She’s got the place to herself

Somehow, in the midst of all the debris of injuries and pullouts, tennis managed to find a story line for this week’s women’s pro tournament in Carson.

Jelena Jankovic can become No. 1 if she wins the title Sunday.

There was a time when No. 1 was a huge deal. Several years ago, as Martina Hingis started to get outmuscled and outgunned by bigger, stronger players, she clung to it as her badge of honor.

“I am still No. 1 in the world,” she would chirp, defensively, after a loss.

These days, it seems more an inheritance of circumstance. Lots of players pull out of an event, some with sore legs, others with acute apathy, and suddenly, ta-da, , you too can be No. 1.

Jankovic showed up for the East West Bank Classic at the Home Depot Center with a No. 2 ranking, behind No. 1 and fellow Serb Ana Ivanovic, who won here last year but did not return to defend.

Jankovic also showed up with a muscle tear in her knee but decided to play, unlike a group of big-name challengers with even bigger limps. Lindsay Davenport pulled out, as did Venus and Serena Williams, then Svetlana Kuznetsova. That’s 19 Grand Slam titles, gone, followed by ticket sales and general fan interest.

Hard to be certain whether Jankovic was being heroic or stupid. Certainly, the people who run the event, AEG, were grateful to her.

They are the people who built and own Staples Center, own most of the Kings, a big chunk of the Lakers and built and own the Home Depot Center. You need something to hang your hat on when selling tickets and schmoozing sponsors, and that’s tough when the only advance notice of this event is a series of stories about who wasn’t coming.

At least they had Jankovic.

“I can’t comment on other people [pulling out],” Jankovic said. “I want to play, but I’m not 100%.”

An occasional dud event is not serious for a big operation like AEG. Remember, they own the Kings. They probably consider tennis to be little more than a loss leader in a complex that is a hotbed for soccer and occasionally fills the tennis stadium -- for boxing.

This is also an Olympic year, meaning the players have to tromp off to five majors and have much less incentive to spend a week at a Tier II event such as this, even if it is the bright lights of Los Angeles . . . er, Carson.

Tennis is a strange, traveling road show. Its ups can be off-the-chart high, as in the recent Federer-Nadal Wimbledon final. Its downs can be Wednesday-night-in-Carson low, when empty seats are the dominant wallpaper.

They started the evening session at 5, and sent two veterans out -- Vera Zvonareva and Jill Craybas. Zvonareva has won three Grand Slam doubles titles, has gotten to the quarterfinals of the French Open, has been as high as No. 9 in the world and has won more than $3.25 million in her career.

Craybas, at 34, is 10 years older than her Russian opponent. She has played regularly on the tour for 10 years and was ranked as high as No. 177 as far back as 1992. She lives just down the road in Huntington Beach.

When the two got into it quite competitively late in the second set, the quality of tennis rose remarkably. Zvonareva hung on to win a tiebreaker and the match. In the stands were no more than 400 people.

Craybas was asked whether a lot of her friends had been in the stadium.

“Yes, there were some,” she said. “Actually, most of them had to work.”

Jankovic took the court at 7 to play Long Beach’s Vania King. The crowd had swelled to maybe 800.

The personable Jankovic looked slow and injured in the first set, giving tournament organizers further heartburn when she faced two set points. But she worked her way out of that, won in straight sets and told the media afterward that it was difficult playing in an empty-house atmosphere.

“It’s unfortunate they don’t have many people,” she said.

Once again, she did more than her share for the tournament.

In her on-court interview, she took the microphone and encouraged more people to come out and watch.

Jankovic wasn’t the only big name playing Wednesday night.

For the late match, they sent out Alla Kudryavtseva of Russia to play Dominika Cibulkova of Slovakia. That’s 33 letters for both names. Also 14 syllables.

You should have seen the crowd for that one.

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Bill Dwyre can be reached at bill.dwyre@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Dwyre, go to latimes.com/dwyre.