My Game, 101: WTA Clay Preview

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by Pete Bodo

As the European clay-court seasons bears down on us, the WTA players are in a decidedly different position than the men. For the ATP, the clay segment that culminates with Roland Garros is a season unto itself - a drenched-in-tennis period featuring storied, long-standing tournaments (Monte Carlo) and historic fixtures (Foro Italico, anyone?), as well as the endorsement of almost all of the game's impact players.

The WTA has been in a slightly different boat for some years now. The women's spring clay circuit simply hasn't developed a strong character or identity - at least nothing like the men have cultivated with their spring tour. Right her at TennisWorld, people have been doing handstands and cartwheels at the prospect of the men's season on clay circuit. There's no such celebration mounted on behalf of the women.

Undoubtedly, this has something to do with the clay game itself, and the extent to which moving to clay represents a major shift for the men. When the curtain drops on the hard-court season at Miami, it isn't just the scenery and costumes that are changed between acts. It's the cast itself. It's different for the women, whose games are less heavily influenced by the nature of the surface . Let's face it, pure power and the serve have less of an impact in the WTA game, and thus the relatively slow speed of the clay doesn't matter as much.

But the situation for the women is slightly changed this year, with the debut of the high-profile combined event in Madrid. This will beef up the traditionally anemic WTA clay circuit, and maybe even steal some thunder from Roland Garros - especially if the advantages of tennis at altitude (where the balls fly faster) prove attractive to Venus and Serena Williams. Having an event of Madrid's status a scant week before the start of Roland Garros is risky on the men's side (Rafael Nadal still hasn't committed to playing Madrid), but it's all gain for the women.

Madrid may be just the inducement Serena Williams needs to boost her interest clay, thereby protecting her chances to remain no. 1 and perhaps even open a little distance between herself  and an odd crew that features not one but two women who have yet to win a Grand Slam events - Dinara Safina and Jelena Jankovic.But can Serena still be a force on clay? That's an interesting question that was raised in Melbourne and Miami, where she often looked both more powerful - and less mobile - than in the past.

It's hard to see Serena gettting "better" on clay, but remember that she's won Roland Garros, and took the Charleston title last year before shipping out to Europe - where she lost a very tight quarterfinal to Safina in Berlin, withdrew from Rome with an injury, and lost in the third round in Paris to Katarina Srebotnik. Discount her at your peril.

No. 2 Safina began her personal makeover last year at Berlin, where she beat three of the women who have remained major hurdles to her Grand Slam ambitions - Serena, Elena Dementieva and Victoria Azarenka. Safina will have many ranking points to defend starting in Berlin, and there's no telling how she'll react to the pressure. Last year, she frequently spoke about the way she's re-invented herself, but the failure to break through in a big way - with a major title - suggests that the makeover wasn't quite finished. Will it ever be?

Elena Dementieva is coming off a good year, and capable of doing a lot of damage on clay. She was a Roland Garros finalist in 2004, and could easily make a similar run there again. But she may be the most unpredictable player on either tour. It's funny, though, I never really get the feeling that Dementieva is  choker (except, of course, when it comes to that serve - but that's a slightly different issue), or that she's an imposter at the top of the game. She doesn't really collapse. If anything, she seems to have a way of bringing out the best in her opponents - a talent I'm sure she'd rather not possess. I've always felt that she's sufficiently athletic and powerful to win a major. Maybe this will be her year.

Jankovic may be no. 4 now, but she won last week in Marbella and she's aware of how much ground she's lost in the last few, unhappy months. That's okay; if she's any kind of champion she's going to take to the clay with the attitude that she's purged the hee-bee jee-bees from her system - and remind herself that she's got fresh legs and still a solid foundation in fitness. For the women as much as the men, the clay offers a nice opportunity for getting back to the fundamentals, as in:  My Game 101. There's no reason on earth for Jankovic to feel pressure now - she's already blown the outstanding opportunity to demonstrate that she was a deserving year-end no.1 in 2008 with that awful patch of play in Melbourne to start 2009.  With nothing to lose, she could pick up some much-needed momentum for Paris in the coming weeks.

Venus Williams is ranked 5th, and last year she played just two clay events in the spring - Rome and Roland Garros. I think that's a waste, and always felt that if she put her mind to it, Venus could be a formidable force on clay. Oh you can criticize the undisciplined forehand, or the general looseness that's become a permanent feature of her game. But gosh, this woman can cover some real estate. She's lean and lanky - ideal for tennis. She looks to be in fine physical shape, has an impressive wingspan, and is downright explosive. On the other hand, it's getting to the point where my Venus mantra is getting embarrassing. Maybe I'm seeing things that just aren't there.

Vera Zvonareva is in good shape to make a move, fueled by her recent victory at Indian Wells. She started like a house on fire on clay last year; she lost to Serena in the Charleston final and snatched the Prague title from Victoria Azarenka before she lost momentum. Zvonareva lost to Venus at Rome and Dementieva in Paris, but who's going to describe either of those as a bad loss?

Thanks to that win at Indian Wells, Zvonareva has jumped one notch ahead of no. 7 Ana Ivanovic. In fact, Ivanovic is sandwiched between Zvonareva and Azarenka in the rankings, and that ought to tell you something about her plight. That fact that Ivanovic is the defending champion in Paris will just make the target on her back look that much larger.They say you sometimes have to touch rock bottom before you can begin to work your way back up to the top, but that isn't really true in tennis (Andre Agassi's experience nonwithstanding).

In tennis, what you really need to do is find a way to stop the bleeding, hold your position, re-group and get back to the job at hand. Dementieva, for one, has been pretty good at that. Or, look at the Andy Roddick on the men's tour. Ivanovic has fallen to no. 7 from a career-high last summer of no.1, and even her Serbian countrywoman and fellow former no. 1 hasn't slipped that dramatically. In this slump, we've seen the extent to which confidence matters; with it, in 2008, she was able to make the most of her fundamentally conservative, precise game. Without in, since the summer of last year, she's often looked like a throwback to a time when the top women players were less athletic and versatile.

My own feeling is that Ivanovic must find a way to, well, loosen up - in every sense of the word. She needs to re-discover the hard--hitting, free-swinging Ivanovic of a few years ago. It just seems to me that somewhere along the line Ivanovic came to believe that she needs to be Miss Perfect (at any number of levels), and maybe that stifled her game.

Azarenka, ranked right below Ivanovic, is a good point of contrast. She played with great passion and abandon in Miami, and the volatility quotient in her basic game is high. This girl likes the clay, and enough elements in her game have come together in recent months to make her a legitimate contender at Roland Garros. Svetlana Kuznetsova, no. 9, is capable of anything, as we've seen time and again, but you can't really count on her for anything, either. Draw a giant shrug next to her name. Resurgent Nadia Petrova rounds out the Top 10, but it's hard to see her making a serious mark in Paris. Although she's a former semi-finalist (twice), she's gotten out of the first round just once in the past three years.

It's unlikely that any woman will dominate on clay this year, but a number of players, led by the two Serbian stars, could benefit from a refresher course of My Game, 101.