This has been an extraordinary two weeks for the WTA. The organization lost one of its most important and influential players, Li Na, who retired due to knee injuries. It also lost one of its top young stars, recent No. 1 Victoria Azarenka, who pulled the plug on a year in which she played just 22 matches (14-8). That was counter-balanced by the return, albeit at the entry level, of a former Grand Slam semifinalist, Nicole Vaidisova. See what I mean?

Things were kind of gnarly in the ATP, too—so much so that I’m finding it difficult to come up with enough legitimate thumbs-up accolades to balance out the smack-o-lades, or thumbs down. But let’s get on with it:

Thumbs Up: Li Na may be remembered as the most influential if not the most successful women’s player since Billie Jean King. A Chinese native who remains tied to the region, she accelerated the long-awaited growth of tennis in Asia while at the same time charming and bewitching traditional audiences with her riveting personality.

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Thumbs Up, Thumbs Down: September 15-21

Thumbs Up, Thumbs Down: September 15-21

Thumbs Down: When Stan Wawrinka decided to pull out of the Moselle Open in Metz at the last moment, citing fatigue, he was apparently so tired that he couldn’t lift the telephone to call the promoters and give them the bad news. Instead, he emailed them. It was a particularly tough blow for the tournament because he had an “agreement”—read: appearance fee—with the event, and his likeness had been used to promote it. In a rare bout of honesty (promoters are notoriously leery of offending players, and for good reason), tournament organizers admitted that they were “extremely disappointed and angry.”

Granted, Wawrinka was involved in a successful Davis Cup semifinal tie the previous weekend, but he played just one singles match, which he won in straight sets, and he was stopped in the quarterfinals of the U.S. Open almost a week before that. So the workload for the world No. 4 certainly was heavy, but not impossible. So much for meeting obligations—ones you sought out.

Thumbs Up: ATP No. 39 Joao Sousa and No. 56 David Goffin each had one tour title before they met in the Metz final. It was Goffin who claimed his second, adding to a resurgence that started shortly after he fell out of the Top 100 in April. The Belgian has now won 34 of his last 36 matches, mostly on the Challenger tour—he has three Challenger titles in 2014—and he’s up to a career-high ranking of No. 32.

Quite a stat: Along with Pablo Cuevas, Goffin is the only other player to win at least two Challenger and two ATP World Tour titles this season.

Thumbs Up: Twenty-two-year-old Karolina Pliskova of the Czech Republic rewrote the hoary cliché last week as she found herself fourth-time lucky. After losing all three finals she had played in this year, Pliskova managed to win a title in Seoul, defeating Varvara Lepchenko, who had upset top-seeded Agnieszka Radwanska. Pliskova, No. 32 at the start of the tournament, was also a finalist the previous week in Hong Kong (she lost to Sabine Lisicki).

Thumbs Down: Not enough top Spanish players bothered to answer the call of Davis Cup two weekends ago, and as a result, the nation that has dominated the competition for almost a decade-and-a-half (five championships since 2000) is out of the World Group. For the first time in 18 years, Spain has been relegated to minor zonal play.

On top of that, Spanish Davis Cup captain Carlos Moya has resigned. When Moya was made captain less than a year ago, he boasted of his close relations with all the top Spanish players. Now he says his main reason for stepping down is that almost all the Spanish players he tried to recruit while at the U.S. Open a few weeks ago blew him off.

"Everything was complicated with the injury to Rafa,” Moya told the Spanish newspaper El Pais. “I went with an idea to New York, but I did not think that the other Spanish in the Top 100 were going to say injury, or calendar, lack of motivation.”

Moya declined to criticize any individual players, blaming his problem on the demanding and awkward nature of the competition. Former WTA player Gala Leon Garcia was appointed captain on Sunday.

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Thumbs Up, Thumbs Down: September 15-21

Thumbs Up, Thumbs Down: September 15-21

Thumbs Up: Nicole Vaidisova, a mysterious victim of apparent burnout nearly five years ago, got her comeback off to a successful start—sort of. Still just 25, the Czech defeated another former prodigy, Sesil Karatantcheva, in the first round of the $75,000 ITF circuit event in Albuquerque. She lost her next match to a Top 100 player, Britain’s Johanna Konta.

Vaidisova reached a career-high ranking of No. 7 and reached semifinals at the French and Australian Opens before she retired at age 20. She married and then divorced (about a year ago) fellow Czech pro Radek Stepanek. Vaidisova admitted that she had a long comeback ahead of her, but did not say where or when she would be playing next.

Thumbs Down: Ahil Khanna, the president of the Asian Tennis Federation, likes to throw numbers around. The Gulf News reported that Khanna suggested at the annual ITF meeting in Dubai that the organization could beef its player development programs by creating a new Grand Slam event. Declaring that the ITF is making only about $500,000 per annum, Khanna argued that by creating a new, major tournament, the ITF could easily make $50 million a year—and claimed that’s just half of what the Grand Slams themselves are making.

And where would this “fifth Grand Slam” be? I’m guessing that Khanna would like to see it take place somewhere in Asia. I can just see how the top players, already complaining about the demands of the calendar and the increasing physicality of the game, would greet this idea—unless a lot of other, present-day tournaments were eliminated. It was a boneheaded idea to throw out there.

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Thumbs Up, Thumbs Down: September 15-21

Thumbs Up, Thumbs Down: September 15-21

Thumbs Up: She may be the hardest working girl in the game, but you’d never know it from the perpetual smile on the face of Ana Ivanovic. That sunny disposition isn’t getting in the way of her resurgence, either. She won Tokyo last week, on the strength of a series of quality wins in a tough draw. Seeded No. 3, she defeated, in order: Victoria Azarenka, No. 7 seed Lucie Safarova, top seed Angelique Kerber, and No. 2 seed Caroline Wozniacki—all without the loss of a set. Now if only Ivanovic would bring that game to the majors, she might yet win another one.

Thumbs Up: Anyone who decides that he or she needs to walk away from the game and do some serious thinking could do a lot worse than following the example of 18-year-old Australian Ashleigh Barty.

One of the most highly touted prodigies in recent years, Barty is a junior Wimbledon champion who’s been on the pro tour since age 13. She reached three main-draw Grand Slam doubles finals with fellow Aussie and good friend Casey Dellacqua (all in 2013, and all ending in losses), and was ranked as high as No. 127 in singles before slipping outside the Top 200 in recent months. Despite her pedigree—former ATP pro and PGA tour golfer Scott Draper once compared her to Martina Hingis, and former doubles standout John Fitzgerald called her the most promising female prospect in his nation in 20 years—Barty won only two main-draw singles matches in nine Grand Slam appearances. Her diminutive size definitely hurt her chances once she left the juniors; Barty is just 5’5” and 137 lbs.

Barty did not say why she’s quitting the game, and gave no indication that she plans to return. In a prepared statement, she thanked her coach Jason Stoltenberg and “the team” at Tennis Australia, writing: "Obviously this has been a very difficult decision with the Australian summer coming up, but after a lot of thought we feel this is the right decision. I've enjoyed some incredible experiences on the tennis tour. . . I will be following results closely and hope that the Aussies have a great summer and start to 2015."

Barty packed it in with great dignity; let’s wish her all the best with whatever happens next.

Thumbs Up: Yafan Wang, a Chinese wild card at Guagzhou, upset top-seeded Sam Stosur and won two more matches to reach the semifinals.

See what I mean about Li?