Heft to the Left

For the first time in a long time, when we talk about women’s tennis at Indian Wells, it’s at least as much about those who are playing as those who aren’t.

Of course the absent ones, the Williams sisters, started the year even more dominantly than usual. Serena won the first Grand Slam of the year. Venus has shined as brightly, recently winning three titles in three countries over three weeks (if you count the Billie Jean King Cup exhibition). She has the best match win percentage of the top players with 93.3, and Serena’s not far behind with 90.9. Also MIA this year, because of a back injury, is the woman who spent much of last year at Number 1, Dinara Safina.

Still, we have good reason to be fired up about those who are playing, chiefly because they include the Belgians who are playing again. Justine Henin and Kim Clijsters have both returned after taking long sabbaticals originally thought to be full-on retirements. Then there’s Maria Sharapova, who came back last May after spending nearly a year recovering from shoulder issues. They're adding some heft to the folks who are left. We’re talking a dozen Grand Slam singles titles between them heft.

Their match win percentages aren’t shabby either. Let’s look more closely at this trio and the three other women with the year’s best match win percentages (out of Top 100 players who’ve played at least six main draw matches). The statistics are up to date as of  March 8 and come to us via the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour.

Kim Clijsters — 87.5% (won 7, lost 1)
Justine Henin — 83.3% (won 10, lost 2)
Maria Sharapova — 83.3% (won 5, lost 1)
Elena Dementieva — 82.4% (won 14, lost 3)
Victoria Azarenka — 78.6% (won 11, lost 3)
Vera Zvonareva — 78.6% (won 11, lost 3)

KIM CLIJSTERS (BEL)

*Titles: 1 (year), 36 (career)
*Possible opponents: Petkovic, Kleybanova, Kuznetsova, Jankovic/Pennetta/Peer

Where Indian Wells is concerned she doesn’t need absence to make her heart grow fonder: The last time she played, in 2005, she won here and went on to win Miami, the US Open Series, and the US Open. (She had earned more than $2.2 million by the end of that road trip.) What surely doesn’t give her a warm and tennis ball-fuzzy feeling is the inglorious way she was ushered out of the Australian Open this year by Nadia Petrova. Less than a year after she proved to the world that she can come back from retirement and win a Grand Slam, Clijsters will be looking to prove to herself that she can, at the very least, avoid a repeat of that shocking, bizarre loss to Petrova in Melbourne.

JUSTINE HENIN (BEL)

*Titles: 0 (year), 41 (career)
*Possible opponents: A. Radwanska, Bartoli/Lisicki, Dementieva

Comeback or not, petite or not, ready or not… she’s the player many expect to win this whole thing. Oddsmakers, in fact, are willing to put money on it – they give her best odds of winning (with Clijsters next). In 2004 Henin won the tournament. Can she win it again, thus going one step farther than she's gone at the two tournaments she's played since her comeback? While we wait for the answer, it will be fun to see how much more she’s Wimbledonized her game since the Australian Open.

MARIA SHARAPOVA (RUS)

*Titles: 1 (year), 21 (career)
*Possible opponents: Dokic, Zheng, Li, Wozniacki

This year she doesn’t have as many match wins as the others listed here, but she did win a title last month. Memphis isn’t Melbourne, but you have to think the title will boost her confidence and perhaps help her shrug off that surprising first-round Australian Open loss to a fellow Maria (Kirilenko). If she can make her way past some big hitters (possibly Jelena Dokic), China, and Caroline Wozniacki, who seems more beatable right now than she did last year, maybe Sharapova can make Indian Wells her house again (she won the tournament in 2006).

ELENA DEMENTIEVA (RUS)

*Titles: 2 (year), 16 (career)
*Possible opponents: Wozniak, Schiavone/Rezai, Henin

We all know her second-round loss at the year’s first Grand Slam wasn’t really a second-round loss. Dementieva started the year well, as she did in 2009. She’s one of just two players (Venus is the other) who have already won multiple singles titles in 2010. Her serve, once her glaring liability, continues to be reliable. Sure, she still tosses in a few double faults or 12 (like she did against Daniela Hantuchova in Sydney). But she also serves more aces (she served nine in the Paris final against Lucie Safarova) and serves faster (at the Australian Open she was tied with Nadia Petrova for fifth fastest serve.) To win here she’ll potentially have to beat Henin, but this is one of two tournaments where she’s beaten her before. This seems like a good place for Dementieva to strut her tennis stuff – it’s like a Grand Slam… but not.

*Titles: 0 (year), 3 (career)
*Possible opponents: Martinez Sanchez, Wickmayer, Stosur/Zvonareva/Ivanovic

She’s had some nice wins this year; at the Australian Open she won a 6-0 set in every match she won. Equally important she’s had only respectable losses; all three times she lost in the later stages to the eventual champion. She’s one spot away from the Top 5 for a reason. At Indian Wells she’s defending the second-most number of points of those listed here. If she wants to surpass her best showing, she’ll have to get to the final. Blocking her path: Yanina Wickmayer and Vera Zvonareva, to whom Azarenka lost the last two times she played here.