TATIANA PANOVA PREVIEW

Sarasota, Fla. -- Top-seeded Jelena Dokic beat Tatiana Panova 6-2 and 6-2 to win the $ 140.000 Sarasota Open. Dokic did not drop a set in five singles matches during the tournament, played on green clay. It was her first title of 2002, and the fourth of her career.

Filderstadt, Germany -- Jelena Dokic is sheduled to play Tatiana Panova for the third time in her career , as Tatiana has beaten S.Farina-Elia in her opening match 6-3 and 6-2. (Jelena won the first match, too, which has taken place in Rome, 2000)

Tatiana Panova is 26 years old, no 21 of the world and no2 of Russia. She is a very defensive player with a weak but save first serve, and a very week and not even very save second one. As the ball is played, she is hardly going for winners, and only waiting for mistakes of her opponents. I did not find a single match statistic of her, where she either hit more winners or more unforced errors as her opponent.

She is on the tour for eight years now, and improved her ranking every year she played, and that wont change in 2002. Her goal for this year is reaching the top 20, which should be quite hard, as she still has quarterfinal points of Filderstadt and Linz to defend.

Starting as no40, this year started excellent for the girl from Moscow. Auckland was the first tournament she entered, and she reached the second final of her career, but lost to Smashnova. Getting upset at the Australian Open by the worlds no 80 Eleni Daniilidou was quite disappointing at the time it happened but understandable as Eleni turned up to be the most improved player in 2002, as she is no no22!

The next tournies Tatiana choose to play at where pure dissapointements but at Key Biscane she reached at least the Quarters where she only lost to Capriati and at Sarasota she made her third final-appearence of her career.

After that, Tatiana felt in a hole again, and only recovered at Rome where she reached at least round three, and round three at the French Open can be well counted as a good result for the russian.

Strange things happened after that. She entered three grass-court tournaments, and by far her best was the hardest: Wimbledon, where she reached round three again. And the same result goes for the hard-court season. A complete desaster at Los Angeles, Montreal, New Haven..... but round three at the US Open!

Panova lost last week at the second round of Moscow to Mauresmo, after she has beaten Anne Kremer in the first round. At least one result what can be counted as "normal".

Asked for her most admired player she names Amanda Coetzer, as she is only 1.57 meters and made it to the top. Tatiana Panova is only 1.54 (5`3``) :-)