Starting to Feel Withdrawn

The U.S. Open starts in two weeks and maybe by then we might have an idea of who could win it.

There was a time when someone would emerge from what used to be a deep women’s tennis field to stamp herself as a strong Open contender by now.

The tournament now known as the JP Morgan Chase Open was a pretty good indicator. The winner went on to reach the U.S. Open final 10 times in 23 years; Lindsay Davenport (1998) and Serena Williams (1999) were among the five U.S. Open champions. Of course, that was two title sponsors, a venue change and about a dozen injuries ago.

With the state of women’s tennis these days, the results of this tournament matter about as much as winning a Democratic presidential primary.

Kim Clijsters won at the Home Depot Center on Sunday, in an event most notable for who wasn’t around. Williams and Davenport pulled out before it started. Even resurgent Mary Pierce, who won in Carlsbad last week, was a late scratch. Then Maria Sharapova, who had a shot at overtaking Davenport for the No. 1 ranking, aggravated a chest muscle injury in her match Thursday and had to withdraw.

That left Clijsters to roll through the field without dropping a set. And it leaves her as the default favorite for the U.S. Open. The two strongest cases in her favor: Clijsters has won 26 of 27 matches on hard courts this year and 31 of her last 32 matches in the United States. A lot of things have changed in our world, but the U.S. Open is still played on hard courts in the United States.

“I’m sure she’s the toughest one at the moment to beat,” said Daniela Hantuchova, who lost to Clijsters, 6-4, 6-1, in the final Sunday, “because she’s just playing unbelievable tennis.”

More accurately, she’s just playing. That’s more than six of the other players in the top 11 can say right now. To recap: No. 1 Davenport, back injury. No. 2 Sharapova, chest muscle. No. 5 Justine Henin-Hardenne, hamstring. No. 7 Serena Williams, ankle. No. 8 Venus Williams, flu. No. 11 Pierce, thigh.

Without all the headline acts, women’s tennis is taking a step backward this summer. The tour adopted a points race for the hard-court season, with the winner getting a chance to double her prize money for winning the U.S. Open. Clijsters is winning the race, but the sport is losing credibility. Fans came to the Home Depot Center on Friday night expecting to see Sharapova, and all they got was a bobble-head version of her.

Because of the weakened competition these days and Clijsters’ inability to get it done in the biggest matches so far (she is 0-4 in Grand Slam tournament finals) we can’t definitively say Clijsters will win the U.S. Open.

And as Jerry Seinfeld would say, what is the deal with all of those injuries?

How can so many players get hurt in a non-contact sport? I thought the greatest of injury in tennis was tennis elbow.

“I think recently the style of play has definitely played a role,” said Stella Sampras Webster, the women’s tennis coach at UCLA. “The girls especially are physical and more aggressive in the past. I think their bodies are not up to the physicality of what they’re doing.

“They are overtraining and they’re playing probably too much, especially at a young age.”

Even the new tour logo looks like an ankle injury waiting to happen, with a silhouetted, pony-tailed player lunging after a shot.

“When Chris Evert played and Martina [Navratilova], no one jumped off the ground to hit a ground stroke,” Sampras Webster said. “Now they’re so much more explosive.”

As if all that weren’t enough, there are even botanical risks.

On the most dramatic play of the match Sunday, a first-set game point, Clijsters chased down an overhead smash and ran into some potted plants about 22 feet from the baseline. She wound up winning the point, but at a cost.

“I actually cut my leg,” she said.

That’s nothing compared with the wrist injury that caused her to miss most of the 2004 season.

Her solution these days: more tournaments and more breaks in between. She hit the spa at La Costa after her quarterfinal loss last week, and plans on doing some shopping before she heads to the next competition in Toronto.

So is that the secret? Spas and shopping?

“Maybe you should write that,” Clijsters said. “We’ll all go shopping tomorrow.”

It might be more relevant than Sunday’s match against an opponent who has one career title. Clijsters’ serve wavered in the first set, and then Hantuchova deflated in the second set.

But go back to the history lesson: When Clijsters won this event in 2003, she went on to the U.S. Open final.

“I feel like it’s important to play well in the tournaments leading up to the Grand Slams,” Clijsters said. “I like to have the confidence. That doesn’t mean that you’re going to go for it, but it makes you look more confident starting the tournament.”

Clijsters’ best asset is her quickness, giving her even better side-to-side range than the current version of Serena.

But as she said, her No. 1 objective right now is, “Just try to stay healthy.”

The way things are going, the key to winning the U.S. Open could be simply making it to New York.

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J.A. Adande can be reached at j.a.adande@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Adande, go to latimes.com/Adande.