Sharapova to miss Qatar's Sony Ericsson WTA Tour Championships
What!!! This makes me less excited about the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour Championships in Doha. Where have all the beautiful girls of Tennis gone? No Daniella Hantuchova! No Maria Kirilenko and now, no Maria Sharapova! Yes, I know that the other two, Hantuchova and Kirilenko are not on the same playing level as Sharapova nor are they on the top 8 so there is really no way for them to be here for the Sony Championships.
Now I'm not sure if I'd be buying tickets for this event. I've seen all the top 8 WTA Girls play but having "idol" there to play makes watching tennis different. Anyway, here are the current standings and with Sharapova out, they might bring in Radwanska to play. If you notice, there are 2 Serbs, 2 Americans and double the Russians.
1. JANKOVIC, JELENA SRB
2. WILLIAMS, SERENA USA
3. SAFINA, DINARA RUS
4. DEMENTIEVA, ELENA RUS
5. IVANOVIC, ANA SRB
6. SHARAPOVA, MARIA RUS
7. KUZNETSOVA, SVETLANA RUS
8. WILLIAMS, VENUS USA
9. RADWANSKA, AGNIESZKA POL
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Maria Sharapova will miss the season-ending Sony Ericsson WTA Tour Championships in Doha this November after failing to recover from a shoulder injury.
The former World No. 1 and twice Qatar Open champion announced on her website yesterday that she will not play again this season, ending speculation about her participation in the prestigious $4.5mn event beginning on November 4.
The Russian beauty is currently ranked sixth in the world with 3041 points and was hoping to round off the season in style by winning the Doha tournament. “I’ve been progressing really well,” she wrote on her website. “But it’s (the recovery) taking a lot longer than I had selfishly planned. Therefore my team and I decided to ‘shut it down’ for the season.”
Sharapova fans in Qatar will thus have to wait at least another year to see her action at the Khalifa Tennis Complex.
Sharapova stormed the tennis scene in 2004 when she won Wimbledon as a 17-year-old. Since then she has gone on to pocket two more Grand Slam titles – the US Open in 2006 and the Australian Open in January this year.
Sharapova, who won the Qatar Open this year for the second time, is the highest earning female athlete in the world with an estimated annual income of $25mn. The season-ending championships feature the top eight ranked players in the world with five having already qualified. They are Serena Williams, Jelena Jankovic, Dinara Safina, Ana Ivanovic and Elena Dementieva.
Qatar will be staging the season-ending championships for three years – 2008 to 2010 – after signing a multi-million dollar deal with the WTA last year.
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