Golf Events / Editor / 13 February 2007 /

Just as the men's circuit has its Masters circuit with a year-end final in Shanghai in mid-November, so the women have their Sony Ericsson Race to Madrid a week or so earlier.

The only difference is that while the men's Masters has nine stops along the way, the women's tour seems to pack them in at more than one a week on average.

But that is the result of women's tour sponsors Sony Ericsson's support. They became tour title sponsors in 2005 in a staggering $88m, six-year deal.

For this year's tour Kitzbuhel in Austria and Barcelona in Spain have been added to the tournament schedule, making a total of 62 events spanning 35 nations plus the Federation Cup.

Fifty events are outdoors, 12 indoors and the majority of tournaments (26) are in Europe with 15 in Northern and Central America and 14 in Asia. The USA boasts 12, Australia is next with just four and all four majors, of course, are on the schedule.

By the finish and the $3m year-ending championships in Madrid from November 6-11 a staggering $62.4m will have gone on prize money as more than 1400 players representing 75 nations battle it out for the eight slots in the round-robin stages of the final as well as the finale between the top four doubles pairs.

The first significant milestone on this year's Tour will come at Key Biscayne in Miami, Florida between March 19 and March 31 (The men's final is there on April 1).

Last year in Key Biscayne Svetlana Kuznetsova got the better of Maria Sharapova 6-4 6-3 in the final.

And last November Justine Henin-Hardenne beat Sharapova in the semi-finals in Madrid and toppled Amelie Mauresmo in the final, both in straight sets, to become the One Million Dollar Woman - the prize on offer for the winner.

Serena Williams became the surprise early pacemaker last month when she came from nowhere to stun Sharapova and everyone else by lifting the Australian title for the third time.

That put her in top spot in The Race ahead of Sharapova, although the Russian remains No 1 in the women's world rankings. Martina Hingis lies third and Kim Clijsters, in her final year before retirement, lies fourth with Czech starlet Nicole Vaidisova fifth.

But Williams is back in hibernation this week as the Sony Ericsson action keeps up a hectic pace.

First, in Bangalore, Italy's Mara Santangelo is favourite to retain the title she won last year. This is the second Bangalore event but the first under its Sony Ericsson banner and it gets underway on Tuesday.

Santangelo is likely to meet last year's runner-up Jelena Tosic in the semi-finals and is trading at 3.8 with Betfair in an emerging market to retain her title. Santangelo is 38th in the Race but a good peformance in Bangalore could shoot her up the ladder.

Meanwhile, in Antwerp at the $600,000 Proximus Diamond Games top seed Amelie Mauresmo is trying to win the diamond encrusted racket that is awarded to three-time title winners. Seven of the world's top 15 will be there to try to stop her including Clijsters.

In-form Nadia Petrova is also among the contenders. The Russian celebrated at the weekend after taking her first title of the year and her seventh in all in beating Czech Repubic's Lucie Safarova in the Open Gaz de France in Paris 4-6 6-1 6-4.

Safarova had put out a returning Henin, back after her domestic difficulties, while Petrova overcame Mauresmo in the semis.

In the doubles Zimbabwe's Cara Black and Liezel Huber of South Africa are setting the early pace with American Lisa Raymond and Australia's Samantha Stosur nearly 600 points adrift in second.

Black and Huber consolidated their position in front with a win in Paris, beating Gabriela Navratilova and Vladimira Uhlirova 6-2 6-0.

While that was happening in Paris, over in Thailand Austria's unseeded Sybille Bammer was winning the Pattaya Open with a 7-5 3-6 7-5 win over sixth seed Gisela Dulko of Argentina. And that's a real boost to Bammer, who is in 24th place in The Race.

Of course, with the tournaments coming thick and fast at an average of more than one a week. It's not surprising the players have to pace their schedule carefully.

But there is expected to be a bumper turnout next month in Key Biscayne, by which time Mauresmo and Henin-Hardenne and one or two more should be figuring too.

The big question, though, is will Serena be there?

TOP EIGHT IN THE RACE
1 Serena Williams (USA) 1030pts
2 Maria Sharapova (Russia) 895
3 Martina Hingis (Switzerland) 781
4 Kim Clijsters (Belgium) 725
5 Nicole Vaidisova (Czech Repub) 610
6 Jelena Jankovic (Serbia) 555
7 Ana Ivanovic (Serbia) 495
8 Lucie Safarova (Czech Repub) 455

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