by Pete Bodo

Mornin'. All eyes are shifting toward Paris as we approach the final high-value tournament of the year, the BNP Paribas Masters, known more colloquially as Paris Bercy.

As indifferent as I've sometimes been, at least in some contexts, to the fall (mostly) indoor season, I've got to tip my hat to this long-lived event. Back when tennis pros valued any opportunity to play for significant prize-money, especially at times of year when the outdoor tennis actions is slow, Bercy was a talent magnet, and over the years the promoters managed to grow it into a noteworthy event.

Bercy wasn't just a fun indoor tournament; it was the fall indoor event (much like the US Pro Indoors, in Philadelphia, was the winter indoor event in the US). As the ATP flourished and the pro game became more of a seller's market, Bercy suffered. The quality of the field declined, and those who did show up often found it difficult to muster the energy and urgency to play their A games in Paris in somber November. Tomas Berdych, David Nalbandian and Sebastian Grosjean have won the prestigious title in recent years; Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic and Andy Roddick have not.

But Paris Bercy has survived the epidemic of top-player fatigue and gotten over the ultimate hump for every tennis tournament promoter. It's evolved into an event that is less reliant on the participation and performance of the very top stars than on the support of fans and corporate sponsors. In other words, Bercy  - like the handful of other top drawer events - is bigger than any of the players who may or may not play it, or even than any combination of said  players.

However, judging by the news today, Bercy as we know it may not have much longer to go. The good news is that it may be transformed into something better. It seems that the tournament promoter, the FFT (French Federation of Tennis, the French ITF affiliate) is eyeing moving the event to Roland Garros.

That's right. I suggest you bring that goofy "stadium blanket" that zips up to wrap you in a cacoon for enduring November weather in a sports stadium.

Well, not exactly. Bercy would be moved to Roland Garros if the mayor's office in Paris approves the FFT's plans to build a new stadium at the traditional Roland Garros grounds (see photo above). Alternatively, the FFT also has drawn up specs for adding the hot new Grand Slam accessory to the present Court Centrale, a retractable roof (photo below). The main stumbling block to either plan is opposition from green groups and local residents in the fashionable Boulogne neighborhood where Roland Garros sits, surrounded by elegant suburban homes on chestnut-tree lined streets. You can read the details here.

I haven't seen the blueprints for the new, stand-alone stadium, but I have seen the preliminary drawings for the retractable roof. It will be interesting to see the politics in Paris play out, because the opponents of both proposed renovations are no dummies. While they may not have a problem with the idea of a roof that can be closed in the event of rain, they also know that a retractable roof (and the price tag it will carry) may foretell a shift to a split-session format during Roland Garros. And the neighbors probably don't want to deal with a more or less 24/7 tennis event lasting two weeks. Frankly, the traffic issues that seem inevitable under a two-session program are nothing to scoff at. 

Because the battle lines are so firmly drawn, I imagine that the FFT knows it won't get what it wants, and has done what any good negotiator would - position his hopes as a second or third option. That is, the FFT may want a retractable roof badly enough to insist that what it really wants is a new stadium, suitable for year-round play. That way, if the stadium idea is shot down, the FFT can appeal to the good nature of its opponents and hope to get approval for the retractable roof as a compromise measure - and the first important step down what the opposition must see as a slippery slope to an imperial expansion of Roland Garros.

But look at it this way: It wouldn't be hard for the city of Paris to insist, and legally forbid, split sessions under a sliding roof. Wimbledon, after all, has promised that it will never go to a split-session format despite having a roof with adequate lighting for it.

The FFT is also threatening to abandon Roland Garros entirely, should neither of its proposals win approval. In some ways, this would be a logical step despite the inevitable pain and outcry such a break with tradition would trigger. Roland Garros, despite its size and the significant, wonderfully-executed upgrades of recent years, is in the same position the West Side Tennis Club (formerly the home of the US Open) and Kooyong (the tennis club that hosted the Australian Open before the event moved to Melbourne Park) were in 15 or 20 years ago, and Wimbledon remains in today. All three of those Grand Slam events were played in an exclusive club in the suburban neighborhood of a metropolis. Ironically, Roland Garros is the only major that didn't strike its roots in a private club.

