She must have won some of the smaller tournaments.

No idea how she wins any matches to be honest.

She won Indian Wells this year, which I think is a tier 1. I guess everyone else just took the week off.

The womens draw is kind of unfair. Henin, the Williams, Jankovic, and Ivanovic, 5 of the 6 dangerous players with Maria IMO, are all in the top half. Then in the bottom half Petrova, Kuznetsova, and Chakvetdaze(somehow at #6) have an entire quarter to themselves... It's junk that one of those or a nobody(likely) will make the semis while the big dogs all play each other. Vaidisova and Sharapova have the other bottom quarter, probably another very good and very sexytime match-up between them coming up.

Finally, a non straight sets night match on TV. This match (Blake/Santoro) has been entertaining.

These guys sure are shiney.

only to Santoro cramping up will Blake win his first 5 set match.
0-9 before this.

How sad for Blake, having a tight match with a cramping 30+ year old.

shit Santoro's on the verge of serving for the win.

just one more point, Blake.

It's about time he won a 5 setter.

monkey off his back finally.

He may be able to get to the quarters again this year.

This Stepanek v. Djokovic has been the match of the tournament so far. On serve in the 5th set.

Yeah. Great match. Seeing a 7 in all 5 sets is quite cool, too!

Anyone else annoyed by how many times Djokovic bounces that ball when he serves???

I prefer the ball bouncing to Nadal's just taking 40 seconds, at least with Djokovic he gives you some to count other than time.

So many early round 5 setters the last 2 days.

and with the women you're lucky if the match lasts longer than 60 minutes.

Even in a 3-setter.

To be truthful I dont like watching women's tennis much.

I only saw the last set, but yeah, good stuff. Stepanek is better than a number of guys in the top fifteen, he was very impressive in Montreal a few weeks ago too. It's too bad his ranking won't improve much after this.

By the way, Fish's French Open injury story... funniest thing ever. Defnitley the beefhead type.

And I guess Rafa is playing hurt. I look for Nalbandian to give him a run for his money in the fourth round... considering the most "dangerous" players in the other half of that quarter are Ljubicic and Ginepri, David making the semis as a 24th seed and rebounding his ranking wouldn't surprise me. Nadal vs an old and playing his last grand slam Tim Henman might even be interesting, depending on how hurt he is.

Actually, I think I kinda hate women's tennis. It's so sloppy, and some of the most annoying tennis players are on the women's side, with their obnoxious grunts.

Pretty surprising result on the men's side:

Calleri ARG def. Hewitt [16] AUS 4-6 6-4 6-4 6-2

Hewitt was playing pretty well coming into this, must be disappointing.

I hate how the commentators always make excuses for why Women tennis players make just as much as men tennis players even though they play best of 3. Saying how they fill up seats just as much as men, which is total horse shit for the most part.

It isn't. I used to think like that too, but here's the deal. I don't know what the ratings are like today, but back when Serena and Venus Williams were dominating, the ratings for the women's grand slam finals were a lot higher than the mens. It doesn't always work out that way, but this is a business, and if women outdraw the men sometimes, and men outdraw the women sometimes, then they should have equal pay. This isn't about equal pay for equal work, this is a sport whose business is to entertain and bring in fans.