It's a miracle: Lukasz Kubot beats Andy Roddick...

Guys, ARGWUS team is so happy about today's result that we have to post it here...

Lukasz Kubot from Poland recorded the biggest win of his career (first TOP 10 win ever) as he stunned defending champion and World No. 6 Andy Roddick 6-2, 6-4 in 1st round of China Open.


This season is just amazing for the Pole. He reached final in Belgrad, he won 2 doubles tournaments, reached his highest ranking of 112 and he is on the best way to qualify for ATP World Tour Final in doubles.

~shaw

Jelena Dokic bounces back once again

Can we now oficially call 2009 the year of the comebacks. Tennis fans tend to get emotional, when it comes down to comebacks and we've been blessed with amazing ones this year - Kim Clijsters, Kimiko Date-Krumm and Maria Sharapova... They all have been spectacular, but, there is one comeback-kid that kinda tops it all (at least for the Argwus Team) - Jelena Dokic. Her amazing quarterfinal run at this year's Australian Open will always have a special spot in our hearts. Battling through the past, through form and confidence crisis and through her own demons - and that all with tears in her eyes. It's not possible to erase that picture. It wasn't easy for Dokic, even after that fabulous run, coz there was some more suffering ahead of her - mononucleosis. It seems like God chose for Jelena a path to happyness through hell. Now, she once again somehow made it happen - she won the Athens challenger without dropping a set, her biggest title since 2002. In the final she beat Eleni Daniilidou 6/2 6/1, who as you may already figure out is a comeback-kid herself.

Here you get the tournament's trophy ceremony and the speeches of both girls.

~jachal

Safina's slump continues with a record loss

Dinara Safina re-wrote the tennis history books today by losing to Shuai Zhang at the Beijing Open. The Chinese was given a wildcard into the Premier Mandatory event, coz with her ranking place of 226, she couldn't even get direct acceptance into the qualifications, but the 20 year old knew to make out the most of it, as she beat teh Russian 7/5 7/6(5). This marks the worst ever loss by a World No.1 in terms of ranking.


Safina, who by many has been pointed out as the worst world No.1 ever, because she didn't have a Grand Slam title under her belt, has been in a slumpfrom this summer on. She lost 4 of her last 6 matches and only one of those losses came to a player ranked inside the top 30. She went out in the 3rd round of the US Open to Petra Kvitova (WTA, 70) and in Tokyo last week to the qualifier Kai-Chen Chang (WTA, 132), but loss is a new low. The previous shameful record belonged to Ana Ivanovic, who lost to Julie Coin (WTA, 188).

Safina's playing under the pressure of being the world's best player, may end now very quickly. Should Serena Williams win her next match over Ekatarina Makarova, she will overtake the Russian in the rankings. Let's see how this unfoldsa nd if Serena was right saying everybody knew whi the real No.1 player was...

Dina refused to talk to the reporters after the match, but released an oficial statement, saying she would like to take a break as she is disappointed with herself.

Will Safina continue now her brother's pattern?

~jachal

I am Sam

Sam Querrey is really on the breakthrough this summer. Right after Wimbledon, the US boy reached three finals in a row, winning the title in Los Angeles. In Cincinnati he knocked out world No.5 Andy Roddick. Now, by virtue of reaching the quarterfinal stage in New Haven, he clinched the win in the US Open Series Championship. This means, whatever he earns at US Open, it will be doubled.

I am Sam - US Open Series 2009 champ - Querrey

The ranking of the Series is based on 10 tournaments, that are being played before the US Open. Querrey's win over Bjorn Phau leaves him with 145 points, equaling Andy Murray's result, but because the American has clinched 14 wins this summer, he'll get past the Brit in the standings.