But that oddity is incidental; Roland Garros may just as well be a private tennis club. It has a similar footprint and relationship to the neighborhood where it exists. Maybe it isn't such a crazy idea to move the event (there goes the FFT's aggressive, somewhat irritating drive to "brand" its major as Roland Garros, rather than the French Open). By doing so, the French would merely be following the trail broken by the USTA when it moved to the National Tennis Center, and Tennis Australia when it re-located in Flinder's (now Melbourne) Park.

The Roland Garros site is historic. But it's become increasingly crowded, and while that's added to the allure of the event, it's also true that the US and Australian Opens have really flourished after moving to larger, public spaces. The move from Kooyong absolutely saved the Australian Open from becoming an irrelevant major. Only nostalgic contrarians believe that the US Open was more fun and offered better spectator value back when it was held at the West Side Tennis Club. Both events have prospered, spectacularly, in their newest homes.

Somehow, moving Roland Garros seems like heresy - wasn't it just yesterday that the FFT built the Bullring, and christened the new, spectacular Court Suzanne Lenglen?  It would seem both a shame and a waste to abandon those familiar landmarks. But our yesterdays run together, and time passes faster than we think. Tennis's track record of looking to the future, at least as far as the Grand Slam events are concerned, has been wise and productive.

Maybe moving Roland Garros isn't such a bad idea after all.

PS - I suggest you stay on-topic at this post for a few hours before you drift off into general chatter about today's tennis, or other topics.

by Pete Bodo

Well, I took my time and read through all the comments at my Andre Agassi post of yesterday, and cherry-picked some of the questions raised there in hopes of laying to rest this issue. Because one thing I'm convinced of is that this isn't any bigger an issue than you choose to make of it. As is often the case, it took on a life of its own because the facts are familiar and simple, and the moral implications clear and well-defined. Isn't it ironic.

So let's start with this: Upon hearing that Agassi had sold his book for a $5 million advance,  David Hirshey, a friend and well-known editor at HarperCollins, remarked: Wow, that's President money!"

True enough. In order to get a contract of such magnitude, Andre was certainly obliged to reveal - confidentially, of course - what kind of material the book would contain. This is how it's done in publishing; nobody in his right mind is going to give an author a 5 million-dollar advance (which is paid back from the author's royalties before the author sees another dime; it works the same way for a book that gets a modest advance of, say, $10,000)  and not have a good idea of what he or she is going to get. Did that condition the size of the advance? Probably. Was that a happy side-effect (for Agassi) of Agassi wanting to write a truthful book? I think your answer to that will depend on how you view Agassi. I come down on his side.

Once an author pays back the advance from his royalties, he begins to earn per-book royalties. That way, even if you had a low advance, your earning power is, theoretically, unlimited. Author and publisher also negotiate paperback, film, television and serial rights. That's how it works.

One comment poster wondered who chooses the pre-publication excerpts. It's the editors of whatever publication secures the "first serial" rights. With a book like Agassi's, a number of big players (including Time Inc., which publishes both People and Sports Illustrated, where excerpts have already been published) presumably bought the exclusive, North American first-serial rights. And you can bet they paid dearly. Their editors then had carte blanche to select the limited amount of "exclusive" material they were entitled to publish. Naturally, the were looking for the most bang for the buck.

I've read that Agassi will be the subject of an interview on Sixty Minutes on the eve of the official publication date of the book. Yes, it seems like the public relations/marketing folks at the publisher, Alfred A. Knopf, have been right on top of things - after all, they're the ones who have to dig themselves out of the $5 million debt they incurred by buying the book. Authors of "minor" books often are left out of the loop on whatever PR effort is made to publicize their work (usually, it begins and ends with the publisher sending out some free books to reviewers), but the bigger the investment, the more inclined a publisher is to promote the product. You can bet that Knopf co-ordinated its efforts with Agassi, and actively sought his participation in them, perhaps even on a contractual basis - just like Nike or any other sponsor requires its top endorsers to give X-number days to the effort to promote the product.

