Monday, December 26, 2011

Passing shots

The women's championship trophy at the Brisbane International tournament has been renamed the Evonne Goolagong Cawley Trophy.

Mirjana Lucic recently married businessman Daniele Baroni.

Aravane Rezai has been given a wild card into the main draw of the Australian Open.

Up-and-coming Russian player Ksenia Pervak is now playing for Kazakhstan, a move that displeases Russian Fed Cup captain Shamil Tarpishchev and Fed Cup coach Vladimir Kamelzon. Tarpishchev speculates that Pervak made the move so that she can compete in the 2012 Olympic Games, but she would still have to negotiate a series of obstacles to wind up on Kazakhstan's Olympic team. "I just can't understand Pervak's decision, and I will never accept it," Kamelzon said. Pervak is ranked number 39 in the world.

Beginning in 2012, the BNP Paribas Open will award $1 million dollars in prize money to each of its singles champions. Prize money has been increased for all rounds of the tournament.

Here is Kamakshi Tandon's 2011 holiday quiz.

2 comments:

Todd Spiker said...

And here Voskoboeva and Shvedova thought they might be the very first WTA singles champion representing KAZ. "Not so fast, ladies," says Ksenia, with a Mona Lisa smile. :)

Geez, Kazakhstan has the chance to have a pretty good ex-Russian Fed Cup team. On the right weekend, it might even give the REAL Russian FC team a nice run.

Diane said...

This has to be as thrilling for Kazakhstan as it is disappointing for Russia. And with the way Voskoboeva has been playing lately, your prediction sounds realistic to me.