“The most pressure I felt all summer was probably today, knowing that if I won it, I would win (the series) and if I didn’t it was third place. I don’t think if Federer is 15 points away from winning, or Nadal, I don’t think they’re going to take a wild card into this tournament and say, ‘Hey, if I get to the quarterfinals, I’m going to win that. But, I’m going to.” - he said

friends off-court, rivals on-court

Leading the woman's US Open Series championship is Olympic gold medalist Elena Dementieva, but she still hasn't sealed that victory. Should Flavia Pennetta win the New Haven title, she would overtake the Russian. The Italian is the in-form player of this summer, capturing two titles (Palermo, Los Angeles) and several huge wins over marquee players (Venus Williams, Sharapova, Zvonareva and Petrova) and finally breaking the Italian curse, by being the first Italian Woman to have ever reached the top 10.

~jachal

Prince (of) Monaco

Juan Monaco appeared lately on the cover of WATT. He not only took a photoshoot, he also was talking about how the break-up with girlfriend, Luisana Lopilato, influenced his career.

Juan “Pico” Mónaco has decided: no more girlfriends for a while. After two years with Luisana Lopilato, who’s now with Canadian singer Michael Bublé, it seems the sportsman prefers to be alone.

“For now, instead of seeing a woman, I prefer to see a tennis raquet”, maintains the ATP world #40, who took a skiing trip to Chapelco, as published in the magazine Caras.

Mónaco acknowledges that, after the Bastad Open final, in Sweden, it was time to “enjoy the scenery, eat, have fun and relax life, calm my thoughts and give myself some new motivation”.

The tennis player considers himself “hypercalm” off the court, and maintains he’s a homebody who doesn’t go out a lot. “Today I’m single, enjoying this time and thinking of my career”, said Mónaco, who went to the ski center with two friends.

He didn’t say a single word about Lopilato, whose relationship with him ended in March, and he didn’t speak of any new female companion. He just said: “later I’ll have time to find a girlfriend”.

~jachal

Bepa falls badly

Vera Zvonareva enjoyed an amazing start to the 2009 season. She made her first Grand Slam semifinal appearance and won already two titles. The Indian Wells title was her first at such high level. The Russian was starting to look like she's a contender for the top spot in woman's rankings, until Charleston came...


Bepa was last year's finalist at this event, which is held in South Carolina. She lost to Serena Williams in three sets. This year, seeded at No.3, with no Serena Williams in sight, she could have been seen as the favourite (Lying at No.2 in the Race Rankings).


Unfortunatelly for Zvonareva, she rolled her right ankle in her 3rd round match against Virginie Razzano. The accident looked very bad. She was being carted of the court. The sprained ankle will put her out of contention for an unknown time. Let's just hope it won't be for too long, coz it's looking like the injuries are the story of her life :(

Get well, Bepa!

~jachal

Keys to success

The 14 year old Madison Keys made us all wake up from the Miami dream. Yes, The Sony Ericsson Open are over, so we should concentrate on next tournaments - not live in the past. Madison Keys win over Alla Kudryavtseva in the Ponte Vedra Beach was definitely such a wake-up call. Why? Because the girl is only 14 years old...

Alla Kudryavtseva, herself, made big noise last year as she kicked out Maria Sharapova of the Wimbledon tournament in the 2nd round, noting she was extra-motivated, coz she didn't like Maria's dress. Funny enough - Keys also had some dress stories ready for the journalists.

"When I was about three years old I walked through [the living room] when they were watching the Wimbledon final and I think it was Venus. It was Venus playing, and I saw her outfit and I loved it. I asked my dad, 'Can I have one of those outfits?' and he said 'Only if you play tennis.' And I said 'OK!' and I started playing after that. So I didn't start for the tennis part, I started for the outfits, then I just loved it. And the outfits came as the extra-bonus part." - said Keys.

Now Kudryavtseva had to swallow all her pride, as she went to the net to congratulate her 14 year old concquerer.

"The first two or three games I was nervous. It was just kind of the first few games of just hitting the ball and feeling it and really getting into a rhythm, that made me feel a lot better." - said the American.

By defeating the world No.81 7/5 6/4, Keys became the seventh youngest winner of a WTA match in history.