All in all, the most resonant criticism I found in the comments was the accusation that Andre let the sport take a hit in the interest of advancing his own cause. There's some truth in that, I suppose; Federer, Nadal, Murray et al now have to take a position and defend the sport. But this is a tricky question: what's more important "protecting" the image of the sport, or being truthful in a book the promises candor?

What if Agassi's impulse to honesty came up against his desire to promote his sport - to which desire would you give precedence, presuming your conscience is in good working order?  And finally, if the premis that Agassi is really being open about the critical events that shaped his life and career, isn't he stealing money from everyone who buys the book if he consciously withholds information that his own conscience or view of his life and career deems significant?

I read a very wise observation in a novel, I think it was The Kite Runner. There is only one sin or crime: the crime of theft. Did Agassi "steal" the integrity of the sport, much like he would have stolen money from all those book-buyers? I don't think so; if Agassi did meth and got away with it, the sport, by definition, isn't clean. What Agassi did was expose a truth about the sport in the course of telling the truth about himself.

Now, about those lies, and the way Agassi ducked punishment for his positive drug test.

I've lied enough times in my life to know that in Agassi's shoes, I would have done the same thing. That's especially so when you consider the age factor (he was 26 at the time). I don't generally hammer people, especially young people, for lying when they've really screwed up, there's no other way out, and there's no victim in any meaningful sense - either to their action or the lie told to cover it up.

I also know it's "wrong" to lie, even that way. I just don't have it in my heart to generate any moral fury over it. Actually, I lied as recently as seven minutes ago, when I told an unwanted caller on the phone that I was "very busy" when all I was doing was eating a bowl of cereal with bananas. 

Okay, I'm lying about that (about the caller part, anyway; I was, however, eating a bowl of cereal. That's the honest to God truth).

See what I mean?

Also, I know from experience that sometimes, telling the truth is a really, really stupid idea. I don't think it was in this case; in fact, I think Agassi could have told the truth and I'm pretty sure the Lords of Tennis would have found a way to keep that Top Tennis Star is Meth Addict headline out of the newspapers. They certainly would have tried, given the standards of the day (more about that later).

Don't for a moment think I'm not serious about that: Imagine Agassi coming clean and throwing himself at the mercy of the ATP - what do you think the organization would have done, given the nature and specifics of the offense? I say they would have frozen up and hustled Agassi off into rehab - for the good of the sport.

I believe that the ATP bought into a pretty transparent lie because it wanted desperately to believe it, and I imagine everyone thought it would better for everyone involved if the officials did believe it. I'm a pretty black-and-white guy, and some of you are as well. But we inhabit a world of gray and navigate it as best we can.

I suppose one reason I feel this way is because of the awful bind the ATP has put itself in with these suspensions for so-called "recreational" drug use. It's a hideous kind of posturing the ATP (and other agencies) are engaging in with these authoritarian displays, and it's dehumanizing. I can't think of a justifiable reason for why an athlete should be held to any higher standard than am I in the workplace - except when it comes to the use of performance-enhancing drugs (I'm sure many managers love to see their workers ingesting performance-enhancing substances, like coffee, which is one difference between the office and the playing field).

If you look at Agassi's playing record during that meth period, you can see that if he were suspended for anything, it ought to have been for using a performance-inhibiting substance. And that's very different from what we saw in the case of those who tested positive for performance-enhancing substances, like former French Open finalist, Mariano Puerta.

But the ATP laws didn't, and still don't (which is the graver error) distinguish between PE and "recreational" drugs, so in an constructionist sense my case is down the toilet. So be it. Throw the book at Agassi if  you wish, but leave me out of it. Few lies I can think of have produced more agreeable results (including Agassi's great awakening), and I can live with the implied contradiction.

