The following are excerpts from Bob Larson's Tennis International Newsletter, published daily by TennisOne. For more Larson tennis news products, go to: www.tennisnews.com

Rome

Singles - Third Round: (1) R Federer def. I Karlovic 7-6(7-4) 6-3
Looks like Roger Federer isn't letting Rafael Nadal's loss go to his head; he's still here to play. He's now added to his points from last year, improving his chances of staying #1 even after Wimbledon. Karlovic will fall just a little short of the Top Twenty.

Singles - Third Round: (3) N Djokovic def. I Andreev 6-3 3-6 6-3
During his opening match, Novak Djokovic had some words with the chair umpire about the condition of the courts here, and he had more words with the press afterward. One suspects he'll have some even more choice things to say after this. But he's through, leaving Andreev no better than #25. We had probably clarify something we said yesterday. What we said was that Roger Federer was safe at #1 until the grass season. What we should have said is that Federer is safe from being passed by Rafael Nadal during the clay season. He is not absolutely secure at #1. Djokovic could still pass him -- though it will take a near-miracle. Djokovic must win Roland Garros, and one of the clay Masters, and pick up at least 110 more points on Federer at the other Masters, and Federer can't gain more than a handful of additional points at the three remaining clay events. In practice, we can almost certainly discount the possibility. But it could happen in theory.

Singles - Third Round: (14) T Robredo def. (4) N Davydenko 4-6 6-2 7-6(7-4)
These were the matches Tommy Robredo just wasn't winning six months ago -- he even saved a match point. And on a day when clay experience frequently didn't count for much, he made it pay off for him. Surprisingly, because several players below him are still active, he has not clinched any particular ranking yet. But it's very likely that he will be #16 at least, and he's in the half of the draw that has been vacated by both Davydenko and Rafael Nadal. So he may not be done. As for Davydenko, he has clinched the #4 ranking for the next two weeks, and hence the #4 Roland Garros seed, but he misses the chance to really put some distance between himself and the field.

Singles - Third Round: (6) A Roddick def. S Bolelli 7-6(7-5) 6-3
By the looks of things, the conditions that Djokovic so dislikes are proving just fine for the Americans. This is certainly Roddick's favorite clay Masters; he now has two quarterfinals and one semifinal at this event, whereas he has never been past the third round at either Monte Carlo or Hamburg.

Singles - Third Round: (8) J Blake def. F Verdasco 5-7 7-5 6-2
This is even more amazing than Roddick's result -- it's Blake's best result here (or anywhere on clay) since he made the quarterfinal in 2002. If he can somehow win his next match, he'll pass David Nalbandian to earn the #7 ranking -- and effectively guarantee his Top Eight Roland Garros seed.

Singles - Third Round: N Almagro def. (12) F Gonzalez Walkover (Right Leg)
Obviously Gonzalez's leg was worse than we thought. Since he was last year's finalist, he will be falling hard -- his ranking will at least double, from #11 to #22. Almagro will probably rise to at least #16 as a result of this.

Singles - Third Round: R Stepanek def. L Horna (Q) 6-4 1-6 6-3
This really does seem to be a great event for non-clay players. Though Stepanek, amazingly, still hasn't moved above the #27 ranking he came in with.

Singles - Third Round: S Wawrinka def. J Ferrero 6-4 6-3
This will perhaps tell you how much Rafael Nadal was hurting yesterday, that he went so tamely against Ferrero. Ferrero will not move above his current #23; Wawrinka will hit the Top Twenty unless Stepanek makes the final. And Wawrinka faces Blake next.

Doubles - Second Round: (1) Bryan/Bryan def. Mirnyi/J Murray 6-4 6-4

Doubles - Second Round: (2) Nestor/Zimonjic def. Blake/Fish 2-6 7-5 11-9 (Match TB)

Doubles - Second Round: Gasquet/Santoro def. (5) Aspelin/Knowle 6-3 6-0
Interesting that Gasquet, with all his problems in singles, is winning so easily in doubles. Sure, playing Santoro has to help, but it really does seem to imply that his problems are more than physical.

Doubles - Second Round: Cipolla/Starace (WC) def. (6) Clement/Llodra 6-3 6-7(4-7) 10-8 (Match TB)

Doubles - Second Round: (7) Bjorkman/Ullyett def. Coetzee/Moodie 6-4 6-2

Doubles - Second Round: Fyrstenberg/Matkowski def. (8) Hanley/Paes 4-6 6-3 10-6 (Match TB)
On clay, the Polish pair really ought to be seeded, no matter what the rankings.

