987, Martina Navratilova won Wimbledon and the U.S. Open but still came in second behind Steffi Graf. Both Henin and Graf "only" won the French Open, but Henin also reached all four Grand Slam finals (losing to Mauresmo both times they played in the Slams) and won the WTA Championships, and Graf won 11 titles and reached the final of every tournament she played that year. Moral of the story: It can be done, but it has generally taken a Herculean effort to do so.
Until this year. Serena Williams won two Grand Slam titles (the Australian Open and Wimbledon), but she only played six tournaments all year, and by the time the dust settled, had fallen to fourth. Ouch. Now, yes, injury did have something to do with it, but Serena didn't exactly light things up outside those two Slams. Now, a little less than half her points are wrapped up in the first two tournaments of the year. All I'll say about that is she'd better be ready.
Venus Williams isn't in a much better position – she only played nine tournaments, and 3,585 of her 4,985 points are tied up in the pre-Wimbledon tournaments. Unless she plans on playing more, Venus might not be able to afford a bad day in the first half of next year.
• Also unable to afford a bad day right away next year is Justine Henin. Of her 3,415 points, 1,600 come off in January. And, because she isn't attempting to defend her Brisbane points, she probably won't be ranked higher than 13th coming into the Australian Open. That means she could draw a top-four player in the Round of 16. Based on her reputation alone, Henin should accumulate enough points to keep her safe in the Top 20, but tennis is a funny sport – who knows what could happen? Worst case scenario – she falls outside the Top 30.
• Who won Roland Garros again? Mean I know, but when a player reaches (or wins) her first Grand Slam final, she seems to have two options – keep pushing forward, or get left behind, and Francesca Schiavone and Samantha Stosur have been less than impressive in the second half of the year. Both, to their credit, reached the U.S. Open quarterfinals, but other than that, they were very quiet until the WTA Championships, where Stosur reached the semis. What will 2011 bring? For Stosur, it means big pressure straight out of the gate, as she plays in her home country. For Schiavone, who knows? At this point, I think she's playing with house money – and her biggest concern is this weekend's Fed Cup final against the United States. Whatever she does, her tennis is all kinds of fun to watch. Watch it if you can.
• Also with lots to lose: Jelena Jankovic hasn't made much of an impression in the second half of the year, either. Yet, she played well enough on clay to qualify for the WTA Championships, where she went winless. She has a good chance to gain points and move up before she defends Indian Wells in March. She'd better take advantage of it, because if she doesn't, she risks falling out of the Top 10.
Na Li started the season with an Australian Open semifinal. About 10 months later, that result is nearly a quarter of her ranking. Lose early in Australia, and she can probably kiss the Top 15 goodbye. She'll also have a lot to defend on the clay. She needs to be careful, or her big results later in the year (Wimbledon and Beijing) will be much harder to defend.
• Victoria Azarenka gave everybody a scare with her U.S. Open concussion, but after a few weeks of rest (which should have started before she collapsed on court), she bounced back nicely, with a semifinal in Beijing and a win in Moscow, which helped her qualify for the WTA Championships. She has a fair amount to defend at the start of the year, but as one of the better hardcourt players out there, she's certainly capable.
• "Peer"ing ahead: Relatively speaking, Shahar Peer doesn't have much to defend early on – 490 points total, but those points equal a semifinal and final in two warm-up events and a third-round at the Australian Open. If she's going to make a run at the Top 10, most of her points are tied up in the clay-court season and in the U.S. Open and later. Her chances to gain will be here, and between Roland Garros and the U.S. Open.
• Agnieszka Radwanska had slipped out of the Top 10 before her season ended with a foot injury. The good news for her, coming back, is that she doesn't have much to lose before Dubai. Then, though, she has over 1,000 points to defend at Dubai, Indian Wells and Miami. Healthy, she's capable of doing it. And if she doesn't, she has plenty of chances on clay to make up for that.
• To be honest, I was surprised to find Nadia Petrova ranked 15th. Here's another player who didn't make a big impression early but then fizzled out towards the end, before her season was ended by injury. She's got lots of points tied up in the first half of the season, particularly her Australian Open and Roland Garros quarterfinals.
Well, that's all for now, back with more later.