Women’s Look Forward: Budapest, Estoril

Written by: Staff on 29th April 2012

Women's Look Forward: Budapest, Estoril

Petra Kvitova of Czech Republic returns a shot during her match against Ana Ivanovic of Serbia during the fourth round women's singles match at the Australian Open Grand Slam tennis tournament in Melbourne, Australia, 23 January 2012. EPA/AHMAD YUSNI |

Want to know how to tell a statistician? Show them the rankings of the players at Estoril and see what they say. If the person uses the words “normal curve,” you’ve found your statistician.

Estoril has a draw that is very midrange-heavy — no one ranked higher than #18, but a lot of players between there and #35. That starts with top seed Roberta Vinci — although she is now ranked behind #2 Maria Kirilenko. #3 seed Anabel Medina Garrigues also just took a rankings hit, but she is always dangerous on clay. Petra Cetkovska is #4, Zheng Jie #5, Kaia Kanepi #6. Nadia Petrova is at #7, and clay is a good surface for her. Mona Barthel is #8 — and should be higher based on her form and her current ranking.

By an odd coincidence, the #1 seed at Budapest is none other than Vinci’s usual doubles partner Sara Errani. And she is as close as the event comes to a star, because she is the only Top Thirty player. The #2 seed is Ksenia Pervak, with Tsvetana Pironkova #3, Klara Zakopalova #4, and Marina Erakovic #5. They were the only Top Fifty players based on last week’s rankings; the #6 seed is Petra Martic, with Shahar Peer #7 and Irina-Camelia Begu #8. Still, the event has some decent unseeded players; Pervak could face Elena Vesnina in the second round, while Martic might go up against fast-rising Timea Babos — who happens to be Hungarian as well as one of the top unseeded players.

The Rankings

These are the times that try bean-counters’ souls.

On the WTA, as on the ATP, we have a big event (Madrid, a Premier Mandatory) coming off, and optional events coming on. That means that every top player loses Madrid 2011 and gets back her score from this week or her seventeenth event score, whichever is larger. Last year, Petra Kvitova won Madrid, over Victoria Azarenka; Julia Goerges and Li Na were semifinalists, with Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, Lucie Safarova, Bethanie Mattek-Sands, and Dominika Cibulkova quarterfinalists.

For Kvitova, that means her days as #3 are over, at least for a week. She will be falling to #4.

It also made the Stuttgart final a rather big deal, because Azarenka has so much to defend — about two-thirds of her lead over Maria Sharapova entering Sunday’s action. Azarenka will remain #1 next week, but the margin will be thin enough that things could be interesting after Madrid and Rome 2012.

Li Na will lose ground but will remain #8 — important, with Roland Garros so close. Julia Goerges, though, will fall several spots. And Bethanie Mattek-Sands really is toast.

There will be a lot of small shifts from #10 on down, but they are mostly temporary, due to the schedule shift. The real measure of things will of course be the situation after Madrid and Rome.