That Will Put Prelims to Bed

Was this the final night of round-robin action at the season-ending WTA Tour Championships at Staples Center or a couple of Fed Cup practice sessions?

With the four semifinalists already determined, it could have seemed that way on Friday. There was an all-French match between Fed Cup teammates Mary Pierce and Amelie Mauresmo and an all-Russian match between Nadia Petrova and Maria Sharapova.

The second match is where the concept loses speed. Sharapova hasn’t played Fed Cup for Russia, though she has expressed interest in playing.

Someday.

Of the three singles matches before an announced crowd of 8,049, the first did have an impact on today’s schedule. Pierce defeated Mauresmo, 2-6, 6-4, 6-2, in 1 hour 52 minutes, winning the Black Group, going 3-0. By doing so, she will face No. 1-ranked Lindsay Davenport in the first singles semifinal. The defending champion, Sharapova, winner of the Green Group, will play Mauresmo in the second semifinal. The other two remaining matches were rendered moot. Petrova defeated Sharapova for the first time in four matches, winning, 6-1, 6-2. Kim Clijsters of Belgium swept Elena Dementieva of Russia, 6-2, 6-3, in the finale.

Clijsters had been eliminated from semifinal contention when Mauresmo beat Dementieva in a match that started Thursday night and ended early Friday morning, just after midnight. Clijsters’ failure to reach the semifinal meant that Davenport would finish the year ranked No. 1. It is the fourth time Davenport has done so.

So that element of suspense was gone too.

Mauresmo acknowledged the problem of going out on the court with little on the line.

“It is tough. These kind of matches are difficult to play,” she said. “And I was looking a little bit at Maria’s match. She also seems to have a little trouble, getting her rhythm....

“I still had the opportunity to maybe win in two. And after I lost the second set, it was pretty tough to keep the intensity up for the third. If you’re not qualifying, you see things differently. You don’t want to push yourself too much.”

Sharapova felt similarly, saying: “It’s hard to get going when your body is not there, and your mind is on your pillow.

“That’s how it was the whole match.”

Despite the lack of suspense, Mauresmo doesn’t think there should be a format change.

“I think it should stay [this] way,” Mauresmo said. “It is just, of course, disappointing for the crowd to have these kind of matches happening tonight.”

Though she finished strongly, Pierce had problems at the start.

“The first set for me was kind of weird,” she said. “I wasn’t very motivated and it was tough to get going. I was more or less having fun. And it was fun to be on the court with Amelie. And it doesn’t really matter if I win or lose. But it kind of does matter. So I was kind of struggling with that.”

Her turnaround came during the changeover between the first and second sets.

“I sat down and said, ‘OK, what’s going on here?’ ” Pierce said. “I don’t like this. Win or lose, I want to have a good match. And the crowd was cheering for me. And I kind of felt bad for that too.”

She finished with 10 aces and didn’t double-fault once.