Marat In, Serena Out

Excellent news! Amazing news! News that makes me so happy I want to dance round the room!
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Marat Safin is definitely playing Hopman Cup in January!
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I knew all this stuff about retirement was just a pissy rant because he'd been losing so much. I think he and Dinara stand a legitimate chance of winning this thing - especially since the top team, the USA, has just taken a substantial blow: Serena Williams is out. I appreciate that Serena is good to play Hopman Cup and all when she does, but sometimes I don't like her attitude towards it. She sailed on late to it last year, leaving Meghann Shaughnessy to play her match in the first tie, and this year she's suddenly sick or hurt or something. News, Serena - it's in a month! Surely you'll be better by then...?
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But what do I know, I guess. Hopman Cup is my favourite tournament EVER and it makes me sad when high profile people drop out.
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But Marat is IN! How awesome is that! I wish I could afford to schlep across the country to see it, but it really might as well be in New Zealand or Indonesia somewhere - Perth is just so damn far away. Still! Awesomeness! Marat and Dinara! No words!
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Actually, I wonder if Serena's withdrawal means the seeding will be altered... Marat and Dinara could be top seeds! Now that'd be an ego boost for the big guy... even if it was mostly on the recognisance of his kid sister.

The Hopman Cup begins

And so the 2008 tennis season begins... and it's still, technically, at least, 2007...

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Hopman Cup has a strange standing in tennis - or so it seems to me, anyway. It's a great idea - each country fields a man and a woman, and they play a singles rubber each and then mixed doubles, and then the winning countries from each pool face off in the final. It's pretty unique - and yet no one seems to care about it much.

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Last year's Hopman Cup was a blast - especially the mixed doubles match in the final. It was a dead rubber - the Russians had beaten the Spaniards in both singles matches - and so they just played a proset, and it was hysterical. The comic stylings of Dmitry Tursunov are severely underrated. I remember me and my housemate at the time staying up till two in the morning, caning ourselves laughing. (There was one bit where they all started imitating Maria Sharapova... God, it was funny.) It was great, because these four hardcore professionals - Dmitry Tursunov, Nadia Petrova, Tommy Robredo and Anabel Medina Garrigues - were just tooling round, having a good time.

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And yet, a couple of weeks later at the Australian Open, someone was talking to Tursunov and referred to the Open as his first tournament of the year. Hopman Cup doesn't count for rankings points on the ATP or WTA rankings listings - it's like the Davis Cup and the Fed Cup in that respect, but it seems to have much less cred than either of those two tournaments. Tennis is an unusual sport in that you're generally playing for yourself rather than for your country. Davis, Fed and Hopman Cup are the exception, but they're totally divorced from the everyday business of the sport. If it doesn't count for rankings points...

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I'm hoping the participation of Novak Djokovic in this year's Hopman Cup ups the profile of the event. I've never really warmed to Djokovic, I have to say - which is a bit strange, because I usually really dig the game's personalities (Tursunov being the obvious example) - but major kudos to him for playing this event. Serbia is playing Chinese Taipei tomorrow, and they've fielded a first rate team - Djokovic and Jelena Jankovic, I think. Serbian tennis is really on the up and up, what with those two and Ana Ivanovic - it really exploded in 2007 - and I hope some of that good mojo rubs off on the tournament, because I really think it's a great idea. The ATP tour and the WTA tour rarely cross paths outside the Grand Slams, and I think that's a cryin' shame.

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The real sour note of today - Day 1 - at the Hopman Cup was Serena Williams' failure to show. Yeah, I know she made her excuses, but it just doesn't seem good enough to me. This is her business, for heavens' sake! She can't just rearrange it to suit herself. It's indicative of the attitude that seems to surround the Hopman Cup - it's very rare that the top players from each country show up to play (which is why Djokovic and Jankovic are so commendable.) How can you just not turn up? And it seems very unfair to Meghann Shaughnessy as well, who filled in for her. If Williams is going to pull out, she should pull out for the whole tournament and let Shaughnessy play it. None of this, 'oh, I'll turn up in a couple of days,' stuff. What kind of rubbish is that? Shaughnessy did a great job today. Full cred to her for stepping in at the last minute. On another note, what if Williams had played? Would Shaughnessy have had to tool around on the sidelines doing nothing? Sort of a tennis understudy? I wonder if many countries bring along an emergency player... it seems sensible, but hardly fair... though, having been an understudy in the theatre, that's not exactly pleasant either, and yet it's still done... I guess fairness isn't really the concern.

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Today's Results

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USA def India 2 -1

Meghann Shaughnessy def. Sania Mirza, 6-3 4-6 6-3

Mardy Fish def. Rohan Bopanna, 6-2 6-4

Mirza/Bopanna def. Shaughnessy/Fish, 6-4 6-4

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Australia leads the Czech Republic 1-0

Alicia Molik def. Lucie Safarova, 7-5 6-2