A look at some telling stats for the most successful women on the WTA Tour in 2006, as well as some things on the agenda for 2007.
THE TOP EIGHT
!Justine Henin-Hardenne1. JUSTINE HENIN-HARDENNE
Titles won in 2006: 6
No year-end No. 1 has ended the year with fewer titles since computer rankings were established in 1973, and Lindsay Davenport in 1998 was the only other player to manage it with just six titles to her name. It’s a reflection of the current parity at the top of the women’s game, which is at least partly related to the number of injuries suffered by players over the last couple of years.
Henin-Hardenne may have only played 13 events, but she had an 88% match-winning percentage when she did play. In addition to winning four WTA Tour events and the season-ending championships, she reached the final of all four majors – winning the fifth Grand Slam title of her career at Roland Garros.
2007 To-Do list: Have more memorable wins than memorable retirements.
!Maria Sharapova2. MARIA SHARAPOVA
2004-2006 winning percentage on clay: 74%
2004-2006 winning percentage on all other surfaces: 84%
Not counting her mid-tournament withdrawal from Moscow, Sharapova lost before the semifinals at only one event this year: Roland Garros, where she fell to Dinara Safin in the fourth round after blowing a 5-1 lead in the third set. Roland Garros was also the only clay event Sharapova played in 2006 – she sat out most of May with an ankle injury.
If Sharapova had played and performed as well on the red stuff as she did on everything else this year, she might even have finished the year No. 1. But as the 10-point gap in her winning percentage shows, it’s still the weak link in her results.
2007 To-Do list: Play on clay as well as all the other players who tell themselves to “vamos.”
!Amelie Mauresmo3. AMELIE MAURESMO
Slams won in 2006: 2
Other titles won in 2006: 2
That’s how you end up No. 3 in the rankings even with two Slam titles in your pocket. Mauresmo played 17 events, more than either Henin-Hardenne or Sharapova, but she didn’t make it past the quarterfinals at seven of them.
Still, for a player whose big question marks have always been injuries and nerves, playing nearly a full quota of events and winning two of the biggest ones has to make for a very satisfying year.
2007 To-Do list: Say “Roland Garros is just another event, Roland Garros is just another event” in the mirror 50 times a day.
!Svetlana Kuznetsova4. SVETLANA KUZNETSOVA
2006 match wins: 60
Spot the difference: 13, 15, 17, 22, 14. Those are the number of events played by each of the top five players, respectively. Kuznetsova’s 22 is the largest by a significant margin.
Her demanding schedule gave her the most match wins on the Tour this year (60), but she also had to play more matches than anyone else (80) to do it.
Can she keep up this kind of schedule?
2007 To-Do list: Win more, play less.
!Kim Clijsters5. KIM CLIJSTERS
2006 in-match retirements: 2
Henin-Hardenne’s two in-match retirements may be the most remembered, but one of those came in doubles at Fed Cup. Clijsters is the only Top 10 player to retire from a singles match on two occasions this year.
Both turned out to be fairly significant injuries – she went into the Australian Open nursing a hip injury, and hurt her ankle in the semifinals. The Belgian managed to come back in time to play Antwerp in February, but then didn’t compete again until April. In August, she hurt her vulnerable left wrist in Montreal and had to sit out for several weeks, missing the US Open and again returning just in time to play a Belgian event, Hasselt.
It’s a reflection of Clijsters’ physical playing style, one which looks like it’ll lead her towards a more permanent retirement in 2007. She’s said she’ll play until Wimbledon but intends to be preoccupied by wedding plans after that.
2007 To-Do list: Get married. Start family. Start planning comeback.
!Nadia Petrova6. NADIA PETROVA
2006 Opening-round losses: 7
2006 Titles: 5
Clearly a sign of a feast-or-famine year. Petrova was on a 15-match win-streak at Tour events and one of the favorites going into Roland Garros when she got struck by a hip injury and tumbled out in the first round. She struggled physically and mentally when trying to come back in late summer, and also made some coaching changes this year. But the Russian did at least finish on an encouraging note, reaching the finals of her last two regular tour events and upsetting Mauresmo in the season-ending championships.
*2007 To-Do list: Think happy thoughts.
!Martina Hingis7. MARTINA HINGIS
Position based on quality points: 5th
Until last year, the WTA rankings awarded players extra ‘quality points’ for beating top players. Separating a player’s quality points from her regular tournament points was simple way of measuring the strength of her wins. If quality points were still being given out today, Hingis would have the fifth-largest amount, higher than her current No. 7 ranking. So while there are doubts about whether the former No. 1 can still defeat the very best players, she’s still putting up the wins to indicate that she can at least be right below them.
Given that this year was her first full season of play since 2002, it’s hard to find much fault with how she’s done. The only caveat? Nearly three-quarters of her quality points were earned in the first half of the year. During that period, she was performing like a Top 5 player. Since then, it’s been just Top 10 material.
2007 To-Do list: Surprise us.
!Elena Dementieva8. ELENA DEMENTIEVA
Wins against Top 10 players: 10
Losses to non-Top 10 players: 10
A solid but hardly exciting year. Elena Dementieva had six early-round losses, eight quarterfinals, and seven semifinals or better. She won two titles – Tokyo and Los Angeles. But the two-time Slam finalist didn’t make it out of the quarterfinals at the majors this year, and had just three Top-10 wins against 10 losses (she also gave a walkover to Patty Schnyder in Moscow).
2007 To-Do list: Serve it up. In more ways than one.
OTHERS TO WATCH
- NICOLE VAIDISOVA
Big tournaments won: 0
Smaller tournaments won: 6
For a player with such big weapons, Vaidisova has been looking surprisingly like a paper tiger. She’s won six Tier III/IV events (going 19-1 since June 2005) but has never been past the semifinal of a bigger event. But this season may turn out to be a transition year – she played only two of those smaller events, and meanwhile reached the semifinals of Roland Garros as well as San Diego and Moscow.
2007 To-Do list: Become a big-match player.
- JELENA JANKOVIC
2006 win-loss till Rome: 1-10
2006 win-loss since: 44-17
After a miserable start that had her thinking about going back to school full-time, Jankovic turned things around and kept getting better all summer, reaching her first Grand Slam semifinal at the US Open. If she can play the whole of next year like the second half of this year, the Top 10 is a given.
2007 to-Do list: Play the whole of next year like the second half of this year.
- ANNA CHAKVETADZE
Wins against Top 10 players since Wimbledon: 5
That’s more than Dementieva, Schnyder or Vaidisova had all year. It was hard to see this coming: until Wimbledon, she hadn’t beaten a Top 15 player all year. But since then, she’s won titles at Guangzhou and Moscow and was just three games away from reaching the Montreal final before retiring with injury.
2007 To-Do list: Keep the trend alive.
- ANA IVANOVIC
2006 record in quarterfinals: 1-7
Pre-2006 record in quarterfinals: 4-3
On the plus side, the one time Ivanovic did make it past the quarterfinals this year – Montreal – she ended up winning the whole thing. She’s also beaten six of the current Top 10 players at one time or another.
2007 To-Do list: Win more matches in a row.
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