Month of October , 2008

Maria Sharapova has a new boyfriend: Charlie Ebersol, son of NBC Sports & Olympics chairman Dick Ebersol.
 

Ebersol, who once survived a plane crash, and his dad, are one of the wise brains behind Saturday Night Live.
 
Sharapova is a former World No. 1 Russian professional tennis player. She is currently ranked World No. 6 by the Women's Tennis Association.
 

Gilles Simon lost the last five games of the final set and was eliminated by Nicolas Mahut 6-4, 3-6, 6-1 Tuesday in the first round of the Open de Moselle.

Also ousted was Nicolas Almagro, a two-time winner on tour this year who fell to Eduardo Schwank 7-6 (5), 6-2.

Top-seeded Ivo Karlovic, No. 5 Paul-Henri Mathieu and No. 5 Dmitry Tursunov safely advanced to the second round.

Karlovic was trailing Marcos Baghdatis of Cyprus 4-6, 2-1 when Baghdatis retired with a back injury. Karlovic next meets Carlos Moya.

 Top seed David Ferrer began the defence of his title at the $969,000 Japan Open with a 6-4 4-6 6-1 victory over American Jesse Levine on Wednesday.

The Spanish world number five, chasing a berth at the season-ending ATP Tennis Masters Cup, recovered from a poor second set with a clinical finish in Tokyo.

Ferrer secured the first set when he chased down a Levine drop shot and whipped a forehand cross-court winner past his 101st-ranked opponent.

The race for the world No.1 ranking resumes this week in Stuttgart, as Jelena Jankovic has an opportunity to snatch it from reigning No.1 Serena Williams. Williams, the No.1 seed at the $650,000 Porsche Tennis Grand Prix, and Jankovic, seeded No.2, both received first round byes at the Tier II event, so the race begins in the second round.
 

It was a mixed day for the seeds at the AIG Japan Open on Tuesday, with 18-year-old Caroline Wozniacki storming back from a set down to defeat Gisela Dulko in three, and Zheng Jie falling easily to Russian 17-year-old Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova. No.6 seed Shahar Peer also advanced, but at the expense of crowd favorite Kimiko Data Krumm.
 

Top seed Peng Shuai, No.3 seed Sorana Cirstea and No.6 seed Monica Niculescu all won their first round matches at the Tashkent Open on Tuesday. But there was disappointment for local fans as Akgul Amanmuradova, seeded seventh, fell.
 

Maria Sharapova transformed Breakfast At Wimbledon into a ratings feast for NBC when she won the Rosewater Dish in 2004.
 
Though the former World No. 1 has shut it down for the season, as she continues rehabbing her shoulder, Sharapova has retained a connection to the Peacock Network.
 
The statuesque Sharapova is dating Charlie Ebersol, son of NBC Sports Chair Dick Ebersol, according to a published report in the SportsBusiness Daily.
 

The first round of the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix continued on Tuesday, with two of its seeded players - Agnieszka Radwanska and Venus Williams - making first appearances of the week at the Tier II event. Both were easy winners.
 
Radwanska, ranked No.10 in the world and the No.8 seed, was the first of the seeded pair to advance, cruising past Czech qualifier Sandra Zahlavova, 63 62. Radwanska fell in the first round at Beijing last week but rebounded nicely in Stuttgart, breaking serve four times and saving seven of the eight break points she faced herself.

Although she hadn't officially qualified yet, things were looking good for Maria Sharapova to be a part of the Sony Ericsson Championships - Doha 2008, as she was the leading player in the hunt for the remaining berths for the elite eight-woman event. But a nagging right shoulder injury that has kept her out of action since Wimbledon will now keep her out through the end of the 2008 season.
 

Marcos Baghdatis of Cyprus withdrew from his first-round match at the Metz Open ATP tournament with what appeared to be a serious back injury.
Baghdatis had won the first set 6-4 and was trailing Croatia's Ivo Karlovic 2-1 in the second when he screamed with pain and fell on to the court after serving.

