Players
47 of the top 50 players in the ATP rankings entered the men's singles event at the tournament with Rafael Nadal seeded first, followed by Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray. Defending champion Nikolay Davydenko withdrew ahead of the tournament due to a foot injury. Richard Gasquet, who was initially going to play, withdrew prior to his first match after suffering from right shoulder injury. Gasquet was replaced by lucky loser Björn Phau. 12 players progressed from the qualifying draws to the main draw and six players, including Lleyton Hewitt and Marcos Baghdatis, were given wildcard entries.
In the women's singles field, defending champion Serena Williams was top seeded, with number two Dinara Safina only 311 points behind her in the WTA rankings at the start of the tournament. Maria Sharapova was expected to return to singles tennis at this tournament after playing doubles matches in the previous tournament, the 2009 BNP Paribas Open. Sharapova, who had not played singles matches since August 2008, withdrew due to a continued lack of fitness. Jelena Dokić, Sania Mirza and Alexa Glatch were among the eight players who received wildcard entries. 12 players progressed from qualifying draws to main draw.
The doubles draws were led by defending champions Bob and Mike Bryan on the men's side and Cara Black and Liezel Huber on the women's side. Katarina Srebotnik, one of the women's doubles defending champions, had not recovered from an injury picked up in December 2008 and did not participate. Her partner from the previous year, Ai Sugiyama partnered with Russian Daniela Hantuchová. Marina Erakovic – Tiantian Sun and Francesca Schiavone – Chan Yung-jan withdrew from the tournament due to respective injuries to Erakovic and Chan. The doubles draws included five wildcard entries in total.
Read more about this topic: 2009 Sony Ericsson Open
Famous quotes containing the word players:
“Will you see the players well bestowed? Do you hear, let them
be well used, for they are the abstracts and brief chronicles of the time. After your death you were better have a bad epitaph than their ill report while you live.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“The whole idea of image is so confused. On the one hand, Madison Avenue is worried about the image of the players in a tennis tour. On the other hand, sports events are often sponsored by the makers of junk food, beer, and cigarettes. What’s the message when an athlete who works at keeping her body fit is sponsored by a sugar-filled snack that does more harm than good?”
—Martina Navratilova (b. 1956)
“Yeah, percentage players die broke too, don’t they, Bert?”
—Sydney Carroll, U.S. screenwriter, and Robert Rossen. Eddie Felson (Paul Newman)