Here's the list of the youngest ever Tour winners:

1. Mary Joe Fernandez - 13y 6m - Miami 1985
2. Jennifer Capriati - 13y 11m - Boca Raton 1990
3. Steffi Graf - 13y 11m 10d - Roland Garros 1983
4. Martina Hingis - 14y 1w - Zurich 1994
5. Kathy Rinaldi - 14y 3w - Amelia Island 1981
6. Tracy Austin - 14y 1m - Portland 1977
7. Madison Keys - 14y 48d - Ponte Vedra Beach 2009
8. Michelle Larcher de Brito - 14y 52d - Miami 2007
9. Stephanie Rehe - 14y 2m - Hershey 1984
10. Gabriela Sabatini - 14y 2m 2w - Indianapolis 1984

~jachal

Lena joins The 500 Wins Club

Elena Dementieva has become the 27th woman to win 500 matches on the WTA Tour in the Open Era history. The Russian managed to win her 500th match on her second attempt as she defeated Sybille Bammer 7/5 6/2 in Dubai. Achieving that amazing feat would have been a whole lot sweeter if she managed to do it last week in the Paris final against the resurgernt Amelie Mauresmo. In order to make Lena forget about that bitter loss and focus her attention on her great victory, the organizers decided to sweetin' it a little more up for the Olympic Gold Medalist from Beijing with a cake. Nice gesture :)

~jachal

And the bagel goes to...

Juan Monaco levelled his this year's win/loss match record at 4 all as he served the first double bagel of the year to his compatriot Sergio Roitman at the Copa Telmex tournament in Buenos Aires.

This is the first classical double bagel since David Ferrer defeated Paul Goldstein in Barcelona in 2007.

This year we already had two matches, where a player won two 6/0 sets, but the matches involved also sets with a non-bagel score. Funny fact, that both those matches involved Radek Stepanek. The Czech lost at the Australian Open to Fernando Verdasco 4/6 0/6 0/6, but managed to win 5/7 6/0 6/0 against Todd Widom last week in San Jose.

Congratulations to Juan Monaco for a fantastic perfomance and our condolations to Sergio Roitman for the perhaps worst 58 minutes in his life...

~jachal

Canas respondes to the accusations

Current world No.71 Guillermo Canas decided it was about time to respond to the accusations, that occured last week during his 1st round encounter against Antonio Veic in Zagreb, that the match was fixed.

The Argentinian came into the match as the favourite and seemed to be in cruise control winning the first set 6/4 and going with serve in the second, when suddenly the odds slipped drastically.


“ I play, I win the first set, I have a problem in the shoulder, just that I'm start to feel it in the court, I call the trainer in the beginning of the first set. I win the first set and then just he play better. I couldn't serve really well and just he beat well. And then I arrive in Miami to make treatment shoulder and I hear what happened. That's it. Nobody get in contact with me, just was the rumor was in the internet and just everybody in Argentina took that thing. I can do nothing. Just I'm really frustrated because I didn't do nothing wrong….It was very obvious. I call the trainer like three times. I couldn't serve very well, just I feel like I have a chance because was set up and break 2-1 in the second. You know, the injury happened during the year and I was in the court and I don't know much to say, what happened that weekend, I lost and the guy is not -- he's a good player, he beat Korolev in the next round.” - Canas said in an official statement.

An investigation is already underway. Are we in for a repeat from Sopot?

~jachal

The last minute man

Tommy Haas must have felt like he played a five setter. The former world No.2 has played an exhibition with Pete Sampras right after his 1st round match in San Jose.

After winning his 1st round encounter against Lars Poerschke 6/1 7/6(8), the German was asked by the 14 time Grand Slam champion, Pete Sampras, to play an exhibition match against him right away. Haas had 10 minutes to regroup.

James Blake was due to play Sampras, but the American has withdrawn 15 minutes before the start of the match with back spasms. This sudden withdrawal left the organizers with little time to come up with a new idea.

