The Onion has long been my favorite site on the Internet. Thus, I was excited when the satirical news site took a swipe at the unpopularity of tennis earlier this week:

The story reads, in part:

NOWHERE -- With Super Bowl XLV concluding the 2010 football season and with several months to go before the 2011 baseball season, absolutely nobody in the country confirmed Sunday that they were looking forward to watching tennis. [...] Although even the faintest thought of the 2011 tennis season occurred to no one whatsoever, 95 percent of the country has reportedly been wondering what Michael Chang is up to.

What's Michael Chang been up to? Like most Americans, he hasn't been paying attention to the NBA's regular season.

If The Onion said this about a sport that wasn't football, baseball or basketball, fans of that sport might get all indignant and defensive. But unlike, say, hockey fans, I find that tennis fans aren't super-sensitive about the fact that they love an unpopular game. I'd

Anna Chakvetadze was out before she hit the ground.

In a frightening scene in Dubai, the Russian player crumpled to the court during her match against world No. 1 Caroline Wozniacki. She lay motionless for an instant before doctors and trainers attended to her, propped her up and checked her vital signs.

The 23-year-old rested for a few minutes before returning to play one point. She wisely retired before the next one.

Later, she was diagnosed with a gastrointestinal illness.

Chakvetadze had dropped the first set to Wozniacki but led 5-3 in the second when she collapsed. She appeared woozy for much of her win on Tuesday against Daniela Hantuchova and throughout the first two sets against Wozniacki.

It's hard to believe that medical officials at the tournament let her continue following her fainting spell. You can't blame the 51st-ranked Chakvetadze for trying. That's her job. It's the doctor's job to tell her she shouldn't.

With a win in her next match, Wozniacki will regain the No.

Game Point is Busted Racquet's roundup of facts, figures and links from around the web.

Milos Raonic won the first tournament of his brief ATP career on Sunday. Busted Racquet introduces you to the up and coming star:

Love -- One year ago, the 20-year-old Canadian was ranked No. 361 in the world. At the end of 2010 he was No. 156 and up until one month ago, he still had yet to crack the top 150. After winning three qualifying matches to get into the main draw at the Australian Open, Raonic made a run to the fourth-round in Melbourne and raised his ranking to No. 94. He qualified in South Africa, won a match, was granted a wild card to San Jose and ended up winning the first ATP tournament of his career. Raonic's ranking now stands at No. 59. To call his rise meteoric might be underselling it a bit.

15 -- Up until San Jose, Raonic had lost more matches than he would won on Tour. So little was his standing in the ATP that his name appears just once in the 2011 media guide (in a list of

Remember when Richard Gasquet escaped a two-year drug ban because he claimed his positive cocaine test was the result of kissing a woman at a Miami club? It was so ridiculous an excuse (he remembered the name of the random girl, he was at a music festival featuring house music by a French DJ, an experience which practically demands heavy drug use) that I'd imagine even Gasquet was surprised when it worked, even if it happened to be true.

Who would have thought at the time that the case would set a groundbreaking precedent, the drug equivalent of Marbury v. Madison?

On Tuesday, Spanish cyclist Alberto Contador was cleared from his own positive drug test after using Gasquet's case as a reference. The three-time Tour de France champion claimed he tested positive for a banned substance after eating contaminated steak. Just like the tennis federation, the cycling honchos bought it and the charges against Contador were dropped.

Now, I know what you're thinking: If he had truly followed the

The WTA's self-produced videos are a favorite of ours here at Busted Racquet and this one featuring Kim Clijsters answering questions about the information on her Wikipedia page demonstrates why:

Some observations:

1. Clijsters incorrectly guessing that she drank beer to celebrate winning the 2009 US Open. It's a safe assumption. Why wouldn't a good Belgian girl like Clijsters raise a glass filled with lambic to celebrate a great victory?

2. We're going to ignore the fact that "The Hurricane" was her first choice for favorite movie. "Gladiator" we can deal with.

3. It may be February 15, but I'm setting my New Year's resolution anyway: Within the next three months, I vow to refer to Clijsters as "Kimbo" or "Kim Kong" on this blog. Not "Killer Kim." That sounds like the name of someone in Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling.

It was the crucial moment in the finals of the SAP Open in San Jose. Milos Raonic was serving to Fernando Verdasco leading 6-5 in the second-set tiebreak. Win the point and Roanic would become the first Canadian to win an ATP event since 1995 and the youngest man to win a tournament since 2008. Lose the post and Verdasco would have been assured to serve again in the tiebreak, possibly for the match.

With the tension building, Raonic winds up to uncork one of his patented 140 mph rockets. At the instant his racquet hits the ball, a fan unleashes a loud, distracting scream. Verdasco doesn't get back a return and Raonic wins the tournament:

Though it seems like the screaming loser idiot halfwit fan may be trying to distract Raonic, it's more likely that he mistimed his already poorly-timed yell. (You have to rush it when the serve is going 140 mph.) The yell was intended to mess up Verdasco, who then did just that.

Whether or not Verdasco would have chunked the return with the yell or

For the first time in nearly five years, Kim Clijsters is No. 1 in the WTA rankings. She may not want to get too comfortable in the top spot.

Clijsters passed Caroline Wozniacki in this week's ranking courtesy her run to the finals at the Paris Open. She's now 180 points ahead of Wozniacki in the WTA rankings, which were released Monday.

But because the Belgian will be idle for the next WTA tournament, Wozniacki could leapfrog her in next week's rankings with a strong run in Dubai If the 20-year-old Dane can reach the semifinals of the tourney, she'll regain the No. 1 ranking. (It won't be easy; eight of the top 10 women in the world will be in Dubai.)

Though I was staunch defender of Wozniacki's ascendancy to the top spot, it'll be harder to agree with the rankings now that we've had a taste of a superior player dethroning Wozniacki.

Wozniacki's top ranking only made sense when there wasn't a better candidate. There was much consternation when the Dane reached No. 1 but none of those

Well, he won in the same way that a 5-year-old wins when playing an adult in Nerf basketball.

The tense match took place at this week's Laureus World Sports Awards in Abu Dhabi. Kevin Spacey, the two-time Academy Award winner, was the host of the event, while Rafael Nadal was on hand to receive the Sportsman of the Year award. During a segment early in the show, Spacey challenged the eight-time Grand Slam champion to some table tennis:

1. After Spacey's slow start, I was half-expecting him to go all Keyser Soze on Nadal and break out moves like he was on the 1971 Chinese ping-pong team.

2. Weird that Nadal didn't once look toward Uncle Toni for any coaching advice during the brief match.

3. Serena Williams was scheduled to play but withdrew at the last minute.

4. This was only the second-most awkward moment of the evening. In case you missed it, here's a picture of Boris Becker doing chin-ups in a tuxedo.