My advice to the ATP would be to drop the Big Brother grandstanding and re-think the approach to drugs that don't qualify as performance-enhancing; if you test for them, do it discreetly - not for policing purposes, per se, because we know what different drugs do in terms of performance enhancement. Do it in order to be able to intervene when some crazy 21-year old show signs of going off the rails. The US Army, as Jon Wertheim has noted, has less stringent baselines for recreational drug use than do the tennis folks. I guess you can be proud of that, if having utterly "clean" athletes is your over-arching goal. I'd prefer them to be clean by choice and am willing to cut slack to those who haven't gotten there yet - so long as it doesn't give them an edge in competition.

When it comes to calls for an investigation into a "cover-up," the futility of that impulse seems to me to be beyond easy description. This Agassi episode happened a dozen years ago, at a time when self-policing by the ATP and WTA was the norm. How could you not expect a certain amount of hanky-panky? The WADA protocols that have since been adopted (WADA was formed in 1999) may be Draconian, but they're definitely unambiguous, and designed to be more-or-less foolproof. Tennis has thrown in its lot with the Olympic movement (hence, WADA), and that goes a long way to explaining these positions.

This process has been evolutionary, part of the growth of the game. And if you insist on looking for a silver lining, think of it this way: the history of the Agassi case shows just how far the ATP has come in terms of creating a drug-free sports environment and a sport as well-regulated by the standards of the day as any. I've seen players tank. I've seen them defaulted and re-instated, I've seen them intentionally scuff out clay-court ball marks before an official can look at them, and I've seen players verbally abuse and intimidate opponents - all things unlikely to occur in today's game. Evolution is a ragged journey with plenty of loose ends (we're still born with appendixes, and a taste for Quentin Tarrantino movies, right?).

Moreover, I think this quote from an ITF official, appearing in a piece that ran on the DNA website (sheer serendipity, I assure you), puts the issue in context:

"Not only is the case outside the statute of limitations due to the eight-year bar, we cannot put someone on trial - who has since retired - based on laws which were not even formed when the supposed offense took place."

Evolution. What a long, strange trip it's been.

Mornin', Twibe. Just a note to say you can start a fresh conversation here today. BTW, did you notice that WTA tournament withdrawals were down by a full third this year? Stacey Allaster, now President and CEO of the WTA, attributes it to the structure of the new WTA Roadmap. I'm not dumb enough to argue with statistical evidence. Well done, WTA. I have a few meetings this morning, but will be back this afternoon -- Pete

by Pete Bodo

So this is what it's come to me with the Andre and the Crystal Meth saga: I read a Tufts University blog post this morning, and took it upon myself to reply via the Comments tab. Mine was the first and - so far - only comment posted today.

I was amazed that a student of philosophy (I guess "student" is the operative word) would have such a, well, crass take on the controversy, suggesting that Agassi confessed his experiment with meth because he wanted to sell more books. It's a theme repeated over and over at blogs, including in many of the comments left at my recent ESPN post on the same subject. Greed, like beauty, is often in the eye of the beholder, and sometimes it's a case of pure projection. Those inclined to cry "greed" most quickly often are, if not necessarily the most greedy, then those most hungry, jealous or covetous. That's been my experience, anyway.

But if you're shattered by Agassi's revelations, let me ask you this: Can you conceive of someone writing his or her autobiography under the premis that he wants to be utterly honest about himself and his life? Is that such a hard idea to swallow?

That's not only the first question to ask when you wonder why Agassi 'fessed up, it's the only one. Condemn Agassi all you want, but he respected you enough to tell the truth about himself and his time in the game.

There are three kinds of autobiographies: tell-nones, tell-somes, and tell-alls. I've learned not to assign a hierarchy of value to them, simply because books are like fingerprints. The kind of book a person chooses to write tells you a good deal about the author. And everyone is different, and has had different experiences and differing levels of comfort with revealing themselves. That's just how it is; every book is, in the sense, already a confession.