"Tommy saved the day.'' Sampras said.

"Ten minutes after my match I saw James was struggling a little bit,'' Haas said. "Then Pete asked me and I said sure, why not? A lot of people came to see Pete tonight, and not who he played. It was fun. Pete still has an unbelievable serve.''

Haas won the match after saving a match point 6/7 (4), 6/4, 12-10 and surely some new fans with it.

~jachal

Pennetta, what's wrong with you?

Amelie Mauresmo, former world number one was furious with Flavia Pennetta after her Italian rival insulted the umpire with middle finger and verbal abuse durring Fed Cup match in Orleans in France.
The incident occured in the crucial moments of second set. Flavia reacted angrily towards the umpire, who had overruled a backhand passing shot by her that had initially been called in.
This overrule gave a matchpoint to Mauresmo. Pennetta has been fined $2,000 for her behaviour.

"There are no limits anymore in the behaviour a player can have with an umpire. It is unbelievable. When Zidane headbutts Materazzi he's kicked out. It's crystal clear. To me this decision is unacceptable. She gave the finger - she should have been removed right away."- said Amelie.

Just after this incident Mauresmo double faulted on the match point.
"I lost my rhythm because we had to wait for play to resume but I'm not looking for excuses."- she said.

"I am not pleased with myself but that's the first time such a thing has happened to me - it was a gruelling match from the start and I lost control as I really thought the ball was in,"- said the Italian.

Would you expect this from Flavia Pennetta? We certainly wouldn't.

~shaw

The hype goes on...

Nobody will ever be able to take it away from her now. Jelena Dokic has reached the quarterfinals of the Australian Open and there she will meet one of the hot favourites to win the title and take the No.1 ranking position - Dinara Safina.

The outcome of this match is not that important, 'coz Jelena is already a winner. What she managed to achieve during the last week is simply not possible to put in words.
Just watch these two films and listen to the crowd, how they live every point with her. You may not get such intesity over the next few years, 'coz it happens very seldom that someone comes back from hell to win it all.

Here's the one after her win over Caroline Wozniacki in the 3rd round...



... and here's the one after her 4th round win over Alisa Kleybanova:

~jachal

The amazing comeback of Jelena Dokic

She's back! Back for good!
World No.187 Jelena Dokic has done it. She made the impossible - possible. After being out of the limelights for five years, the feisty Aussie has found her way. She has been on everyone's mouth as she defeated two top 20 players in a row to reach the fourth round at this year's Australian Open. We all can imagine what it must mean to Jelena, but the truth is - only she knows how it feels to have regained hapiness on and off the court.


Over the last few years Jelena Dokic suffered an incredible ammount of painful expiriences.
She broke up the contact to her family - a result of her (let's say) insane father's crossing the line on too many occasions. Damir Dokic scarffed her for life. He forced her into switching nationality, cause he thought that the Australian Open draw has been fixed in order to throw Jelena out of the tourney (she was drawn to face Lindsay Davenport in her 1st round). He often has been seen drunk at tournaments and involved into fights. He was never shy of talking bullshit to the media as he once famously said he would put an atom bomb on Sydney. Damir was furious when his daughter found a boyfriend - a Formula One driver Enrico Bernoldi.

Damir Dokic

After finally breaking free from her father, Jelena completly lost her stride on the tennis court She struggled several first round losses to the point where she would play tennis only occasionally once in a while. She tried to come back on many occasions, but couldn't find the magic, that saw her reach a highest ranking of No.4 in 2001.

Dokic suffered severe depression and struggled with her weight. It was her boyfriend Tin Bikic and his brother Borna (Jelena's coach), who would keep constantly edging her on and believing she could make it happen once again.

"When you have emotional breakdowns and everything I had to deal with, you really get weak mentally," she said. "It's not easy to come back and be strong and able to compete and play. It's really tough. So I really had to work on and build that. You go crazy basically, and you react the way you shouldn't. He's dealt with all that and stuck by my side."

