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There will be no Maria Sharapova at this year’s Australian Open. The defending champion has pulled out of the tournament because she doesn’t think she can win given the fact that she’s only recently been able to get back into training after having arthroscopic surgery on her shoulder a couple of months ago.

In a statement on Sunday Sharapova apologized saying: “I am very sorry to announce that I am not going to be able to defend my title at this year’s Australian Open. My shoulder is doing great, but I just started training a few weeks ago and I am just not near the level I need to be to compete at the highest levels.”

These predictions assume the players will be participating in the tournament. We already know Lindsay Davenport is pregnant and won’t be playing the Australian Open.

I predict that Jelena Jankovic will win her first grand slam trophy at the 2009 Australian Open if she makes it as far as the Semis. Provided they will be on opposite sides of the draw and she also makes it to the semis, I predict an all-Serbian final between Ana Ivanovic and Jelena Jankovic, from which as previously predicted, Jankovic will reign victorious.

Venus Williams will go out in the first round. Serena Williams will go out in the 3rd round. If she plays Sharapova will go out in either the first or second rounds. Elena Dementieva will make it to the semis as will Dinara Safina.

Apparently Maria Sharapova is still having some problems with her shoulder and recently pulled out of an event in Hong Kong.

She is trying to be ready for the Australian open after having arthroscopic surgery a couple of months ago; but there’s a possibility she might not be able to defend her title:

“I am trying to do everything possible to be ready for Australia, but I have promised my doctors, coach and family that I will not rush back.”

“The great news is that we have taken care of the problem that has been bothering me so much over the last couple of years, and now is the time to get into what I call ‘match shape.’ “

Don’t look for Lindsay Davenport to go after her fourth grand slam title at the upcoming 2009 Australian Open in January. Although the Australian Open  announced last week that Davenport will be playing the tournament, new developments in Lindsay’s life have brought about a change in plans.

Davenport, 32,  has pulled out of the Australian Open due to pregnancy; and based on the statement she has made through her publicist, there’s every possibility you might not see Lindsay Davenport play competitive tennis again.

“Of course this unexpected but exciting surprise now means I will be putting tennis on hold for the foreseeable future.”

Considering Lindsay is thrity-two, the “foreseeable future” doesn’t hold much promise for improving on her current record; and if there are no more wins in that “foreseeable future” it is hard to see any point in Davenport coming back to tennis after this pregnancy.

Lindsay Davenport became a first time mom in June 2007 when she gave birth to her son Jagger. Lindsay is married to Jon Leach and resides in Laguna Beach California.

There’s something about Jelena Jankovic. I’m not really sure what it is. She comes off like someone who has a slightly over-inflated ego while at the same time possessing a certain vulnerability that makes her ego easy to shatter. She generally seems like a nice girl, but one who is capable of whipping out the claws and sinking them into your flesh if necessary. Jelena wants to be big time; not just on the tennis court, but off-court as well. She wants the kind of attention that people like Maria Sharapova and Ana Ivanovic receive. She wants magazine covers, and the big endorsements. She thinks she deserves it because she’s just as talented and just as beautiful as the other girls.

Unfortunately for Jelena Jankovic, the “it” factor isn’t something she can acquire as a prize for winning a tennis tournament, even a grand slam, which she hasn’t won yet by the way; and even if she might believe she has “it”, the magazine covers and endorsements only come when people in the media decide you do in  fact have “it” and proceed to start a conversation about your “itness” that will travel like a virus, infecting multiple millions of people with the same thought as the one transmitted via newspapers, magazines, television, internet and all other known sources of information transmission.

The media does not believe Jelena Jankovic has “it”. Her face just isn’t pretty enough. Neither does her figure exactly fit within the measurements required for an “itness” label; but Jelena wants to be a superstar nonetheless. You can tell by the way she acts. The tennis court is a stage for Jelena. She uses it to try to prove her “itness”. She tries just about everything she can think of, once even changing her panties on the tennis court during a changeover; but even while videos of her antics end up on youtube, people don’t watch for the same reason they would watch if a video surfaced of Maria Sharapova or Ana Ivanovic changing their panties on the tennis court. Jelena just doesn’t have that kind of mass appeal.

What I admire about Jelena Jankovic is that she doesn’t seem to care if you agree or disagree that she has “it”. ‘She’ believes she’s a superstar and that’s all that seems to matter to her.

Jelena was recently featured in a documentary that aired on TV in Serbia. A film crew followed her around for 14-months and captured evidence of the “demanding, glamorous and exciting elements of Jankovic’s life,traveling to tournaments in Madrid and Berlin, while striking a balance with her life at home in Belgrade.”

You can read more about the documentary Jelena’s World, but keep in mind that it’s in Serbian. www.jelenajankovic-film.com

The question: Will Roger Federer succeed in winning all four Grand Slams in 2009?

The Answer: Considering Roger Federer barely managed to get the one grand slam title he did win in 2008, and considering he is moving steadily towards old age as calculated in tennis career years, while players like Raphael Nadal, Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray are in their prime, it’s hard to imagine Roger Federer will win any grand slam at all in 2009, much less for him to win all four. The opportunity for Roger Federer to win all four grand slams came and went in 2006 and 2007. In both those years Federer was still dominating men’s tennis and the only champship that wasn’t guaranteed was the French. When Federer found himself in the 2006 French Open finals against Nadal it was an opportunity to win his first real grand slam by claiming all four individual grand slam event titles in the same year. Unfortunately Nadal proved unbeatable that year; but Federer had another opportunity the following year when he met Nadal in the French Open Finals again. However, much to the disappointment of Federer and everyone rooting for him to win his first French Open title, Nadal pretty much crushed his hopes in a 6–1, 6–3, 6–0 show of disregard for Federer’s grand slam interests.