Most of you know that I collaborated with Pete Sampras on his recent autobiography, A Champion's Mind. We made the New York Times bestseller list for a few weeks, even though the book contained a conspicuous dearth of intensely personal information that was not directly related to Pete's career. That's the book we wrote because that's what Pete envisioned - a book that would address every aspect of his career and, basically, tell his own story through his own eyes. In that regard, I'm very comfortable saying it was a very honest book, in a very different way than Agassi's book is honest.

For our purposes here, Pete's book qualifies as a "tell-none," at least in terms of the most intimate and potentially surprising aspects of Sampras's private life. We stopped just short of putting a warning label on the book: Caution: This book may be hazardous to your health if you're interested in sex and drugs and rock and roll. Sampras is a certain kind of person, who wanted to write a certain kind of book. Trust me, we didn't need to roll six hours of tape and kill two bottles of Chianti talking about how Pete really feels about his father.

Nor did our approach have anything to do with how much money Pete was paid by the publisher, nor any real or imagined personal crises. What he experienced in that vein is in the book; this was a guy who never lost a match because his girlfriend stabbed him with the heel of a Manolo Blahnik pump. The book we wrote had everything to do with how Sampras lived his life, what he considered important and valuable for public consumption, and how he wanted to engage and, in his own way, even contribute to the world. He is no Bono; nor is he Andre Agassi.

Tell-some books are a little different, and they're usually the domain of subjects who just don't want to come fully clean - sometimes in order to protect others, sometimes because the challenge of introspection and asking uncomfortable questions of themselves is too much to ask. Sometimes, the narrative is potentially so gruesome and disappointing that telling all would simply be too ugly, or unspeakably embarrasssing.

Rock stars don't have to worry about that, because notoriety is their stock in trade. But it's a concern for those public figures who are expected to fit a type, or are described as "role models." I collaborated on a tell-some book with the former NFL All-Pro receiver and popular broadcaster, Ahmad Rashad (ne Bobby Moore). You can imagine my disappointment when, expecting that his conversion to Islam might be the centerpiece of the book (bur remember, this was pre-9/11), he chose to more or less skate over it quickly. I'm still not sure if Ahmad didn't really think through his conversion (it was in some ways a fashionable thing to do among athletes of the time), or if he thought going too deeply into the subject would hurt his conscious attempt to position himself as a role model. In any event, here was a guy who, unlike Sampras, really wanted to reveal himself - on his own term.

Agassi's book is a tell-all, and it's a good thing that, in the big picture, there isn't all that much that's shocking to tell. When it comes to the dominant controversy in the book, I'm going to admit that I've walked in similar shoes. Were I to write a autobiography, I would fee guilty ignoring the issue. I think every person who's recovered from an addiction, or dabbled at the fringes of one, would feel the same. I assume that Agassi tackled the nasty meth issue for the same reason that so many of us admit similar behaviors to our friends and spouses: because he thought it a sufficiently significant episode in his life - just as Sampras thought that losing that 1992 US Open final to Stefan Edberg was a formative experience in his life.

You may not like that, but it's Agassi's call, not ours. What was that line from that old Jack Nicolson movie: You want the truth? You can't handle the truth!  That's exactly what I want to say to the legions of Agassi critics who have come out of the woodwork. Would this be a better or worse, a more or less important book, if Agassi chose to leave that out?

And there's been a surprising lack of credit given to Agassi for getting over that drug experiment as successfully as he did. Like it or not, certain people at certain times in their lives are susceptible to the lure of drugs. Nobody is glorifying it, but anybody who's taken a walk on the dark side and come back out into the sunshine is lucky - and he never, ever forgets. If you scan the comments at my ESPN Agassi post, you'll see one about crystal meth from a guy in Montana. It's harsh, but it frames the awful power of meth addiction pretty accurately.

