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This week, it is all about tennis from Cincinnati, the Western and Southern Open (a Masters 1000 event)! This will likely be the final hard court tune up before the US Open which begins August 26th for all the “big names”! Yesterday, Venus Williams returned to action and won in two sets. Great to see Venus back, playing well and looking healthy! The Jerzy boy, hard serving Janowicz from Poland fell to American James Blake. P. Kolschreiber won his first match yesterday and he will get the grand prize of facing Roger Federer tonight in Fed’s return to action (much anticipated by me!!).
So far today, Ryan Harrison of the US fell to David Ferrer in three tough sets, nice performance by Harrison. The other Swiss, Wawrinka advanced in two sets, the Canadian star from last week’s Rogers Cup, Pospisil won in two sets over G. Simon (who retired), and Victoria Azarenka returned to action after healing from injury and won in two tough sets over V. King of the US. Also, the ageless Tommy Haas (35) won in two sets over K. Anderson, 6-4, 6-4.
The headline matches are tonight. Maria Sharapova returns to action from injury as well, making her hard court debut along with her new head coach on board, non other than Mr. Jimmy Connors. Should be interesting to see how these two very strong personalities mesh together as a team. She will face American Sloane Stephens. To follow, will be what I am waiting to see, Mr. Roger Federer makes his hard court debut after sitting out the Rogers Cup last week. He has returned to using his 90″ Wilson “magic wand” (the one he used in winning 17 Grand Slam titles) after trying out a larger 98″ version and hopefully the back spasms are a thing of the past. Federer is the defending champion, has won this event five times, and he has 1000 points to defend at this event. Not to mention, he really needs to get in some good match play and develop consistency heading into the US Open. Stay tuned…Federer in action against P. Kolschreiber later tonight!
Update: Sloane Stephens sends the #3 seed Maria Sharapova out early, 2 – 6, 7 – 6, 6- 3! Great win for the young American. Sharapova had at least 60 unforced errors and it was not a good performance for the first showing of the new Sharapova/Connors pairing! I am not disappointed…and now, it is almost Federer time!! May have to catch you up on that tomorrow…until then! (Also, M. Ranoic comes back from one set down to defeat Jack Sock, 3 – 6, 6 – 4, 6- 3).