Berlin

Singles - Third Round: (13) Dinara Safina def. (1) Justine Henin 5-7 6-3 6-1
Justine Henin never seemed comfortable in this. She went down 1-4, got the break back for 3-4, managed to win the set, went up 2-0 in the second -- and lost five straight games. Henin managed to hold to make it 5-3, but that was her last gasp Even with the loss, Henin leads Maria Sharapova by 1700 points, so her #1 ranking won't be threatened until at least Roland Garros -- and probably not then. But she admitted a lack of "courage" after this loss -- something that would be more typical of Safina than of the world's #1. But she's been having a tough year with her knee and other problems, and talked also about her lack of motivation. It was a very different-sounding Henin, just as this match looked very unlike her usual self. Safina made the quarterfinal last year also, so for the moment she remains stuck at #17. If she can win even one more match, though, she'll start to move.

Singles - Third Round: (2) Ana Ivanovic def. Sybille Bammer 7-5 4-6 6-4
This was the last of the singles matches, and obviously worthy of that spot in the schedule. Especially since it means that our three-way fight for #2 is still on. Bammer falls just short of a return to the Top Twenty.

Singles - Third Round: (15) Alona Bondarenko def. (3) Svetlana Kuznetsova 1-6 6-2 6-2
After a nice, easy second round, the third round seems to have become the round that cursed the Top Five. Kuznetsova was last year's finalist, so this will cost her her #4 ranking; she falls to #5. And she also has the Rome final to defend next week. That doesn't absolutely assure that she will not be one of the top four Roland Garros seeds -- after all, Jelena Jankovic, who is now assured at least the #4 ranking next week, has the Rome title to defend. But Kuznetsova's chances don't look good. The win clinches Bondarenko's Top 25 ranking, but it's too soon to know just where she will end up.

Singles - Third Round: (4) Jelena Jankovic def. Maria Kirilenko 6-2 6-4
Kuznetsova played before Jankovic, so Jankovic was assured the #4 ranking even before she started. But every win she earns here improves her chances of keeping it. And keeps alive her hopes of reaching #2. The loss means that Maria Kirilenko will not reach the Top 25 after all -- she gained points, but players around her gained more, so she will end up #26.

Singles - Third Round: (5) Serena Williams def. (11) Agnieszka Radwanska 6-3 6-1
Serena continues to look very impressive on clay this year. She can't move above #6 at this time, but if she keeps this up, and if Kuznetsova messes up again at Rome, it might be possible next week.

Singles - Third Round: (7) Elena Dementieva def. Vera Dushevina 7-5 6-3
At least Dushevina is back in the Top Fifty. If Dementieva can win one more, she will pass Venus Williams to take the #8 ranking.

Singles - Third Round: (10) Agnes Szavay def. (8) Marion Bartoli 7-5 7-5
Maybe all Agnes Szavay really needed to break her funk was some nice red clay time. One more win would move her back up to #13. Bartoli once again falls short of the Top Ten.

Singles - Third Round: Victoria Azarenka def. Gisela Dulko 6-1 6-3
Both these players made finals last week (though at different events). Dulko won, Azarenka lost. But that means very little, given Azarenka's record in finals.... Azarenka has now clinched a Top 25 ranking, and very likely will hit the Top Twenty if she wins her next match. It appears Dulko will be #43.

Doubles - Second Round: (1) Black/Huber def. Dushevina/Likhovtseva 6-3 6-1
Cara Black wasn't very nice to her old partner Elena Likhovetseva, was she? But then, Black and Huber have a history of relatively weak results on clay; the last thing they can afford it to be sloppy on the stuff. And they weren't.

Doubles - Second Round: (2) Peschke/Stubbs def. Ji/S.Sun 6-3 7-5

Doubles - Second Round: (5) Bondarenko/Bondarenko def. Dulko/Jozami 7-5 6-3

Doubles - Second Round: (6) Safina/Vesnina def. (WC) Dellacqua/Schnyder 6-0 6-3

Doubles - Second Round: Peng/T.Sun def. (WC) Lisicki/Woehr 6-4 6-0

Doubles - Quarterfinal: Llagostera Vives/Martinez Sanchez def. Poutchek/Rodionova 7-5 6-1

Getting There the Hard Way

Our recent feature on the introduction of the $100K tier of Challengers set us thinking about the difference between Tour events and Challengers ("Circuit events," if you want to use the technical term -- but we've even heard ITF staff call women's circuit events Challengers).

