MARBELLA, Spain - With the springtime hardcourt swing done and dusted, attention turns to clay on both sides of the Atlantic this week, with International-series events in two new locations. While the MPS Group Championships are contested on the green clay of Ponte Vedra Beach in Florida, the European claycourt season kicks off on the red dirt at the $500,000 Andalucía Tennis Experience in Spain.
Making her debut as a tournament director on the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour, 2004 Wimbledon champion and former world No.2 Conchita Martínez has assembled a stellar cast in the Mediterranean resort of Marbella. Two of the Top 3 and four of the Top 20 are present, with current world No.1 Serena Williams leading the charge.
There are no first round byes in Marbella's 32-strong draw, so after a grueling week in Miami, where she fell to Victoria Azarenka in the final, Williams won't have much time to find her footing. Indeed, the next fortnight will test the 27-year-old's mettle, for she is also slated to defend her title back Stateside in Charleston next week.
What's more, it has been seven long years since Williams last won a title on red clay, at Rome and the French Open in 2002. And to break that drought, she might need to get past claycourt specialist Carla Suárez Navarro, the fifth seed in Marbella, who lurks in the same quarter of the draw. The 20-year-old Spaniard sensationally dispatched Venus Williams from the second round of the Australian Open, and would surely like her chances against the younger half of tennis' most famous sister act.
The player Serena displaced at the top of the rankings 10 weeks ago, Jelena Jankovic, is Marbella's No.2 seed. By the gritty 23-year-old's usually consistent standards her season has been patchy so far, with a semifinal run at the Paris [Indoors] the best result to speak of. The switch to clay might be just the boost the two-time champion of Rome needs, but she too will need to get off to a flying start against wily Italian Francesca Schiavone.
Two recent Top 20 debutantes, Kaia Kanepi and Anabel Medina Garrigues, are seeded No.3 and No.4 respectively. Estonian Kanepi, who was granted a wildcard into the event, famously upset Jankovic in the last 16 at Dubai, and was a quarterfinalist at Roland Garros last year. For her part, Medina Garrigues has been the Spanish women's No.1 for several years now. Arguably a top-tenner on the red stuff, the 26-year-old native of Valencia should relish the opportunity to play a new Tour event in front of home fans, as will her compatriots Virginia Ruano Pascual and Lourdes Domínguez Lino, and two young wildcards, Estrella Cabeza Candela and Maria-Teresa Torro-Flor.
Rounding out the seeds at Marbella are three youngsters on the rise: Italy's Sara Errani at No.6, Romania's Sorana Cirstea at No.7 and Bulgaria's Tsvetana Pironkova at No.8. Others to watch include former world No.7 Nicole Vaidisova, who has shown glimpses of her old form in recent weeks as she tries to restore her ranking from its slump in the 70s.
