Tennis Tournaments

In the Countrywide Classic tennis tournament that starts today at UCLA, the top player is No. 6-ranked Andy Roddick, one of the few Americans who can challenge powers Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal. Behind Roddick in the Assn. of Tennis Professionals rankings at No. 8 is fellow American James Blake, who is bypassing the Countrywide tournament. After that, the next highest-ranked American player is Mardy Fish, at No. 40, who will play at Countrywide.

She played against Steffi Graf and Monica Seles and engaged in a battle of wits with Martina Hingis, on and off the court, through both retirements. Her peers Kim Clijsters and Justine Henin have settled into retirement, and this brings forth a sudden thought: Serena Williams is middle-aged. Of course, a qualifier is needed before that gets misconstrued about someone who is in her tennis prime at 26. Middle-aged only in tennis terms.

Late afternoon and another top player went tumbling out of the East West Bank Classic in Carson because of a knee injury. The one surprise Sunday was that it was No. 4-ranked Svetlana Kuznetsova, the U.S. Open champion in 2004, not Serena Williams, who is considered questionable after injuring her left knee in the semifinals at Stanford on Saturday and having to pull out there.

These things always look so good on the drawing board. There was the vision of a possible rematch, in Carson, between sisters Venus and Serena Williams, mere weeks after their showdown in the Wimbledon final, and a few forehands away from where they grew up, in Compton. Reality has a way of intruding, especially in the tennis world.

Tennis in Southern California is preparing for the payoff of Sunday's history-making match between Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer. That domino effect didn't come soon enough to help Raquel Giscafre and fellow promoter Jane Stratton, who for the first time in 25 years will not be holding their women's tournament in La Costa, having sold it to the WTA.

Making a rare combined appearance in Southern California, tennis stars Venus and Serena Williams have entered the East West Bank Classic tournament, July 21-27 at the Home Depot Center. It is the first time since 2004 that both of the sisters, who grew up in nearby Compton, have played the event. Neither played in Carson last year, and in fact, Venus, whose best result came with a semifinal appearance in 2004, has not played here since.

When Lindsay Davenport plays Indian Wells, she might as well be leafing through a scrapbook, both professional and personal. It was the site of her first tournament as a professional in 1993, and the place where in 2000 she not only won the singles and doubles titles, she had her first dinner date with her future husband, Jonathan Leach.

The words Roger Federer and breakthrough don't seem to belong in the same sentence. But why not let the tennis genius explain his word choice after winning the Masters Cup for the fourth time in five years? Federer, who beat David Ferrer of Spain, 6-2, 6-3, 6-2, in the final at Shanghai to officially end the 2007 season, cycled back to the start, at the Australian Open, and kept on going. "I thought the way I won my first Grand Slam without losing a set [in Australia] . . .

Another professional tennis player has come forward with a revelation that he had been approached to throw matches. Jan Hernych of the Czech Republic told the newspaper Sport he was approached last year at two tournaments in Russia. He said he turned the proposition down. "Someone called me up in my hotel room from the reception desk and asked if I wanted to lose the game I was going to play," he told the paper. "It was in Moscow before the first round against [Filippo] Volandri and in St.

NEW YORK -- The ATP Tour's investigation into suspicious betting patterns involving a Nikolay Davydenko match this month in Poland will take "months rather than weeks," according to an official. "It's going to take time. We are determined to leave no stone unturned," said ATP spokesman Kris Dent on Saturday. His comments came as a mandatory player meeting was getting started at the final Grand Slam event of the season, the U.S. Open, which starts Monday.