Women's Look Forward: Charleston

Lindsay Davenport is not taking Maria Sharapova lightly.

Over the past few weeks, Sharapova has genuinely threatened to take the #1 ranking. Good enough results at Indian Wells and Miami would have done it; of course, the Russian failed. But she would have had another chance on clay. Davenport is taking the threat seriously: She's playing Charleston immediately after playing Amelia Island.

That has other interesting historical possibilities. Davenport's otherwise very solid resume has one great big gaping hole: Clay. She's never won a Tier I on dirt. On red clay, she hasn't even managed a Tier II title. And if ever there was an opportunity for her to cure that, this is it. Because, for the second straight year, Charleston is weak -- weaker, on paper, than Amelia Island, and likely to be the weakest of the big clay events. Davenport is of course the #1 seed. Neither Sharapova nor Amelie Mauresmo is here to contest the #1 ranking, and Serena Williams has left the tournament to Venus. That leaves Elena Dementieva as the #2 seed.

Below that, it's almost a carbon copy of Amelia Island: Almost all the same seeds, and often with the same seeding numbers, even. Anastasia Myskina, the #3 seed at Amelia, repeats that seeding here. Venus Williams is #4, up from #5 last week, with Alicia Molik slipping from #4 to #5. Vera Zvonareva is again #6, Nadia Petrova again #7, Patty Schnyder again #8, Elena Likhovtseva again #9. We did get a change at #10: Karolina Sprem isn't playing this week, so Jelena Jankovic, #11 at Amelia Island, takes that seed. Ai Sugiyama moves up from #13 to #11. Silvia Farina Elia is again #12. Tathiana Golovin, the #13 seed, is the first player below Dementieva who didn't play Amelia Island. Shinobu Asagoe, seeded #15 in Florida, rises to #14 here, with Mary Pierce falling from #14 to #15. And Fabiola Zuluaga nabs the #16 seed, leaving Amelia Island #16 Amy Frazier unseeded. Still, you don't often see consecutive events which are so nearly clones of each other.

There is one major difference among the unseeded players: Justine Henin-Hardenne is in the field. Also unseeded but a potential threat is Conchita Martinez.

Relatively few of the strongest young players are here: Nicole Vaidisova and Peng Shuai are in the draw, but no Ana Ivanovic or Evgenia Linetskaya or Vera Douchevina or Maria Kirilenko.

The wildcards are a curious lot: Jill Craybas (surprising that she was given one here but not at Amelia Island, closer to where she went to college), Eleni Daniilidou, Nicole Pratt, and Carly Gullickson -- the latter two most unlikely to do damage on clay. Indeed, it's a bit surprising to see Pratt accept two main draw wildcards on clay; that leaves her with only one for the rest of the year, and there are about 35 weeks a year when it's more likely to do her some good than this week.

Noteworthy First Round Matches

No question about what stands at the very top of this list: Justine Henin-Hardenne will face off against #10 seed Jelena Jankovic in a truly nasty draw for both players. Henin-Hardenne seemed a bit slow at Miami (no real surprise, that), and Jankovic gets to everything, and both like clay. Definitely tune that in.

#12 Silvia Farina Elia will be coming in off a final at Amelia Island. Jelena Kostanic likes clay a lot, and she has a lot to defend. Can she start the tournament with an ambush?

Amy Frazier has never liked clay much, but #13 seed Tathiana Golovin hasn't proved herself on it either, and Frazier at least has an edge in experience. Hard to predict that one.

Eleni Daniilidou and Meghann Shaughnessy are both in slumps. Daniilidou's is worse, but she likes clay better. And Shaughnessy hurt her back at Amelia Island. Will either be left standing at the end?

The Rankings

Last year, the big names at Charleston were champion Venus Williams (374 points), finalist Conchita Martinez (282 points), semifinalist Patty Schnyder (247 points; she incidentally beat Davenport along the way), and the biggest surprise of all, semifinalist Jelena Kostanic (157 points). Lindsay Davenport was a quarterfinalist, with only 93 points to defend. Quarterfinalist Vera Zvonareva earned 102 points; quarterfinalist Nadia Petrova earned 87. Surprise quarterfinalist Petra Mandula will see 149 points come off; given her recent results, it's likely to be a long time before she recovers from that. Justine Henin-Hardenne withdrew at the last moment due to her sickness, so just about everything from now on is profit for her.

Also coming off is Estoril 2004, meaning that Emilie Loit will lost another 123 points and take another rankings hit.

What that means is that there will be no changes at the top: Lindsay Davenport will stay #1, with the chance to extend her lead; Maria Sharapova will stay #2; Amelie Mauresmo will remain #2; Serena Williams will hold at #4.

We do have a contest for #5, with Anastasia Myskina having a shot at Elena Dementieva. But she'll have to play a lot better than she has been playing! She probably needs a final, and Dementieva needs to lose fairly early.

Venus Williams came in with just more than a 100 point lead on Alicia Molik -- which means that she is far behind Molik in safe points. She'll probably need at least a final to stay ahead of the Australian, and if Molik can make the semifinal, Venus may not be able to stay ahead of her no matter what.

Vera Zvonareva and Jennifer Capriati both lose points, but Zvonareva, even though she loses more, has more in the bank; she should stay #10 and Capriati #11. It's unlikely that #12 Nadia Petrova or #13 Patty Schnyder will move up; they have too much to defend. (Petrova would have a shot at #10 with a title -- but she doesn't win titles.) We might see Elena Likhovtseva move past Nathalie Dechy to take the #15 spot; theoretically, she could move past Elena Bovina into #14, or even past Schnyder into #13, but that's going to take a semifinal or better.

Odds are that we won't see more than one new name in the Top 20; if Jelena Jankovic loses to Justine Henin-Hardenne, Shinobu Asagoe would need only a couple of wins to pass Jankovic, and her draw is easy. If she can beat Myskina again in the third round, that should just about clinch it.

Key Matches

In light of the above, perhaps the most crucial early matches are Kostanic's: She opens against Farina Elia, then probably Conchita Martinez, then Petrova. Talk about a nasty draw to defend in! Two of last year's four semifinalists, plus a quarterfinalist, are in one eighth of the draw; somebody is going to take a hit.

We'd also watch Shinobu Asagoe's section as she makes a try for the Top 20. She probably won't have many other chances. She opens against a qualifier, then the Daniilidou/Shaughnessy winner. Win that, and she might make the Top 20, and she will earn a rematch with Anastasia Myskina, whom she beat last week -- unless Myskina loses her second round match to Nicole Vaidisova.

Justine Henin-Hardenne would like to get back into the Top 40; she has a Roland Garros seed to worry about. Her path is tough, too: Jankovic, then Peng Shuai, then Vera Zvonareva, then Lindsay Davenport. Still, it would be great to see Davenport against Henin-Hardenne on clay. And Davenport should make it, since she has a bye, then Jill Craybas or a qualifier, then maybe Fabiola Zuluaga -- a good clay player, but not likely to threaten Davenport on anything.

The winner of that would face Venus Williams, assuming Venus makes it past Farina Elia and Petrova. Venus would be playing to try to stay at #8 -- and to try to break her four-match losing streak to Davenport. She should have beaten the #1 seed at Amelia Island. Can she break through this time?

If the seeds hold, Elena Dementieva and Anastasia Myskina would meet in the semifinal with the #5 ranking possibly on the line. It won't be all that easy for either. Dementieva must deal with Mary Pierce and Alicia Molik; Myskina, after facing Vaidisova, could be in line for a rematch with Asagoe, and then faces Patty Schnyder, who needs the win to defend her points.