By Ramona Shelburne
Daily News

If odds were taken before the start of the WTA Championships, Magdalena Maleeva of Bulgaria would have been near the bottom of anyone's list as a championship contender.

Maleeva, a 13-year veteran whose best performance in a Grand Slam was a quarterfinal appearance at the 1992 U.S. Open, scored a first-round upset victory over No. 7 Daniela Hantuchova this week and will be a dangerous opponent for No. 3 seed Jennifer Capriati in the quarterfinals today.
Maleeva was one of the last qualifiers into the 16-player field for the year-ending event at Staples Center and earned her spot largely on the basis of a remarkable week in October, when she upset No. 2 Venus Williams, No. 5 Amelie Mauresmo and No. 12 Lindsay Davenport en route to the championship in Moscow.

It will take a similar performance this week to win the WTA Championships. But Capriati, who has won only one match since a quarterfinal loss to Mauresmo at the U.S. Open in September, could be ripe for an upset.

Capriati, the comeback story of women's tennis in 2001 when she won the French and Australian opens after years of disappointment, repeated as Australian Open champ in January but has yet to win a singles title in any of the 16 tournaments in which she has competed since.

"You have ups and downs, every athlete does," Capriati said. "You're only human, you're not a machine. People kind of don't understand that, and they look and say some results that you have, you kind of fell out early or lost early in this tournament.

"They don't understand that day in and day out, that this is what we're doing. And yeah, it's our job and we choose do it, and I'm definitely not complaining about it, but for most of the year, most of the time I am performing at a high level."

Nothing to lose: If confidence is a requisite for contending with No. 1 Serena Williams, No. 8 Jelena Dokic didn't inspire much of it after her 6-3, 6-4 victory over Anastasia Myskina on Thursday.

"My aim was to get through the first one," said Dokic, who will meet Serena in a quarterfinal match tonight. "I think (Williams is) the one that didn't lose a match or two this year and has been unbeatable. I have no pressure. I'll enjoy it. I have nothing to lose. It's the last tournament, and I achieved my goal a little bit here."

If Dokic sounds lukewarm about her chances, its probably because she's exhausted, playing in her 29th tournament of the year this week. She has a 53-25 record, including her victory Thursday.
Of the 16 players in the tournament this week, only Myskina, Silvia Farina Elia and Anna Smashnova have played as many matches. All three lost in the first round.

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