By Charles Bricker

The most important goal under the now year-old Sony Ericsson WTA Tour "road map" was to get the best players to the most important tournaments and, while great improvement was made in 2009, there's still a lot of work to get done.

Of the five premier women's events, only Key Biscayne (March 25) and Beijing (Oct. 3) produced all the top-10 ranked players. Strictly speaking, everyone was there to begin the end-of-the-year WTA Championships for the top eight, but there were three retirements from matches once it began.

Also, at Indian Wells (March 11), No. 1 Serena Williams, No. 5 Venus Williams and No. 9 Nadia Petrova did not play. At Madrid (May 9), No. 6 Vera Zvonareva and No. 7 Svetlana Kuznetsova did not post.

The primary reason was injury, though for the Williamses, this marked the eighth year in a row they have refused to play Indian Wells after their father, Richard Williams, charged the fans there with racism.

In the five next more important events, only two had the full complement of top 10s -- at Cincinnati and Toronto, which was somewhat remarkable in that those tournaments are back to back.

The WTA probably will never achieve 100 percent top-10 attendance at these nine tournaments (add in Dubai, Rome, Cincinnati, Toronto and Tokyo) because there is only so much the tour can do about injuries. It can reduce the schedule, which has been done, and the result is that the women are now finished a month before the men's ridiculously long schedule is completed. But injuries are inevitable and unpredictable.

At Dubai, No. 9 Petrova sat it out. At Rome, No. 3 Elena Dementieva and No. 6 Zvonareva couldn't play. And at Tokyo, No. 2 Serena Williams was absent. That translates to 92 percent top-10 attendance at the most important 10 women's tournaments. Good. But it can get better and, hopefully, CEO Stacey Allaster will continue the dialogue that her predecessor, Larry Scott, began with the Williamses over the Indian Wells situation.

Looking back at those 10 tournaments, Toronto might have been high point. All top 10s were there and there wasn't a retirement or walkover in the tournament. There were a number of tense, three-set matches at the Championships, held last week, but those retirement took a lot of gloss off the event.

"What I take away from the first hundred days (as CEO) is an immense gratitude to the players for stepping up, delivering to the fans and sponsors, in a year that is critically important," said Allaster. "That really comes from their partnership, together with the tournaments, with all the changes we made. The new road map brought a much more premium product to the market and player commitment.

"Withdrawals are down 34 percent. Really, we're trying to say to the athletes, 'When you commit, it's a commitment to play. It's not an option.' "

This completes five years with Sony Ericsson as lead sponsor of the tour, on a contract that is scheduled to terminate at the end of 2010. Sony Ericsson has suffered financial losses, just as many international conglomerates have, and that puts that association with the WTA in some danger.

But Allaster has two strong arguments working in her favor as she and her top executives begin talks to extend the deal past 2010.

Number one: The numbers I've just thrown at you. The players are telling Sony Ericsson that at the biggest events and with the heaviest publicity the top players are going to be there and the tour sponsors are going to get the most exposure.

Number two: The lineup the women will be able to throw out there when the new season begins in January with now at least four elite players in Venus and Serena Williams, Kim Clijsters and the un-retiring Justine Henin.

Where does Maria Sharapova fit in? She remains the most marketable player in women's tennis and, if she makes yet more progress in her return from shoulder surgery during this off-season, she becomes the fifth member of that elite group. But she can't just look great. She has to perform on court.

Right behind those four or five is Denmark's Caroline Wozniacki, who at 19 combines the physical attractiveness and playing ability that has made Sharapova so marketable. She'll be an extremely important player in 2010 when she and her coach/father figure out that she can't play 91 matches a year, as she did this season, and stay fit. She retired from three matches in the final month of the season.

And behind them Ana Ivanovic, Jelena Jankovic, Kuznetsova and Dinara Safina -- all good enough to push the best top-10 players to the wall.

Whether all that makes a difference to Sony Ericsson I have no idea. If a decision to drop out after 2010 is made, it's going to come down strictly to economics, which will leave the WTA looking elsewhere, and I'm not sure that in this economy anyone is going to come up with the $88 million deal Sony Ericsson originally struck with the women's game.

Charles Bricker can be reached at bricker@tennisnews.com