Compiled by Neil Schmidt
The Cincinnati Enquirer

A lot has happened in the tennis world since the ATP Tour last converged on Mason. Where have you gone, Pete Sampras? Where did you come from, Argentina? Rising stars are finally reaching their potential, while old stalwarts bow out of the game.

With the Tour in town only once a year, it can be hard to keep everything straight. So on the eve of the Western & Southern Financial Group Masters, the Enquirer presents your essential guide to the tournament.

WHO'S HOT

• Andy Roddick plays today for the title in Montreal, which would be his fourth in his last seven events. He has won 28 of his last 31 matches.

• Guillermo Coria, a 21-year-old Argentine, won three consecutive tournaments without dropping a single set before retiring with a hamstring injury in a first-round loss in Montreal. The last time anyone won three consecutive tourneys was 1996, when Thomas Muster did it.

• Juan Carlos Ferrero is ranked No. 2 and has gone 32-3 on clay this year.

• Mark Philippoussis has rebounded from two injury-prone years to rank No. 8 in the Champions Race. He reached the Wimbledon final.

• Rainer Schuettler, a 27-year-old German, is up to a career-high No. 8 ranking. Friday in Montreal, he avenged a defeat to Andre Agassi in the Australian Open final. He played Saturday night in the semifinals.

WHO'S NOT

• Lleyton Hewitt, the No. 1 player at the end of 2002, has been on a bit of a downer ever since he challenged the $20,000 fine levied by the ATP Tour for his refusal to do a pre-match interview with ESPN here last year. He's a middling No. 13 in the year-long ATP Champions Race.

•  Thomas Enqvist, winner of this event in 2000 and a former top-five player, is 6-20 this year. He has been slowed the past year by a shoulder injury.

•  Gustavo Kuerten, winner of this event in 2001 and a former No. 1, has lost three of his last five matches and is ranked No. 14.

•  Marat Safin, who was ranked No. 2 at the end of last year, retired from a match July 29 with an injured left wrist and said he might not play again this year.

FIVE FAVORITES

ANDY RODDICK

He plays like a young Agassi - hit the ball as loud as you can - with a booming serve the likes of which Agassi never had. This year, he has reached the semifinals of two Grand Slams. He is 23-2 since hiring Brad Gilbert as his coach and tries today to win his fourth tournament this season. ODDS: 6-1

ROGER FEDERER

"Federer Express" is beginning to deliver. His Wimbledon title fulfilled the promise shown in spurts over the past two years. He leads the ATP this year in match wins (57) and titles (five). He has won events on every surface this year. ODDS: 8-1

CARLOS MOYA

A year ago, there was no reason to give this clay-court specialist much of a chance on hard courts. Then he won this event. Ranked 17th in the world at the time, the Spaniard is up to No. 4. He reached the final of the hard-court Masters Series event in Miami in March. ODDS: 12-1

PARADORN SRICHAPHAN

He's an idol in Thailand, where last year he became the first Asian player since 1980 to finish the year in the top 20. Now he's up to a career-high No. 9 ranking. This is his favorite surface: He finished with the most hard-court victories (40) on tour last year. ODDS: 15-1

LLEYTON HEWITT

He's just 30-8 this year and flamed out in the first round at Wimbledon. But he is still a force on hard courts: He won the 2001 U.S. Open and reached the final here last year. When he's focused, he's hard to beat. ODDS: 15-1

• Odds/Research provided by the Enquirer's Neil Schmidt.

CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR

Goran Ivanisevic (above) hasn't won an ATP match since March 2002. The 2001 Wimbledon champ underwent shoulder surgery last year and, also battling elbow and foot injuries, is 0-3 this year. "I said to God before I won Wimbledon, 'Just let me win this match and I don't care if I never play tennis again,' " Ivanisevic said. "Then, after 13 years with no injuries, all these things happen. So maybe He heard and now it's tough to negotiate with God. It's non-negotiation with him."

GAME, SCENT AND MATCH?

Wimbledon champion Roger Federer has launched his own line of fragrances. It's called "RF - RogerFederer," with the slogan "Feel the touch." Said Federer: "I thought it was a great idea having a perfume with my name on it." Meanwhile, Andre Agassi is helping Aramis launch its new men's fragrance, with the slogan, "Life. It's a Great Game." The ads will begin airing in September, and the fragrance will go on sale in October. Aramis is the lead global sponsor of the Andre Agassi Charitable Foundation.

HEY, GOOD-LOOKIN'

James Blake may be unattached, but being featured in People magazine's Sexiest Men Alive issue - named its Sexiest Athlete - should help him get a date. Oprah Winfrey's O magazine also included Blake in a list of Winfrey's "all-time favorite men." Brian Vahaly was dumped this spring by his girlfriend, actress Christine Lakin (TV's Step by Step), but Vahaly should rebound nicely after being included in People's 25 Most Eligible Bachelors issue. (Todd Martin, featured in the 2000 issue, has since married.) The looks of Robby Ginepri, Taylor Dent and Mardy Fish were lauded in this month's Elle under the "Must See" category.

OLD GUARD HANGS ON

Tennis is a young man's game, but lots of 30somethings are doing just fine. Andre Agassi, at 33, is the oldest man ever to hold the No. 1 ranking. Pete Sampras, who's mulling retirement, won his U.S. Open title last fall at 31. Wayne Ferreira, 31, won the event in Los Angeles a week ago and is ranked No. 20. Younes El Aynaoui, who'll turn 32 next month, is No. 22 and playing his best tennis. Jonas Bjorkman, 31, ranks No. 45. Sargis Sargsian, 30, has a career-high No. 51 ranking.