Ever since he lost his second French Open title in a row to Raphael Nadal and then went on to struggle against Nadal in the finals at Wimbeldon that same year, managing to claim the trophy after coming very close to losing it, Roger Federer has not been the same player. He started 2008 by getting ousted from the Australian Open in the semis, beaten by  Novak Djokovic 7–5, 6–3, 7–6(5). He followed up that loss with a number of other uncharacteristic losses in non grand slam tournaments. He managed to get to the French finals again but was flogged senseless by Nadal; and the biggest shocker of 2008, Federer also lost Wimbledon to Raphael Nadal.

Throughout 2008 Roger Federer lost matches to players who had previously not been able to get a set off him. He lost his air of invincibility. He became merely mortal, and at times he seemed unsure of himself against rising players. Too many people have beaten Roger Federer in 2008 to make an argument that he is still unbeatable; and considering the players who are beating him consistently are on the rising end of their careers while he is arguably on the declining end of his, it seems highly unlikely that Federer will manage to do what he wasn’t able to do while he reigned supreme as the king of the grand slam tennis courts. He wasn’t able to win a true grand slam while in the prime of his career and he’s not going to win all four majors in 2009. He’ll be lucky if he comes away with two, or even with one.

Image credit: James Marvin Phelps aka mandj98

Maria Sharapova has won 3 grand slam championships. One of her trophies was earned in 2004 when she first burst onto the scene at Wimbledon, stunning Serena Williams and the rest of the world in one of the biggest upsets ever in the history of women’s tennis. Her second grand slam title would come two years later at the US Open Championships of 2006; and her third would come two years after her second at the 2008 Australian Open.

Having secured 3 grand slam victories, Maria is safe from ever being referred to as a “one slam wonder”; but considering how high the expectations had been set for Maria after she beat Serena Williams at Wimbledon at the age of 17, it is arguable that Maria hasn’t really lived up to the hype. Maria Sharapova has never dominated women’s tennis, and her times spent as the WTA’s #1 ranked player have always been short-lived. With her 2008 season cut short due to injuries, one wonders what the future holds for Maria Sharapova with regard to her tennis career.

Maria Sharapova is only 21 years old. She should have a good decade of competitive tennis left in her, but have we already seen the best of Maria Sharapova? She’s been competing at a high level since the age of 17 but has only managed to win 3 grand slam trophies, and she won them with 2-year intervals between victories. She may be one of the highest paid woman in tennis but, much as it was with Anna Kournikova, it’s her face and figure that have won Maria multi-million dollar endorsement contracts, not her tennis.

Maria Sharapova is no new-comer to tennis. She may be “only” 21, but in tennis that’s middle age. She’s already grown into her body and is unlikely to change much physically from here on. Unless she suddenly decides to bulk up and comes out on court one day sporting prominent biceps and quads and a new manly walk, we’ve probably seen the best of what Maria Sharapova is capable of producing on a tennis court. We might see her match some of her best performances if the conditions are favorable, ie she plays a better player on a day when the better player is not playing her best tennis; but we’re not likely to ever again be rendered speechless by the brilliance of Maria Sharapova’s tennis the way we were at the 2004 Wimbeldon Championships.

On Yahoo answers, member Scrubs wanted to know “What happened to wta tennis ranking? Its completely screwed up! Jelena Jankovic’s being number 1 is ridiculous.”

Scrubs isn’t the only person who seems to take issue with Serbian Jelena Jankovic holding the #1 position in the women’s tennis association rankings. Even some of Tennis’s most noted analysts have hinted that Jankovic is merely the beneficiary of a crazy ranking system that will allow a player of average talent to reach the #1 position not because she is the best player on the tour but because she is the most active and is able to win enough tournaments to collect the points needed to make it to the  top.

As rsv1973 said in answer to Scrubs’ question: “If you play a brutal schedule, reach many semis and a few finals, you will rake up points to get to the top”.

Jelena Jankovic is known for playing many tournaments and reaching at far as the semis in most. Add that to the fact that there really aren’t any women in professional tennis right now who are dominating the field. With Justine Henin gone and the Williams sisters hardly what they used to be, Maria Sharapova and Ana Ivanovic not living up to expectations, points are getting pretty evenly distributed and this helps an active and consistent player like Jelena Jankovic.

Tennis analyst Mary Carillo had this to say on the subject:

“It is a very Hingis-like No. 1.”

“She stopped winning majors but picked up enough other events. Like Hingis, Jankovic plays enough events to win enough points to get there.”

Venus Williams has claimed her 39th career title winning the season-ending WTA Tour Championships in Doha over Vera Zvonareva. The elder of the two world renowned Williams sisters who took the sport of tennis by storm in the earlier years of their professional careers has won the WTA Tour Championships for the first time. She beat her opponent 6-7 (5-7) 6-0 6-2.

Venus pocked $1.34 million dollars for her win and has now surpassed Martina Navratilova on the list of top prize money earners in women’s tennis. She is now #4.

In an interview after her win Venus told reporters:
“It was a hard-fought match right down to the end, we were both wanting it so bad. I’m glad I got it.”

Image: gettyimages