Venus Unlikely To Qualify for WTA Championships

Nadia Petrova (finally) won her first WTA Tour title on Sunday, the Generali Ladies Tournament in Linz, Austria by handily beating the crafty veteran left-hander Patty Schnyder 4-6, 6-3, 6-1. Schnyder promptly withdrew from this week's Advanta Championships in Philadelphia, the penultimate tour event of the year. Venus Williams had earlier withdrawn which means that she is unlikely to qualify for the tour-ending WTA championships in Los Angeles starting Tuesday November 8. As I mentioned earlier, the much hyped "race to Los Angeles" turned out to be not much of a race when Venus didn't compete for the 8th and final slot and has now been passed by both Schnyder (#7) and Petrova (#8) and may even slip to #10 if Dementieva wins two matches in Philadelphia. Interestingly, Serena is at #11. These are the calendar year performance rankings, not the official past-12-month rankings. Lindsay is currently at the top of both, although Kim Clijsters has the best shot to end the year #1 if she gets to the final in L.A. and Sharapova doesn't repeat as WTA Tour Champion. I still think it's very likely that one of the top 8 who has qualified for Los Angeles but who has not played recently due to injury (i.e. Justine Henin-Hardenne) may withdraw, allowing the #9 person to enter the draw, but at this point that is likely to be Elena Dementieva and not the 2005 Wimbledon Champion and Los Angeles native Venus Ebony Starr Williams.