We mentioned a couple of the differences: There is a large point gap, which widened in the Great Point Inflation of 2007 -- Tour events had their points increased by roughly 30%, but Challengers were largely untouched. It was definitely a way of making the distinction clearer! It also inherently made it much harder to move up from Challengers to the Tour level -- a player who is reaching a lot of $50K Challenger finals, and winning her share of them, is probably significantly better than someone whose average result is the second round of a Tier II, but the player with 17 Tier II second round results will be ranked higher (she will be around #50) than the player with nine $50K titles and eight other $50K finals (around #60). Under the 2006 ranking system, it would probably be the other way around.

The other difference is, Challenger points don't count in the Race. This has made a difference: in 2002, the contest for the last spot at the year-end Championships was very close. Alexandra Stevenson actually had earned more points than her nearest competitor that year -- but some of her points were from the Surbiton Challenger, and those points did not count, and so Stevenson was blocked out of the Championships because Challenger points did not figure in the Race.

But, of course, that was when the Championships still admitted sixteen players. In those days, it was possible for a player to come from nowhere in particular and at least threaten to make the Championships (Stevenson, e.g., had started 2002 ranked #60). To the author, that was a very exciting thing to watch during the year -- just as we're now watching players like Dominika Cibulkova and Alize Cornet see how high they can rise this year.

But it's a lot harder to make it into an eight-draw championships than a sixteen-draw. (Frankly, the author thinks it far too high a cost simply to get a round robin. But then, the author also thinks that the best way to solve the current energy problems is to have a coherent energy policy, so what do I know? More to the point, it's a preference, and it's perfectly possible that other people don't care about watching those youngsters rise to the top.)

We know for a fact that it's harder to get in than it used to be. Which set us wondering -- how hard is it?

So we thought we'd take a look at every player who has qualified for the Championships since it went to an eight-draw field, and see what their rankings were at the beginning of the year.

So here we go:

2003 Championships Qualifiers
Capriati -- Initial Ranking: 3
Clijsters -- Initial Ranking: 4
Dementieva -- Initial Ranking: 19
Henin -- Initial Ranking: 5
Mauresmo -- Initial Ranking: 6
Myskina -- Initial Ranking: 11
Rubin -- Initial Ranking: 13
Sugiyama -- Initial Ranking: 24

2004 Championships Qualifiers
Davenport -- Initial Ranking: 5
Dementieva -- Initial Ranking: 8
Kuznetsova -- Initial Ranking: 35
Mauresmo -- Initial Ranking: 4
Myskina -- Initial Ranking: 7
Sharapova -- Initial Ranking: 32
S. Williams -- Initial Ranking: 3
Zvonareva -- Initial Ranking: 13

2005 Championships Qualifiers
Clijsters -- Initial Ranking: 22
Davenport -- Initial Ranking: 1
Dementieva -- Initial Ranking: 6
Mauresmo -- Initial Ranking: 2
Petrova -- Initial Ranking: 12
Pierce -- Initial Ranking: 29
Schnyder -- Initial Ranking: 14
Sharapova -- Initial Ranking: 4

2006 Championships Qualifiers
Clijsters -- Initial Ranking: 2
Dementieva -- Initial Ranking: 8
Henin -- Initial Ranking: 6
Hingis -- Initial Ranking: --
Kuznetsova -- Initial Ranking: 18
Mauresmo -- Initial Ranking: 3
Petrova -- Initial Ranking: 9
Sharapova -- Initial Ranking: 4

2007 Championships Qualifiers
Bartoli -- Initial Ranking: 18
Chakvetadze -- Initial Ranking: 13
Hantuchova -- Initial Ranking: 17
Henin -- Initial Ranking: 1
Ivanovic -- Initial Ranking: 14
Jankovic -- Initial Ranking: 12
Kuznetsova -- Initial Ranking: 4
Sharapova -- Initial Ranking: 2
S. Williams -- Initial Ranking: 95

That's 41 players (last year, we had a withdrawal and a replacement).

Now here is our analysis: Of these 41 players, 22 were Top Ten at the beginning of the year. 30 were Top Fifteen. 34 were Top Twenty. 37 were Top Thirty.

The median ranking at the beginning of the previous year was #8.

Only four players who qualified were not Top Thirty at the end of the previous year:

* Sharapova 2004, #32
* Kuznetsova 2004, #35
* Serena Williams 2007, #95
* Martina Hingis 2006, unranked

But note: Only two of our 41 players were ranked below #35. Serena Williams in 2007 had the advantage of injury ranking. That leaves only Martina Hingis, the only player who did not have a de facto Top 35 ranking. And even Martina Hingis had an advantage: As a former Slam winner, she had unlimited wildcards -- and, being Martina Hingis, she was awarded wildcards right and left.