Granted, Agassi had a Pulitzer-prize winning novelist (JR Moehringer, author of The Tender Bar). But I still found the description of the "vast sadness" he felt as soon as he'd ingested the drug (and before it kicked in) touching and true-to-life. And I liked that Agassi doesn't glorify his mistake, throw it out there and then immediately run away from it, nor descend into moralizing about it, to earn sympathy or vindicate himself. The guy just told the truth about himself; the subtext is: Judge me as you will.

I'll leave consideration of the failed drug test, Agassi's letter, and the ATP's subsequent actions for another time.

Thinking about these things yesterday, I called my friend Liz Nevin, who's always got an interesting, and often different, take on things. She had no problem with the confession but was really suprised by how little support Agassi received from his fellow champions. It underscored - rightly, I thought - how competitive and self-oriented the profession can be. We're not talking about over-wrought exclamations here, like Oh, thank God he's still alive!, but simple sympathy and empathy: It's a sad thing, but thank God he pulled himself together. Or, That's a shocker, but it happens in the best of families. . . 

Speaking of which: wasn't it Martina Navratilova who once ran around in a t-shirt proclaiming just that message: It Happens in the Best of Families? And here's Martina, comparing Agassi to Roger Clemens. That's just plain wrong; you'd think someone who's always crowing about perceived "injustice" would recognize the difference between performance-enhancing and destructive, debilitating drugs that can only be called "recreational" in the most ironic way. That's why I was so happy this morning to see the Andy Murray item  on the BBC website. Is it pure coincidence that Murray is Scottish, and council-housing blocks in his own nation have been notorious for the ghastly toll taken there by heroin addiction? 

A few years ago, I collaborated on an extensive Q and A interview with Steffi Graf. Wanting to shape the best possible piece, I suggested to an apprehensive Steffi - er, Stefanie - that I would happily share the final manuscript with her, to give her a chance to correct or amend anything that she may have misstated, or that I misconstrued. It's a good thing to do with a non-interpretive piece.

Well, it turned out that Graf got cold feet when she read the transcript, especially when it came to certain bits about her felon dad, Peter Graf. She wanted me to kill the entire piece. We had a series of long telephone conversations about it and I stood firm, telling her that she'd agreed to do the interview, it was all on tape, and while I would make corrections or additions that could be justified, the piece had to run. And I knew there was nothing in the text that could have been called a new or potentially embarrassing revelation. I just had everything in Graf's own words, on tape.

A few months later, at the Key Biscayne tournament, I saw Agassi and Graf (this was shortly after their relationship became public). She was still sore at me and, exasperated, I finally appealed to Andre. I asked him if he'd read the piece, and how he felt about the material. He laughed, and told he he thought it was a good, strong piece.

Although I didn't make the connection at the time, I think Andre got a kick out of seeing his wife-to-be come clean about certain potentially embarrassing or even painful episodes and facts of her life. He knew that letting things come out into the open for air is a good thing, and that there's no real down-side to honesty - not once you get past the uncomfortable feeling that you've allowed to world to see a part of you of which you may not be particularly proud, and which doesn't necessarily show you or your loved ones in the best light.

That's an experience everyone can benefit from, because it ultimately teaches you that there's a lot more to be afraid of in your own mind than out there in the world, or in your past. At least that's so if you're someone like Andre Agassi, or maybe even Steffi Graf.

Good mornin'. I just filed a post for ESPN wrapping up the WTA year, in which the main story was the inability of an impressive cast of characters to wrest the no. 1 ranking way from Serena Williams. It ought to be live by noon.

In another bit of WTA business, I had an email the other day from Ana Ivanovic's agent, Gavin Versi. He noticed that in a recent blog entry, I suggested that his popular and mild-mannered client had failed to mention or adequately explain how her ascent to no. 1 to 2008 had contributed to her struggles at the end of that year and beyond. I implied that she was in a state of denial about that process.

Gavin wanted to me to know that this wasn't true, so he sent along this extract from a recent interview with Ana in Vogue magazine. I quote it in full:

Ana, Ana, Ana. Her fans have begun to wonder. What has happened?

