**THE BIG THREE
**Since Henin-Hardenne controversially retired in the Australian Open final against Mauresmo, the strained relations between the two have given an added edge to their encounters. They’re guaranteed to face off at least once in Madrid, having been drawn together in the Yellow Group along with Nadia Petrova and Martina Hingis.
For Mauresmo, the WTA Championships are where it all began for her a year ago. “Winning the Masters in Los Angeles in 2005 was a key moment, a great change in my career, when I told myself, ‘Well, you can win a great tournament,’” she said. “My confidence and my consistency went up a lot and my game changed." She went on to win her first Grand Slam title at the Australian Open and then erased any remaining doubts about her big-match mettle by triumphing at Wimbledon. But since then she’s been struck by injury and faded in some important matches. A win in Madrid would go a long way in convincing observers that this was, after all, her season.
Henin-Hardenne has been the most consistent performer at the big events in 2006, reaching all four Grand Slam finals and winning one at Roland Garros. She hasn’t played since retiring (again) in September’s Fed Cup final, but she looks like a good bet to reach the final and secure the top spot for the rest of the year.
The form favorite for the title is Sharapova. After an impressive title-final combination at Indian Wells and Miami, she took off in the second half of the year and has won four of her last six tournaments—San Diego, the U.S. Open, Zurich, and Linz. She heads the Red Group, where she’ll face Svetlana Kuznetsova, Kim Clijsters, and Elena Dementieva.
The two winningest players in each group will advance to the semifinals.
THE REST
If the big three justify their seedings and move on to the final four as expected, that leaves one slot still open in Sharapova's group for either Clijsters, Kuznetsova, or Dementieva.
Clijsters, who won the event twice when it was held in Los Angeles, is the most likely of the three to go deep into the draw. She comes in having won a tournament at home in Belgium last week. It was her first event since injuring her left wrist in August, but she feels she’s returned to form quickly. “I can tell when I'm playing my best tennis, and that's a feeling I had today,” Clijsters wrote in her blog for the WTA last week. After the final, she said, “I'm feeling pretty good physically, too—my wrist is fine, and everything else feels good.” Having perhaps as little as six months to go before a self-imposed retirement should also focus her mind.
Kuznetsova has had a middling year punctuated with the odd big result. She won in Miami and reached the final of Roland Garros, but got to only one other final until after the U.S. Open. Her fall season has been no different—she won back-to-back tournaments in Bali and Beijing, defeating both Davenport and Mauresmo, but has fallen back since. Is she on the upswing again or still on a downward slide?
Dementieva is one of only two players in the draw not to have won a Grand Slam. The other is Nadia Petrova. Both are strong contenders for the title of best player never to have won a Slam. Winning the year-end event has served as springboard for Slam victories in the past—think Jana Novotna, Clijsters, and Mauresmo. Dementieva has an easier group to get through than Petrova, but is 2-8 against Top 10 players in tour competition this year.
Petrova has a tougher task because she has two of the Big Three in her group—Mauresmo and Henin-Hardenne—and at least one of the two must fall for her to get through to the semifinals. But she’s been performing well coming into the event and could be dangerous for anyone in the draw.
Petrova’s 15-match tear at WTA events during the spring was cut short by injury, and for the next few months she found it difficult to regain her form. “After coming back from injury, your body is used to the rest, it's not used to doing anything,” she said at the U.S. Open. “You have to really try pushing yourself to the limit and your body doesn’t want to do this.” But her recent results—a title at Stuttgart followed by finals appearances in Moscow and Linz—suggest she’s used to the grind once more.
All of which creates a daunting situation for the fourth player in the Yellow group, Martina Hingis. Hingis won the year-end event for the first time way back in 1998, but this her first season back from early retirement and just being in the field is an achievement. “If somebody had asked me if I was going to be in the Top 10 at the end of the year I'd have thanked them with a hand kiss,” she said in Zurich. Still, apart from a run to the final in Montreal this summer, the first half of her season was stronger than the second. Getting through to the semifinals would be an impressive surprise.
Another milestone of note: while Russians make up half the field, for the first time in the event's history there are no American women competing in the singles. The lone American presence is Lisa Raymond in the doubles, partnering Australian Samantha Stosur. Zi Yan and Jie Zheng, Cara Black and Rennae Stubbs, and Kveta Peshcke and Francesca Schiavone make up the rest of the four-team doubles event.