SILVER SCREEN

Tennis will hit the big screen next year with the release of Wimbledon, a romantic comedy starring Paul Bettany (A Beautiful Mind) and Kirsten Dunst (Spider-Man). It's about an aging British player who goes on a winning streak, while off the court he tries to win the heart of an up-and-coming American tennis star. (Hmm ... sounds like the John Lloyd/Chris Evert story - if Lloyd had ever fared well at Wimbledon.) Crowd scenes were filmed in part at Wimbledon this year. "I'm trying to do for tennis what Raging Bull did for boxing," director Richard Loncraine said.

BABE MAGNETS

Apparently, tennis players take a back seat to no one in the hunk category, judging by some of the megawatt "significant others" the Americans can claim. The most-discussed romance right now is Andy Roddick and singer/actress Mandy Moore. Robby Ginepri is dating actress Minnie Driver. Jan-Michael Gambill - we don't know if he's spoken for right now - gained renown a few years ago by dating actress Sarah Michelle Gellar. Then of course, there's Pete Sampras, who married actress Bridgette Wilson. And Andre Agassi is married to legend-in-her-own-right Steffi Graf.

BEST GESTURE

In the first round of a June tournament in Halle, Germany, Younes El Aynaoui was dominating 19-year-old Christopher Koderisch, a hometown player. When he wrapped up the 6-1, 6-2 victory, El Aynaoui greeted Koderisch at the net and suggested they play another set - just for fun, for the crowd. Koderisch went for it, they talked the chair umpire into it, and the crowd gave a huge cheer for the gesture. After that exhibition set, the German fans gave the Moroccan a standing ovation.

DAVIS CUP BLUES

Since last August, the United States is 0-2 in Davis Cup ties. It fell 3-2 to France in a semifinal last fall; Russia went on to win the championship. Then in February, the Americans lost 4-1 in a 2003 first-round tie with Croatia. Maybe next year.

DON'T HAVE A COW, MAN

The Allianz Suisse Open in Gstaad, Switzerland, decided to reward native son Roger Federer for his Wimbledon triumph by giving him a 7-year-old cow named Juliette. The next day, Federer visited Juliette at her mountain home and milked her. "I think every Swiss has to (milk a cow) sometime," Federer said. "It was really a lot of fun - a funny, strange feeling, kind of warm. I love cheese, milk and yogurt. It's a nice cow I got."

FEEL-GOOD STORY

The ATP's prestigious Arthur Ashe Humanitarian Award was awarded to Amir Hadad, an Israeli Jew, and Aisam Qureshi, a Pakistani Muslim. Their doubles partnership, set against the backdrop of Jewish-Islamic tensions in the Middle East, has proven inspirational. They first teamed up at Wimbledon last summer, emerging from the qualifier to reach the third round, then winning a match at the U.S. Open. "I hope people can learn something from us and live peacefully together," Qureshi said.

MORE HONORS

Other 2002 year-end ATP honors went to Paradorn Srichaphan, who won both the Stefan Edberg Sportsmanship Award and the Most Improved Player Award; Paul-Henri Mathieu for Newcomer of the Year; Richard Krajicek for Comeback of the Year; and Marat Safin, who won the Fans' Favorite Award. Safin got 21 percent of the fans' 28,000 votes on www.atptennis.com, followed by Andre Agassi (14 percent), Gustavo Kuerten (13 percent) and Srichaphan (12 percent).

MATCH OF THE YEAR

At the French Open, Andy Roddick of the United States was voted the winner of the Lemon Prize, which goes to the player with the most fighting spirit and character. They must have seen his quarterfinal match at the Australian Open. In a five-hour epic, Roddick beat Younes El Aynaoui of Morocco 4-6, 7-6, 4-6, 6-4, 21-19. Exhausted at 19-all in the fifth set, the players handed their rackets to ball kids to rally with. Two games later, they embraced, and fans gave them a three-minute standing ovation.

RIGHT TO BARE ARMS

Nike's sleeveless tennis shirt didn't go over so well when Tommy Haas debuted it at the 2002 U.S. Open. Tournament officials invoked their right to interpretation of the "acceptable attire" rule in the Grand Slam Rule Book and ordered him to change it, even though he already had taken the court for his first-round match. (Haas changed shirts.) The shirt since has been approved by the Slams, and Haas has been joined in wearing the shirt by James Blake, Carlos Moya, Robby Ginepri and Max Mirnyi. And Haas bared even more when he and his girlfriend posed in the annual Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue.

SO LONG

A handful of top players have retired in the past 12 months. Patrick Rafter, a former No. 1 player, turned a long "hiatus" into official retirement. Richard Krajicek, the 1996 Wimbledon champion, retired in June. Michael Chang has announced the U.S. Open will be his final event. Magnus Larsson, a former top-10 player from Sweden, also has bowed out. Pete Sampras is, in his own words, "95 percent retired." Yevgeny Kafelnikov, who said earlier he would retire at year's end, now intends to keep playing.

TAKE THAT BACK

Now all but officially retired, Pete Sampras might want to eat his words from December. He said then that he would play an extensive 2003 schedule, starting in February. "Now that I'm announcing it and letting people know, it feels good," he said in December of his plans to play.

TENNIS ANY TIME

The Tennis Channel, a 24-hour network launched in May, is now available in Cincinnati. Subscribers of Time Warner's digital cable service can find it on Channel 170.

As of mid-June, just 8.5 percent of the nation's households subscribed to cable systems offering the channel, but 50 percent of the nation's markets have agreements in place with the network.

The seniors mixed doubles tournament held here Thursday through Saturday was taped and will be broadcast on the Tennis Channel in September.