One by one, they're dropping like flies on the Asian swing.
Sam Querrey's freak arm injury ended his breakthrough season (note to all: avoid sitting on glass tables), while an infection compounded to Ana Ivanovic's terrible campaign. It seems, then, that a look at the DL -- as well as the walking wounded -- is appropriate.
Roger Federer: As Federer coughed up the double faults during the U.S. Open final, an erstwhile colleague suggested his back was again acting up. Now, while the Swiss failed to specifically mention the back in bailing from Tokyo and Shanghai, you can bet it's the body part giving him woe.
He showed up for Davis Cup duty the week after Flushing Meadows, customarily keeping Switzerland in the World Group.
"If I hadn't played the Davis Cup, maybe I would have gone to Asia, so you see how much energy the Davis Cup takes," Federer said over the weekend, according to The Times.
Probable return: At his hometown event in Basel in early November.
Andy Murray: Like Federer, Murray made himself available for the Davis Cup, only this time Great Britain sustained yet another humbling defeat. Further, taking part in three encounters didn't help his ailing left wrist, and the slumping world No. 3 withdrew from Tokyo.
Probable return: Murray is scheduled to feature at next week's Shanghai Masters. His ensuing tourney is the Valencia Open, held the same week as Basel.
Fernando Verdasco: Verdasco is commendably playing through the pain, hoping to earn a spot on the highly competitive Spanish Davis Cup team for December's home final against the Czech Republic. The Spaniards should become the first nation since Sweden in 1998 to repeat.
The now bulky Verdasco says he's gotten over the stomach injury that hampered him at the U.S. Open and is putting off foot surgery until the end of the season.
"My focus is to qualify for the World Tour finals and help Spain win the Davis Cup," Verdasco, a finalist at the new Malaysian Open, told reporters last week. "I want to experience the feeling of winning at home."
Status: Verdasco is the fifth seed at this week's combined China Open.
Gilles Simon: A knee injury has accompanied Simon for most of 2009, so it's somewhat surprising the personable Frenchman is still ranked 10th and well within reaching distance of qualifying for the World Tour finals. Simon sucked it up to claim his first title of the season in Thailand on Sunday.
"I've worked hard in the last few months, especially with my knee injury," he said in Bangkok.
Status: No rest for Simon -- he's seeded third this week in Tokyo.
Ana Ivanovic: Ivanovic pulled out of the China Open thanks to an upper respiratory tract infection. She was burdened with thigh and shoulder injuries earlier in 2009.
"I have gone through a lot of training and physical changes over the past few months, which have mostly remained private until now," Ivanovic said via her Web site. "My body is quite fragile at the moment, because I overtrained during the first part of the year. This was, I think, what caused me to have many small injuries this season."
Probable return: Bring on 2010.
Jelena Jankovic: Speaking of players who've overtrained ... the brittle and always-dramatic Serb retired in the weekend's final of Tokyo's Pan Pacific Open with an arm injury. Thus, Maria Sharapova, who is coming back after a much-ballyhooed shoulder injury, claimed the title.
"I started to feel pain in my shoulder, then it was going down to my wrist," Jankovic told reporters. "I don't know what happened there."
Jankovic didn't pull out of Beijing, but lost her opener Tuesday to crowd favorite Shuai Peng in three sets.
She was also bothered by an arm injury at the 2008 French Open.
Status: For now, Jankovic is in the Beijing field.
Venus Williams: It's pretty evident Williams' left knee is still bothering her. She had difficulty pushing off on serves at the U.S. Open, resulting in more than a few double faults. In Beijing on Monday, Williams delivered 14 doubles in another defeat, this time to Russian teen Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova. Williams, as usual, made no excuses.
"She played really well, and unfortunately sometimes I made an error too soon," she said.
Status: According to her Web site, the only tournament remaining for Williams is the year-end championships in Doha, Qatar. However, the 29-year-old hasn't qualified just yet.
Dominika Cibulkova: The feisty, slight Slovak recently returned to the courts after a wonky rib meant no U.S. Open. The injury came at the wrong time, since Cibulkova was nearing the top 10 following a maiden semifinal appearance at a Grand Slam (the French).
"Everything went well and without pain," Cibulkova was quoted as saying on the WTA's Web site. "I don't want to say it's absolutely fine, though, because you never know with injuries. The question is, 'How long will it take to get back to full form?'"
Probable return: Cibulkova is gunning for the Kremlin Cup.
Ravi Ubha is a London-based journalist. He holds a business degree from McGill University and a journalism diploma from Concordia University, both in Montreal, where he formerly covered baseball and hockey. Ubha is a tennis and soccer contributor to ESPN.com, also featuring in other publications, and does play-by-play in tennis.
Kamakshi Tandon is a freelance writer and tennis junkie who contributes regularly to ESPN. She has also written for Tennis magazine, Reuters and Dow Jones Newswires. Tandon is based in Toronto.
Sandra Harwitt, a graduate of New York University's School of Journalism, covers tennis for various media outlets. Harwitt has been accepted to pursue a part-time master of science in strategic communications at Columbia University. She is based in South Florida and New York.
Matt Wilansky is the tennis editor for ESPN.com. He joined ESPN in 1998 after graduating with a B.A. in communication from the University of Hartford.