A high ranking is its own reward, and helps sustain players: They have the advantage of seeding, and of having much greater control over where they play. When players go into slumps, it takes a very long time for their rankings to follow -- especially now that the WTA no longer has quality points, because quality points often show where a player is going before it is reflected in round points. (Yes, the lack of quality points generally makes it harder for youngsters to rise; we have demonstrated this empirically. This is why we have our quality point rankings: Because they often indicate when a player is improving, or slumping, long before it shows in her WTA ranking.) In theory, there is no reason why a young kid can't burst on the scene and make the Championships in her first full year on the Tour. In practice, that possibility went away when the WTA reduced the Championships field to eight.

Sorry, Dominika and Alize. And Caroline, and Tamira. Probably Victoria, too. You're just going to have to wait until next year. At least.

Filling the Gaps

It was just over a year ago that the ITF played a new tier of women's Challenger: The $100K event. In essence, it was the old Tier V tournament reincarnated with fewer points (the Tier V tournaments had $110,000 in prize money; the 10% difference in payouts is obviously trivial). The change probably isn't that big a deal in the Grand Order of Things, but it does raise an interesting question: Just how much does adding a new tier of events affect things? Are they stronger than the $75K events they have replaced as the highest tier of Challengers? And have they affected the $75K events by there existence.

This we can test, more or less. Here's what we are going to do: We will look at every $100K event played since the new tier was instituted last April (note that that gives us two editions of Cagnes-Sur-Mer), and list the two highest-ranked players in the field.

We don't have many so far, but here is the list of what we have:

Cagnes-Sur-Mer $100K 2007: Vesnina (#70), Yakimova (#78)
Rome $100K 2007: Knapp (#82), Gagliardi (#104)
Biella $100K 2007: Muller (#33), A. Radwanska (#36)
Bordeaux $100K 2007: Loit (#42), Meusburger (#63)
Kharkov $100K 2007: A. Bondarenko (#21), K. Bondarenko (#46)
Bratislava $100K+H 2007: Cibulkova (#49), Parmentier (#60)
Poitiers $100K 2007: Vakulenko (#32), Muller (#53)
Saint-Malo $100K+H 2008: Parmentier (#49), Muller (#72)
Cagnes-Sur-Mer $100K+H 2008: Golovin (#23), Pin (#66)

So here are some useful statistics:

Highest-ranked player to play a $100K event: Alona Bondarenko, #21, at Kharkov

Average ranking of the #1 player at a $100K event: 44.56

Highest-ranked player to not be the top-ranked entrant at a $100K event: Agnieszka Radwanska, #36, at Biella)

Average ranking of the #2 player at a $100K event: 64.22

Lowest ranking of the #2 player: #104

Some of those numbers would not disgrace a Tier IV event. At Fes last week, for instance, the highest-ranked player was #34 Medina Garrigues, who would thus would not have been the #1 seed at four of our nine $100K Challengers. The #2 player at Fes was #49 Tathiana Garbin, who would have been seeded below #2 at two of our Challengers.

But our goal is not to demonstrate that the dividing line between Challengers and Tour events is fuzzy; it is fuzzy in terms of field strengths, but it's very large in other ways (e.g. the point gap between $100K events and Tier IV events is much larger than the prize money gap, and Tier IV events count in the WTA Race, which circuit events do not). All we want to do is look at how the addition of the new tier affected the next tier down. So let's look at the $75K events from 2006 (the last year before the implementation of the $100K events), and compare the statistics. We won't list all the details this time, just the numbers.

Highest-ranked player to play a $75K event in 2006: Anna-Lena Groenefeld, #19, at Ortisei

Average ranking of the #1 player at a $75K event in 2006: 56.37

Highest-ranked player not be the top-ranked entrant at a $75K event in 2006: #44

Average ranking of the #2 player at a $75K event in 2006: 74.05

Lowest ranking of the #2 player in 2006: #118

Thus, $75K events were already weaker in 2006 than the 2007 $100K events.

Now we want to compare these to the $75K events in 2007. We'll use the identical set of statistics:

Highest-ranked player to play a $75K event in 2007: Maria Kirilenko, #30, at Dubai

Average ranking of the #1 player at a $75K event in 2007: 76.76

Highest-ranked player not be the top-ranked entrant at a $75K event in 2007: #59

Average ranking of the #2 player at a $75K event in 2007: 98.65

Lowest ranking of the #2 player in 2007: #156

Thus the $75K events got weaker in every category from 2006 to 2007. There can be little doubt: The creation of the $100K events did weaken the $75K events. We note that there is nothing wrong with that. It merely is a mathematical confirmation of what you probably expected.

It does make you wonder what will happen when the ATP splits the Masters events into Really-Required Masters and Not-So-Required Masters next year, though.