Eleanor Preston finds the long injury list in the women�s game hard to believe

There is an ad for mobile phones which features two female tennis players leaping from building to building with athletic zeal, fighting for the ball with every sinew. If only the real thing were like that. Sadly, as this year's US Open has shown, players barely seem to have the energy to hobble on to court, let alone vault between skyscrapers.

The company that paid for the ad have also pumped nearly £45 million into women's tennis in the hope that its brand can benefit from being associated with a sport which ought to be the perfect combination of stamina and athletic prowess, with a touch of glamour thrown in. There is no doubt that Maria Sharapova (pictured right) - who was due to play in the final at Flushing Meadows overnight - has the requisite glitter, but she is sponsored by a rival firm. As for stamina and athletic prowess, they have been in rather short supply of late.

Amelie Mauresmo is the current world No 1 and won both the Australian Open and Wimbledon titles this year, yet she looked exhausted during her semi-final against Sharapova on Friday and afterwards admitted she was tired. "I didn't feel very well throughout the match and it showed," she said.

Justine Henin-Hardenne, Sharapova's opponent in the final, has been complaining of back problems this year. This is the same Henin-Hardenne who retired from the final of the Australian Open in January complaining of crippling stomach cramps minutes after winning a 34-stroke rally against Mauresmo, during which she had looked the picture of good health.

The US Open's defending champion, Kim Clijsters, wasn't in New York because she has a wrist injury. It was the same problem specified on Venus Williams' sicknote. Sister Serena was present, but only after missing the best part of two years with a knee problem, something which must please her sponsor no end. She was, after all, the recipient of the biggest endorsement deal in the history of women's sport when Nike signed her up for £21.4m in 2004.

Lindsay Davenport came into the event nursing two bulging discs in her back and lost in the quarter-finals.

A list of casualties like that would be understandable if we were talking about football or rugby. But we're talking about women's tennis here.

Of the 64 matches played in the opening round of this year's US Open, only 13 went to three sets and none of those involved the top eight seeds, and this tourn ament is regarded as one of the most physically demanding of all the events on the women's calendar.

The sport's bigger names frequently complain that the season is too long and that they are asked to play too many events. They balked when the WTA Tour began introducing mandatory tournaments, thus demanding that marquee players turn up to the top events. Can they really be burnt out by September?

There are those who say not every injury to every player is quite as serious as they would have us believe. After losing her semi-final to Henin-Hardenne in New York, Jelena Jankovic accused the Belgian of gamesmanship. "She was acting like she had a pain in her back, like she was trying to start me thinking or something," said Jankovic later. "That's the time when she was losing. Then when she was winning, all of a sudden she was hitting the biggest serves ever. I'm like, so now your back doesn't hurt'. I'm the one who couldn't even tie my shoelaces the other day."

Jankovic said Henin-Hardenne's flexing of her back put her off and caused her to blow a set and 4-2 lead. "Maybe I could be a good actress off the court but I like to play fair. If you have pain, you have pain, then you are going to have pain when you are winning as well. I can't say if she's faking or not. I can't judge that."

Jankovic isn't the only one who finds it difficult to differentiate between genuine injury, hypochondria and gamesmanship but it matters not a jot which one is responsible for the curse of aches, pains and ailments that are ruining women's tennis.

Whatever the reason, the sport's end product is the thing that is suffering. You can count the truly compelling women's matches played this year on one hand, and that is largely because the top players are either not available to play each other often enough, or do not appear to be at the peak of fitness when they do.

So next time you see that ad, just remember how much it differs from real life. Perhaps it's time the company which paid for it began asking the WTA Tour to address the injury scourge afflicting the women's game.

Until someone puts pressure on the sport to investigate, nobody will be leaping anywhere.