Dokic made a difficult decision to come back to Australia in order to change her citizenship once again. She got support from Tennis Australia, but couldn't capitalize on that.

It was this year, that Dokic decided she would give it her last shot. She wanted to give her all and hell - she did it in fashion. After losing in two tiebreak sets to former world No.1 Amelie Mauresmo in two tight tiebreaks (where in both sets she had set points), Jelena skipped Sydney and went straight to Melbourne to play the Australian Open, where she earned herself a wildcard to the main draw wining a wildcard play-off.


Her expectations were very low, but somehow she managed to squeeze a win over world No.80 Tamira Paszek, a player ranked 107 spots higher in rankings than the 25 year old. Next on for Dokic was world No.18 Anna Chakvetadze. The win over the Russian was a total shock and would go down as a carrer defining moment in Dokic's career.

She opened the night session. When the speaker welcomed her to the court, the Australian crowd went totally crazy. A sigh of relief for the Aussie. After so many years she got the support of the crowd on the sold out Rod Laver Arena. Dokic wnt out all guns blazing opening a 6/4 5/3 lead. She couldn't elp feeling the pressure and eventually lost the second on a tiebreak. There were not many people, who would give a chance in the third, but Jelena somehow opened a 5/3 lead once again. The only difference - this time she wouldn't faulter. She closed out the match to the joy of the hometown crowd. This was probably the most important win o her career, which includes many many more wins over higher ranked player (like that when as a 15 year old qualifier she stunned the world No.1 Martina Hingis at Wimbledon destroying the Swiss 6/2 6/0 in the first round). This was such an important win, as was her win over last year's breakthrough star world No.12 Caroline Wozniacki in the next round. Dokic came from behind to post a three set win and secure a place in the fourth round.



The on court wins were very impressive, but what maybe is even more important for Dokic - she made peace with the Australian crowd as she excused herself for the mistakes she made in the past.



And although we may see the same blonde girl on court, who's fearsome groundstrokes, service and improved movement scary the crap out of most of the WTA Tour's top players, we see a completely new person at the same time. A Jelena Dokic, who made peace with herself and with the world. A girl, who had to come to terms with all the storms she faced in her 25 years. A young woman, who's finally ready to begin a new chapter in her life - happiness.

~jachal

World War III

The organizers try to promote the Australian Open as "The friendly Slam", but for tha last few years we got a totally different impression.


For the first time things went really wrong in 2007 as the Croatian and Serbian fans at Melbourne Park and more than 150 people were removed from the grounds after attacking their rivals with fists, sticks, bottles and flagpoles.

This year the organizers were concerned that there could be trouble looming in when Marin Cilic from Croatia and Janko Tipsarevic from Serbia entered the court, but the four set encounter went on without any significant difficulties.


It was the match between Bosnian-born Amer Delic and France's Paul-Henri Mathieu when the troubles set off. Bosnian and Serbian fans traded ethnic chants, which made it impossible for the players to concentrate on their game.

“I couldn’t control any of that, though I was trying to. I felt bad for Paul and I apologized to him right after.” said the Delic.

Mathieu complained that the fans were like noisy soccer fans and were disrespectful. The Frenchman wasn't the only one being unhappy with so called Serbian fan base. Phil Dent, who's son Taylor lost a five set battle to Delic charged that the Bosnian fans had heckled and taunted his son.

Delic, who is representing USA, will now face Serbia's best - Novak Djokovic. The 26 year old, who came into the main draw as a lucky loser, is aware of the fact, that this rubber could also end up in a mess.

“I just hope the next match with Novak doesn’t turn into a World War III,” he said. “I’m going to try to tell my fans that we don’t need to be embarrassing ourselves in front of the world. I’m hoping Novak says something to Serbian fans, also. Leave the politics aside. It’s not my fault and it’s not Novak’s fault. We’re out here playing tennis and we need to keep it that way.”

Well, this could get interesting. Are we in for a World War III?

