The Road to Where?
So here's your If a tree falls in the woods and nobody is there to hear it, does it still make a sound? question for today: If Kaia Kanepi qualifies and ends up as the top seed in Doha, but is upset in the championship match by Melanie Oudin (now that will shut up the critics, right?), who's going to win...Bali?
I mean, who's going to be left to even qualify for and actually play Bali, given that the event—formally, the Commonwealth Bank Tournament of Champions—is designed as a showcase for those not-quite-great but good players who missed out on the elite Sony Ericsson WTA Tour Championships in Doha—the field of which will now be populated by women who in a world more perfect than ours would count their lucky stars if they qualified for a tournament like Bali.
So far, eight of the Top 20 WTA players have pulled the plug on the year, meaning they won't be making an appearance at Dough-ha. Between the withdrawals so far on the Asian tour and the bleeding out of the tour championships, you have to ask yourself, What on earth was Larry Scott thinking? You'll recall that the vaunted "Roadmap," the longer off-season, the logistics of the "New" streamlined WTA championship, yadda-yadda-yadda, were all his brainchild.
But in all fairness, you can hardly blame Scott for the nearly shocking collapse of the system he devised. On paper, the Roadmap was a solid idea that lacked only one thing—a collective, all-parties willingness to make it work. In other words, too few of the interested parties (let's start with the chief culprits, the players) paid anything other than lip service to the reorganization of the tour. The more honest ones didn't even do that; they just rolled their eyes and sighed, "Whatever..."
It's a little bit like when a politician unveils his stunning, brilliant vision for the future, full of high-minded notions and an idealistic view of human nature. Then he learns that none of the constituents who applauded his original idea is actually willing to do anything to help realize this earthly utopia. The critics, at least, were honest and self-knowing. The bottom line, which Scott's experience has proven yet again, is that any person with half a brain (I'm including academics here) can come up with a decent idea, a "roadmap" if you will. It takes a person of extraordinary organizational and political skills to persuade others to carry out his will, or to impose it on them.
So far, the top players out for the rest of the year are Justine Henin, Maria Sharapova, Svetlana Kuznetsova, Dinara Safina, Venus Williams (and most likely her sister, Serena), Agnieszka Radwanska and Nadia Petrova. Elena Dementieva is making noises suggesting that when it comes to Dough-ha, she's just not that into it. Kim Clijsters has a foot infection (what did she do, inadvertently step on a punji stick preparing for the Asian swing?), and Na Li is taking a few weeks off, although she's also on the cusp of qualifying for the year-end championships. Why go nuts begging for wild cards when you can wait to see if they'll let you slip in the back door via the inevitable, official withdrawals?
Neither Serena, Kim nor Elena has officially withdrawn. My guess is that barring the onset of gangrene, Kim will shrewdly await developments and then suck it up and slip in to pick up a lot of easy money and a load of ranking points. Call me a cynic if you want, but I think at least one of the contenders will see the value of putting an extra week's worth of work with a potential payday of $1.5 million.
But what about Bali? The top player on the leaderboard for the ARC (Also-Ran Championships) is Na Li, who may be heading for Dough-ha. Justine Henin, the No. 2, banged her elbow at Wimbledon and quit for the year. Aravane Rezai is No. 3 and the defending champion, but she can't seem to find the court with her forehand anymore. I wouldn't be surprised if she had to skip the event because she won't be able to find the Air Bali terminal at Charles DeGaulle airport.
The No. 4 player in the race to Bali is Yanina Wickmayer. I have this sinking feeling that the third-wheel of Belgium might show up—unless, of course, she's pressed into service in Doha as the body count grows. Beyond that, we're down to the Anastasia Pavlyuchenkovas, Flavia Pennettas and Alona Bondarenko's of the tour, most of whom are somewhat interchangeable pawns on the big tennis chessboard. Well, somebody's got to go to Bali.
Personally, I'd rather that it was Kimiko Date Krumm, and if I stick around to see how the WTA season ends, it will be mainly because I'm hoping Kimiko, who's 40 but just beat 16-year old Laura Robson in Osaka, ends up qualifying for something or other. And, frankly, you have to wonder, how could she not?