Saluting Date, no hope for sisters

After a 13-year hiatus from the Tour, Kimiko Date Krumm nearly upset No. 25 Kaia Kanepi. Greg Wood/AFP/Getty Images Jon Wertheim's Mailbag Jon Wertheim will answer questions from SI.com users in his mailbag every Wednesday. Name: Email: Hometown: Question: SEND Follow Jon Wertheim on Twitter

We'll do some periodic baggies off the Australian Open. Also, I'm considering "live blogging" the final, so stay tuned for details.

How about some props for Kimiko Date?
-- Johnny, N.J.

An order of props it is, And we'll SuperSize. You know, for as often as we discuss injuries, perhaps here's a silver lining: As players are forced to take time off, they are prime to make these sensational comebacks. Kimiko Date Krumm was a great Day 1 story. Here is a player approaching 40 and returning from nearly 13 years of inaction, who qualified for the main draw of a Slam, and then came within a few points of taking out a seed in her first match. We can name dozens of other players who must look at Date's results and stroke their chins thinking, "hmmm." (Jennifer Capriati, hang in there!) Maybe that "sport of a lifetime" campaign has it right after all.

Date Krumm, by the way, is only one of many heart-warming comeback stories. Jelena Dokic is in round two. (And her tearful postmatch interview sheds some light on just how much hell she endured to get back.) Karolina Sprem qualified and lost, as did Bjorn Rhenquist, a Swedish vet on the north side of 30. Sesil Karantacheva is back from anti-doping sanctions and looking like a top-40 player. And how about Xavier Malisse? Why, it's like an NBA game: Everyone makes a comeback.

In spite of all of the success and recent Grand Slam championships won by the Williams sisters, why do you consistently pick against them in your predictions?
-- Tiersa McClardy, Atlanta

Fair point. With Serena, I really wavered. We know that she has an uncanny ability to play her best in the biggest events, and finding her game at the right moments. But in her last match coming in, she managed just four games against Elena Dementieva and complained about a sore knee. Just couldn't pull the trigger. When she wins the Australian Open yet again -- entirely possible -- I will feel silly.

I feel less badly about Venus. Again, she is a contender every time she enters an event (off clay.) She could announce that she plans to play Wimbledon with a frying pan rather than a racket and I'll still take her over the field. But she is seldom at her best in Australia. She's never won. In fact, it's been six years since she's advanced beyond the quarters.

How about this first round doubles match to watch: Venus and Serena vs. Nadia Petrova and Sventlana Kuznetsova. When's the last time four top 10 singles players played in a first-round doubles match?
-- Bill Trub, Brick, N.J.

Good catch. Remember when Rafael Nadal and Carlos Moya beat Roger Federer and Stanislas Wawrinka in the first round of Rome a few years back?

The Sisters, Jill Craybas (direct entry) and Melanie Oudin (qualifier) were the only U.S. women to earn their way into the draw. Is that an all-time low? That puts us even with the Brits. What is the USTA doing, perhaps not doing, with all its money?
-- Jerry White, Mineral, Va.

We all know the rhetoric: They're playing tennis in more countries than ever; the global competition has never been more fierce; for all its virtues, Title IX has had an averse impact on women's tennis. (And in fairness, if Lindsay Davenport doesn't get pregnant, Capriati doesn't break down and Maria Sharapova chooses to assume the citizenship of the country she's inhabited for the last 15 years, we're not having this discussion.)

But those numbers are the proverbial wake-up call. Wow, is that grim. And you're right to note the modest success of the Brits. Like the USTA, the LTA gets hammered in England -- "Why can't they alchemize all that money into minting credible players?" But look at the draw. Clearly, the Brits are making some progress.

Daniel Nestor and Nenad Zimonjic are not the reigning Aussie champs. The Israelis Jonathan Ehrlich and Andy Ram are!
-- Anne, Jerusalem, Israel

A few of you noted that and I think that was sloppy wording on my part. I simply meant that Nestor and Zimonjic are the best in the biz right now and have to be considered the favorites until proven otherwise.

Shots, miscellany

• Andres Brandi of Boca Raton, Fla., writes: "Are you aware that Dementieva has been working with Harold Solomon and Andy Brandi since Ericsson in ' 08? She was in Fort Lauderdale the whole month of December and before the Olympics as well."

• For those who remember former ATP employee David Higdon.

• Tennis will be returning to Las Vegas in a big way thanks to the opening of the International Tennis Centre (ITC), a new $10 million state-of-the-art tennis facility located minutes from the famed Las Vegas Strip. Prior to this week's opening of ITC, Las Vegas visitors and residents had few, if any, options for playing tennis in a professional indoor environment.

• Early candidate for the year's best/most distasteful headline: After Bernard Tomic won his first match, The Age of Melbourne declared "A Tomic bomb drops on Open."

• The USTA announced Friday a sellout for the '09 Davis Cup by BNP Paribas first-round tie between the U.S. and Switzerland at the 16,000-seat Birmingham-Jefferson Convention Complex Arena in Birmingham, Ala., March 6-8.

• Zolbol of Durban, South Africa, notes: "Marat Safin may be the first tennis player in recent memory to suffer a black eye, but check out this link about a story from the past regarding a locker-room brawl between Roger Taylor and Bob Hewitt."

• Jon Becker of Decatur, Ga., shares this short story.

• Another reminder that the "BNP Paribas Showdown for the Billie Jean King Cup" -- featuring Serena and Venus Williams, Jelena Jankovic and Ana Ivanovic -- is scheduled for Mon., March 2, at Madison Square Garden.

• Vijay Kalpathi of Houston sends today's Long Lost Sibs: Heisman Trophy winner Sam Bradford and Somdev Devvarman.

Sports Illustrated senior writer Jon Wertheim is the author of the new book, Blood in the Cage, which chronicles the rise of the UFC.