~jachal

Administration error

It's been a long long time ago that Francesca Schiavone had to play in the qualification for a tier 3 (or lower) event (counterpart of an International Event nowadays), but this is what she found herself doing this week at the Moorilla International tournament in Hobart.


Due to an administration error the Italian World No.30 was forced to play in the qualies and was upset by the 2007 Junior World Champion Urszula Radwańska, the sister of the current World No.10 - Agnieszka Radwańska. Schiavone lost the match 3/6 6/7(4) and with it a possibility for a better preparation for the upcoming first Grand Slam tournament of the year.

A mistake meant Schiavone's entry was not received on time. If this wasn't to happen, the Italian No.2 would have been seed fourth in the main draw.

Let's just hope this won't happen to a Maria Sharapova or a Serena Williams, coz they wouldn't be very fond of playing the qualifications for any tourney...

~jachal

Adidas's great comeback to racquet producing

After retiring from tennis racquets production in 1992, Adidas, that was once suppling Ivan Lendl and Illie Nastase, is back in the game in 2009.

"Building on our footwear and apparel success adidas tennis feels the market is right for the return to racket production,” says Simon Cartwright, Vice President of Global Tennis. “We can now provide tennis players with everything they need to take part in one of the most popular sports in the world. Consumers can be assured that our new rackets will match the high levels of product quality so long associated with the adidas brand.”

And the originators can be assured, that their new rackets will bring high bottom lines to their bank accounts as well...

By the way, basing on what we can see, Adidas racquets DO have changed, haven't they...?

PS. As the Aussie is about to start, Djoko is back with you, Dear Readers, so watch out! ;-)

~djoko

Safin fights on & off the court

Former World No. 1 Marat Safin showed up in Perth for the Hopman Cup not only with his sister Dinara, but also with bruises and cuts in his face. The Russian admitted he got into a fight in Moscow.


"I got in trouble in Moscow."

"It's OK, I can survive. Just some small problem that I wasn't in the right place at the right time. Yes, I won the fight. I'm good, I'm OK."

Safin, 28, arrived on Saturday night and asked for a tournament doctor.
Tournament director, Paul McNamee, said:

"I wasn't sure why he was arriving so late, why he was requesting to play a day later, but now I know why.
I saw him in the lobby and he didn't look good. He said, 'I need two things, I need to see a doctor and I need to practice.'
So I got the doctor and he gave him some treatment and then Safin went and practiced."

Safin went on to secure a win for Russia against Italy beating Simone Bolelli 7/6 6/4.

Let's just hope Dinara doesn't spend too much time in Moscow with her brother, 'coz this could get very ugly...

~jachal

Dokic wins wildcard for the Aussie Open

Former World No. 4 Jelena Dokic will get a wildcard for the Australian Open 2009 as she won the annual wildcard play-off at Melbourne Park.


After years of constant struggling Dokic is once again attempting a comeback.
She will be playing a Grand Slam tournament only for the second time in the last four years (the last was in 2006, where she was a matchpoint up only to loose in three sets).

The Aussie admitted this week she was on the verge of quitting tennis.
"I wasn't playing, I wasn't competing, so, I did think about quitting. When you have a difficult time, it goes through your mind. So to be in the main draw again and be on the tour and playing again is a great feeling."

In the final the current World No.178 beat Monika Wejnert 67 75 63 (who she'd lost to in the Round Robin play).
"I was pretty much down and out the whole match, except a couple of games in the last set. The way it was going she should have won today, but I kept on fighting all the way, which I think is the way back." she said.

~jachal

Serena Williams in Kenya

This year's US Open champion Serena Williams arrived in Kenya in order to open a Secondery school, that she helped to build. The school will be named after the tennis superstar.

The school was build in a record time of one month. It is fully equipped with a computer laboratory and Internet facilities for the students.

“I would like to contribute more to education projects in Africa, and I really want to thank the Hewlett Packard Company for choosing to partner with me in this noble project" - said the touched younger Williams sister.

~jachal