Ivanovic smiles serenely at the question. (Imagine being 21 and grilled about your failures: “Why, exactly, did your last paper on Henry James suck so badly?”)

“Becoming number one was great, but it was tough,” she answers in her rapid-fire English. “All of a sudden, everybody is chasing you. I wanted to stay there really badly, and I was thinking, Oh, now I have to work really hard to stay there.” The problem is, she was already working hard. She is the first to admit that she isn’t necessarily the most gifted player (growing up, she usually finished number two), but she has endured through sheer force of will. “Talent will only take you so far,” she says. “Tennis is all about personality. Sometimes you get bored. It can be really monotonous. But you have to see the big picture and keep working.”

It is, however, possible to work too hard. “Maybe I am a bit of a perfectionist,” she continues. “The pressure from the media was so intense, it was overwhelming, and that’s when I got injured.” It happened in Spain, where she had gone to recover after her lackluster Wimbledon performance by training with some male players. “Hitting the ball hard is a release of the tension for me,” she says. The more pressure, the more tension. The more tension, the more she needed the release. Something had to give. Her thumb, to be exact.

Well, I'm sorry I missed that. I'd like to plead "guilty with an explanation": My subscription to Vogue expired and I didn't even notice it until a friend asked if I'd seen the annual fall  "handbags and accessories" issue.

Seriously, though, thanks Gavin. My bad.

This is the place to talk tennis for the day; I'll be back later with that Agassi post.

-- Pete

Howdy, everyone. Back for my trip out West, and I just dropped in on this New York Marathon Sunday (with baseball to come later in the day) to give y'all a place to chat.

Serena Williams is the year-end no. 1, a fact that once again underlies the truth in the old saw, It all comes out in the wash. . . In some ways, it was an extraordinary year for the WTA, and if there's a main theme to it, I'd say it's the inability of a handful of talented players (Dinara Safina, Elena Dementieva, Jelena Jankovic, Svetland Kuznetsova and young contenders who at least have - and need - more time to mature) to take the baton held oh-so-loosely by Serena Williams. But with Kim Clijsters suddenly back and obviously dangerous, and Justine Henin on the horizon, things may be very different next year.

Anyway, feel free to tell me what you think of that idea, or go spinning off to talk running, baseball, or football (Vikings vs. Packers today, in the Battle of Brett). . . You classicial music buffs ought to know that Jackie-Oh is MIA this weekend; she went off to Washington D.C. to attend a violin recital given by her gifted sister.

I'll be back with you pretty early tomorrow with some more thoughts on the recent Andre Agassi controversy.

-- Pete

by Bobby Chintapalli, TW Contributing Editor

Doha, which winds up with the knockout semifinals and final this weekend,  has had everything – blood, sweat, tears, match-points saved, the Number 1 question answered, injuries, retirements. . .and lots of drama.

DIFFERENT STROKES: Was Dementieva trying to out-Venus Venus (with some success) by coming way inside the court on Venus’s second serve? That’s new. Speaking of new, Venus hit an awful lot of nice-looking inside-out forehands for winners. It was big fun to see a between-the-legs volley from Kuznetsova in her match against Dementieva. But the latter is no slouch in the athletic department, either; she ended up winning that point.

JJ STYLE: In the past we discussed whether, in terms of number of matches played, Caroline Wozniacki is the new Jelena Jankovic. Let’s get off the court this time and talk about how, in terms of post-match comments, Jelena Jankovic is the new Serena Williams. After her loss to Azarenka, Jankovic said, “I basically gave her everything. I beat myself.” Of course a journalist mentioned this to Azarenka (you have to love journalists), who said, “I'm glad she gave me the match and she was not in the mood. It worked out pretty well for me.”

Vera Zvonareva has game, but admit it – Doha wouldn’t have been as much fun if JJ didn’t qualify.

INJURIES: The big injuries were in the white group, though it had younger players. The only one of the four who didn’t retire or fall to the court in tears at some point is the oldest in the white group - and the one the most notorious when it comes to bailing out (just ask Maria Sharapova), Jankovic.

