!Aga
By Andrew Burton, TennisWorld Contributing Editor
Morning, all. Pete has asked me to fill in for a few days while he's hunting in game-rich Montana, then you'll have another special guest poster.
It's FOOP time: that time of the year when ghosts and spirits walk the earth for a brief time, and Fans Of Other Players get their moment in the sun.
The ATP action this week is centred in Northern Europe, with two 250 tournaments in Stockholm and Moscow. Only one of the top 10 players is in action: Gael Monfils, world no 10, headlines the draw in Stockholm, while Janko Tipsarevic, ranked 13, is top seed in Moscow. Monfils is actually down at 15 in the 2011 ATP Ranking Points standings, which makes him something of a long shot to qualify for the World Tour Finals at the O2 Arena: he still has 600 points to defend from the 2010 Paris Bercy final. The winner of that final, Robin Soderling, has announced that the mono which has kept him out of competition since the start of the US Open this year will prevent him from playing in the Paris Masters 1000. So Soderling will definitely not be in London at the end of the year - he's currently no 11 in what the ATP a bit melodramatically calls the Battle For London.
In the WTA, two of the top 8 have been playing this week. As I write this, Viktoria Azarenka is still in the mix in Luxembourg, but Vera Zvonareva has just gone out at the QF stage to Dominika Cibulkova. And the line up for the WTA year end championship in Istanbul has been decided: Aga Radwanska could have been pipped by Marion Bartoli if the Frenchwoman had won the Moscow final, but Bartoli retired from the tournament with a viral infection.
I plan to write over the next few days about the remainder of the ATP season, and some stats that illuminate the recent shape at the top of the ATP and WTA. For now, though, let's celebrate OPs and FOOPs. It's their time in the pale autumn sun.