Article written by Todd Spiker

JELENA-DOKIC.com - February 12, 2003

*JELENA CORNER*
 

*ANTWERP (#6 seed) BREAKDOWN*
2353..2/10 total
1.....1r
0.....1r: Sugiyama (#26) - 5-7,7-5,3-6
1.....TOTAL (non-qualifying 12-month)
2353..2/17 total
D.....JD.com Antwerp Singles Grade


   Well, here we are back at the Corner, a little earlier than anticipated so the bad Antwerp aftertaste won't need to be revisited later.
   That being said... it looks like it's time.  For what?  Come on, you remember.  I said during our last visit that another Dokic crashlanding this week would mean I'd have to break out the gloom-and-doom charts.  I'd hoped it'd be an idle threat.  Everyone wanted a Jelena rebound, but instead we saw another slip on an errant banana peel.
   Of course, for a brief moment during Jelena's 1r loss to Ai Sugiyama, it looked as if a fantastic come-from-behind, season-kickstarting victory for a certain Serbian & Montenegran (hmmm, that doesn't have quite the same ring to it, does it?) teenager was going to occur.  After some racket-tossing frustration earlier in the night, it appeared she was going to get just what she was looking for in Waffleland.  Going from a 5-7 and a break down deficit to a 5-7,7-5,3-2 and 30-30 on Sugiyama's serve lead meant Jelena had a wonderful moment within her grasp... but she lost the game, and then the next three, as well (getting broken twice herself!).
   As a result, her 2003 results are starting to show a pattern of diminishing returns:


**TOURNAMENT-BY-TOURNAMENT GRADES**
Tokyo TPP...QF/Raymond......1-1...C
Paris.......QF/Daniilidou...1-1...C-
Antwerp.....1r/Sugiyama.....0-1...D


   First, it was heavy rust and inconsistency (especially on that always-troubling serve), and now we can add a blown late-match advantage to the mix.  At 2-3 after five matches, that sound you hear is Jelena slipping into the "danger zone."  You can maybe scrape together some encouragement that she didn't give up after dropping the 1st set, but the 3rd set crumble after fighting to get into a winning position takes away most of any of the steam the comeback generated.  It's still a little early for the late 2002 slippage to be emblazoned on Jelena's 2003 forehead... but the sticky letters are being prepared to be applied.  Just in case.


**GLOOMIN' & DOOMIN'**

   Promises are promises, so the "slide chart" that debuted last fall has been taken out of mothballs.  Sit back, some of what follows isn't a pretty sight (you might want to practice covering your eyes now).


**SLIDE CHART - LATE 2002/EARLY 2003**
Current Slide.....................5-10
3-Setters (after 17-4 stretch).....0-5
Tie-Breaks (after 7-0 stretch).....4-5
Extended Sets (after 21-6 stretch).1-5
Up 1 Set (after 38-2 stretch)......4-2


   The recent slump can be traced back to last July, when Jelena began that long season-ending stretch that would eventually see the ground disintegrate beneath her feet during the career-worst four-match losing streak in September/October.  In San Diego, Jelena faced Anna Kournikova in a SF that both defined the fighting spirit that's often guided her career, and redefined her results ever since.  She won that knock-down, drag-out match over Kournikova by a 6-7,7-6,6-0 score, overcoming two matchpoints before mentally and physically streaking past Anna in the deciding set.  The win made her 14-3 in her last 17 matches, and the future seemed bright.  She hasn't really been the same since, going a combined 16-15.
   In the weeks immediately after that match, she was essentially a no-show in the S.D. Final against Venus Williams, then "semi-tanked" against Chanda Rubin in L.A..  She did beat an apparent end-of-career Martina Hingis in Montreal, but retired in her next match, withdrew from New Haven and then went to the U.S. Open to begin the final stages of her exhausting, extended fade down the stretch of 2002.  It can easily be said that while the Kournikova win was one of Jelena's most thrilling, it also started her down a path from which she's still yet to find her way off seven months later.
   After experiencing a run of SF-or-better results in 5-of-6 tournaments late last summer, she's now gone 9 straight without getting past the QF.  Worse, she hasn't won back-to-back matches since the Tokyo PC last September.
   But, oh, a further examination of the numbers is ever worse.  She's failed to hold her seed in 10-of-11 events (living up to her ranking in only the WTA Championships, when she needed just one victory to do so)... and has lost to a lower seeded/unseeded player in 11-of-12 tournaments.  It's hard to believe that's possible for a Top 10 player, but here's the proof:


SEED........................OPP.SEED
2002
#5....US Open/Elena Bovina........un
#1....Bahia/Anastasia Myskina.....#3
#2....Tokyo PC/Kim Clijsters......#3
#2....Leipzig/M.Shaughnessy.......un
#3....Moscow/Amanda Coetzer.......un
#3....Filderstadt/Tatiana Panova..un
#5....Zurich/Alexandra Stevenson..un
#2....Linz/Chanda Rubin...........#7
#8....WTA Chsp./Serena Williams...#1
2003
#2....Tokyo TPP/Lisa Raymond......un
#4....Paris/Eleni Daniilidou......#8
#6....Antwerp/Ai Sugiyama.........un


*NOW WHAT?*

   Jelena admits to the existence of a 3-6 month adjustment period before the coaching of Heinz Gunthardt begins to truly take hold in her game, but it's still impossible to think the start of this season hasn't disappointed her greatly.  It's even put her Top 10 ranking in jeopardy, as either Rubin or Myskina could soon drop Jelena from the esteemed status for the first time since early October 2001 unless things change quickly.
   Maybe gloom-and-doom is STILL out of place and unnecessary.  After all, Jelena was two points from wrestling away a huge comeback win from a vet who specialized in upsets of Top 10ers (Capriati & Hantuchova) in 2002.  It could be this is something that more matches will work out of her system (she started 5-5 in 2002, though most of those losses were injury-related).  But Jelena DIDN'T complete the task in Antwerp.  In fact, she instead stumbled badly just as things mattered most.  She had a golden opportunity to put the slide chart into a locked drawer and throw away the key.  That we're back at the Corner so soon means she blew it.