He received treatment on his back for several minutes before being carried out on a stretcher.

Top seed Karlovic goes on to meet Spain's Carlos Moya.

Jelena Jankovic, the world No. 2, sat down with the journalists to answer a variety of questions at the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix’s All Access Hour on Tuesday. The 23-year-old Serbian’s thoughts on...
 
...the No. 1 spot being on the line at the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix:

Top seed David Ferrer began the defence of his Japan Open title with a 6-4 4-6 6-1 victory over American Jesse Levine on Wednesday.

Chasing a berth at the season-ending ATP Tennis Masters Cup in Shanghai, the Spanish world number five recovered from a poor second set to finish off the second round encounter in clinical fashion.

"I don't care about Shanghai now," shrugged Ferrer, who suffered an embarrassing opening match exit in Beijing last week.

Resurgent Swiss Patty Schnyder upset Russian fifth seed Svetlana Kuznetsova 6-4 4-6 7-5 in the first round of the Stuttgart Grand Prix on Wednesday.
 
The 29-year-old Schnyder, fresh from winning her first title in three years in Bali this month, took two hours and five minutes to see off Kuznetsova in an entertaining scrap on day two of the indoor tournament.
 
Serving strongly throughout, she set up match-point when Kuznetsova marginally overhit a return and clinched it when the Russian's attempted backhand winner drifted wide.
 

Roger Federer has withdrawn from next week’s Stockholm Open, saying he needs to rest before starting his quest to reclaim the top spot in the world rankings.

Federer said in a statement on his Web site Wednesday that he had been playing catch-up all year after being diagnosed with mononucleosis at the start of 2008.

Dmitry Tursunov of Russia needed just 48 minutes to reach the third round of the Open de Moseille, beating Jose Acasuso of Argentina 6-2, 6-2 Wednesday.

Tursunov, seeded fifth, had 10 aces and converted all four of his break points. His lone title this year came in Sydney, Australia, in January.

He will next face the winner of Wednesday’s match between top-seeded Ivo Karlovic and Spanish veteran Carlos Moya. Latvia’s Ernests Gulbis faced Serbia’s Janko Tipsarevic in another second-round match.

World number one Serena Williams was a shock second round casualty of Stuttgart's WTA event after a three-set defeat to China's Li Na on Wednesday.
 
In a dramatic match which see-sawed several times, Li rallied having been totally over-whelmed in the first set to force Williams from her dominant position and put the number one under immense pressure.
 
"I was very nervous in the first set and I just didn't have a chance," said Li, who lost to Russia's Dinara Safina in the Olympic Games semi-finals.
 

Jelena Jankovic will replace Serena Williams as the world's top-ranked player when the newest rankings are released Monday, the WTA Tour announced.
 
It will mark the second stint as the world number one for Jankovic, who also held the spot for one week in August.
 
Williams had held the top spot for the last four weeks after defeating Jankovic in the US Open final.
 
Jankovic, who has won two titles this year, made her first career final in a Grand Slam at the US Open.
 

On Tuesday she spoiled the singles comeback of Japanese veteran Kimiko Date Krumm, but on Wednesday it was Shahar Peer’s turn to be bounced from the AIG Japan Open by a younger opponent. Three other seeds progressed, although two of them were taken the distance.
 

No.4 seed Sabine Lisicki and No.5 Magdalena Rybarikova scored relatively one-sided wins to reach the quarterfinals of the Tashkent Open on Wednesday. Unseeded Ioana Raluca Olaru and Urszula Radwanska also secured last eight slots after being tested in their respective matches.  
 

China's Top 2 players have been making lots of noise on the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour over the last few months, and that noise certainly didn't quieten down in Stuttgart on Wednesday. Zheng Jie became the first Chinese player ever to beat a reigning world No.1 with her win over Ana Ivanovic at Wimbledon, and now Li Na has matched the feat with a win over Serena Williams at the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix, a win that will also displace the American from that position next week.