What's going on here, battle fatigue? After all, the white-group women played nearly 20 percent more matches this year than their maroon counterparts. Or perhaps they have less experience in training for the long term, or in ways that minimize injuries and maximize stamina? Perhaps they just haven't mastered that trick of the veteran athlete: listening to her body.

By Jackie Roe, TW Social Director

So my thoughts then turned to tennis players themselves dressing up for Halloween. The images had me in stitches - remember how silly they looked even wearing a Santa hat? - and I figured it'd be fun for us to assign costumes to players. Who should dress up as what? Most people view Halloween as the opportunity to exhibit qualities that are markedly different from their own (scandalous, powerful, dangerous, etc.) or to show off a side of themselves that they usually keep under wraps. So keep that in mind and consider costume choices that seem the most diametrically opposed to players' characters/appearances.

Below is a list of popular Halloween costumes. After each one, indicate which player you'd like to see wearing it. And by all means, feel free to move away from the list and come up with some costumes of your own!

• Vampire (are folks still Twilight-crazed?)
• Pirate
• Devil
• Angel
• Ninja
• Priest
• Witch
• Cowardly Lion (snuck that in there as I figured you guys would have fun with that)
• Little Red Riding Hood
• Cleopatra
• Lady Gaga (I have a feeling it'll be all the rage this year)

Does anyone remember the Jim Rome sports talk show by that name? It was on Fox Sports Net for many years, and before the proliferation of athletic chatterboxes on TV (almost all of which are unwatchable), "The Last Word" was one of the more entertaining programs on cable.

Two other reasons for this title:

1. Pete has returned from Montana, the fourth largest state in the U.S.A. He'll be stopping by this afternoon; I'll revert to background music/wallpaper on TENNIS.com.

2. Today's last slate of round-robin matches will determine the four semifinalists. Per the WTA's website, only Serena Williams has clinched a spot in the Qatar quartet. Today's outcomes will give us the other three. I've included the players' match records (first) and their sets won/lost (second) next to their names below -- sets won is the first tiebreaker, I believe. FYI, Venus Williams' record in the tournament is 1-2; 4-5.

White Group

- Caroline Wozniacki (2-0; 4-2) vs. Jelena Jankovic (1-1; 2-2)
- Agnieszka Radwanska (0-0; 0-0) vs. Victoria Azarenka (1-1; 3-2)

Maroon Group

- Svetlana Kuznetsova (0-2; 1-4) vs. Elena Dementieva (1-1; 2-3)

This is your place to chat about today's matches and anything else tennis.

-- Ed McGrogan, TW Contributing Editor

A long, drawn-out tennis match can be dramatic -- often, they go hand-in-hand -- but sometimes, it can just seem like overkill. In the case of Tuesday's three-setters in Doha (both near three hours in length), I'm going with the latter.

At face value, the scores seem intriguing (Wozniacki over Azarenka 1-6, 6-4, 7-5; Serena over Venus 5-7, 6-4, 7-6), but they didn't reflect the quality of the tennis that was played: not very good. The reason for this, as we've been wont to discuss this year, was poor serving. I recall reading that there were eight consecutive breaks of serve in the final set of the Woz/Aza match; in Will v. Will, there were six service breaks in the last stanza, during which Serena blew a double-break advantage.

Of course, this is all irrelevant for Wozniacki and Serena, who earned important round-robin wins Wednesday. As they, and the Buffalo Bills, will tell you, a win is a win. I just thought that I had put the Bills/Jets gaffe-fest behind me a couple of weeks ago. Hopefully the fans are treated to some better matches today.

White Group

- Vera Zvonareva vs. Caroline Wozniacki

Maroon Group

- Serena Williams vs. Elena Dementieva
- Svetlana Kuznetsova vs. Venus Williams

This is your place to chat about today's matches and anything else tennis.

-- Ed McGrogan, TW Contributing Editor