Four on the Floor

Wow, the women's draw took some hits yesterday in Miami, didn't it?

Four top 10 players got knocked out today with Dinara Safina, Vera Zvonareva, Ana Ivanovic and Nadia Petrova falling to Sam Stosur, Li Na, Agnes Szavay and Ekaterina Makarova, respectively. I wasn't expecting any of those top players to win—I still think it's Serena's to lose—but my personal picks took a hit with Zvonareva and Ivanovic falling. Safina's been in a bad way lately (like Jelena Jankovic, who lost Saturday) and I don't know what's up with Petrova.

I wonder, with all these losses, you almost have to look at the whole sitch in a historical context: Is this the deepest EVER that women's tennis has been or are a lot of the top tenners pretenders to the throne? Think back even 10 years ago: You never would've seen this many stars go out this early. And it's not like Miami is a rare occasion; this has been going on kind of consistently for the past few months.

Part of me wishes that it's a sign of more parity, but the other side misses the days of seeing all the big names make it to the later rounds unless they're a legit up-and-comer, like the four who lost today used to be.