Defending champion Serena Williams and four other past winners, including her sister Venus and wild-card entry Kim Clijsters, head the women's field for the US Open. Ninety-nine of the top 100 women in the current WTA rankings received direct entry Thursday into the hard-court Grand Slam tournament, played Aug. 31 to Sept. 13 in New York. The one missing is No. 88 Nathalie Dechy of France, who announced her retirement this week. Serena Williams will be bidding for her fourth US Open championship and third major title of 2009. Clijsters will be playing at Flushing Meadows for the first time since winning her only major title at the 2005 US Open. She is making a comeback after retiring in 2007. Dinara Safina is atop the list of 104 direct entries. They'll be joined in the 128-player field by the eight women (including Clijsters) who receive wild cards and the 16 who will earn berths in Aug. 25-28 qualifying. Davydenko wins, Soderling upset Nicolas Almagro ended his two-match losing streak against Robin Soderling by beating the third-seeded French Open runner-up 7-5, 6-3 on Thursday to reach the quarterfinals of the German Open. Qualifier Pablo Cuevas of Uruguay upset eighth-seeded Philipp Kohlschreiber of Germany 6-4, 7-6 (8) and second-seeded Nikolay Davydenko ended Jeremy Chardy's bid for a second title in two weeks by beating the Frenchman 6-3, 6-3. Davydenko is still looking for his first title of the year after being injured for most of the first four months. Paul-Henri Mathieu of France, seeded 13th, beat German wild card Daniel Brands 7-5, 7-5. Rain delayed matches on outside courts. In other games results: Viktor Troicki of Serbia beat Guillermo Garcia-Lopez of Spain 6-7 (2-7), 6-4, 7-6 (8-6); Victor Hanescu of Romania beat Julien Benneteau of France 3-6, 6-3, 6-3; David Ferrer of Spain beat Juan Monaco of Argentina 4-6, 7-5, 6-2; and Simon Greul of Germany beat Ivan Navarro of Spain 7-5, 7-6 (7). Sela, Kunitsyn exit Indy In Indianapolis, second-seeded Dudi Sela of Israel was knocked out of the Indianapolis Championships by Alex Bogomolov Jr. of the United States 6-4, 7-6 (5) in the second round on Thursday. Fourth-seeded Igor Kunitsyn of Russia lost for a second straight time to Wayne Odesnik of the United States 2-6, 6-1, 6-1. Odesnik was the runner-up at Houston in April. No. 7-seeded Marc Gicquel of France beat Jesse Levine of the US 6-2, 6-2 while, in completing the first round, Marcos Daniel of Brazil won 6-2, 6-4 against wild card Taylor Dent of the US, who was making his first appearance at Indianapolis since he reached the final four years ago. Daniel earned a second match of the day against top-seeded Dmitry Tursunov of Russia. Steady rain had washed out play on Wednesday at the ATP championships. Sharapova ‘100 percent' Maria Sharapova declared her surgically repaired right shoulder fully healed and that she was ready to return to the court for the first time since a disappointing performance at Wimbledon. “I am a hundred percent,” Sharapova said Wednesday before making an appearance for the Newport Beach Breakers in their World Team Tennis match against Kansas City. “I mean, if I wasn't at that point, I certainly wouldn't be playing. That's why I took my time and gave myself a chance to really go out there and to feel like I didn't have any excuses.”
