Jelena-Dokic.com - the page entirely dedicated to young Yugoslavian sensation Jelena Dokic

Scottsdale 2003 has once again been plagued by rain, as it has in the past, and subsequently many matches have been postponed. Fortunately, Jelena’s second round opponent was decided today with Meghannn Shaughnessy of the USA defeating Czech player, Daja Bedanova, in straight sets. This should be an exciting match considering the varying levels of confidence between the two as a result of their past successes and defeats over the past six months!

As is evident, Shaughnessy has been the most successful player this year considering she has won a title and made an impressive performance at the Australian Open where she defeated the up-and-coming Russian power player, Elena Bovina, in the 4^th round! She will definitely be a force to be reckoned with in this match and Jelena will have to resume the form that made her a top ten player in the 2001/2002 seasons or else another early round loss may occur! By comparison to Shaughnessy, Dokic has not settled in at all in the year after skipping the Australian summer circuit, and has fallen to lower ranked players in each of the tournaments she has played in, including Lisa Raymond, Eleni Daniilidou and Ai Sugiyama. Hopefully she can fight hard in this match, regardless of whether she loses or wins, as it will provide her with an opportunity to work on her weaknesses that have obviously plagued her earlier matches this week!

Jelena and Meghannn have very different styles of tennis that, in this instance, should favour Dokic. Shaughnessy has a very powerful serve that will often credit her with free points and can usually allow her to come to the net and produce a volley winner due to her tall stature! Hence, she can trouble a lot of players but Dokic should be able to hand her with relative ease as she is one of the best returners in the game and can hit passing shots down the line and winners off the return of serve with such ease that she often puts her opponents on the back foot. If Dokic is confident in going for these shots, then she has a solid chance of winning the match and progressing to the quarterfinals. In addition, who ever wins this match has a fantastic chance of moving into the semifinals after the 7^th seed, Elena Bovina, was absolutely destroyed by Italian, Francesca Schiavone, in the opening round.

Shaughnessy and Dokic have played each other on a number of occasions as they were once in tight competition to enter into the top 10. Their record is as follows:

2	Leipzig	Sep 29 2002	M Shaughnessy - J Dokic (2)	6-2 6-4
SF	Strasbourg	May 26 2002	J Dokic (1) - M Shaughnessy (3)	6-1 6-2
1	Chase Champ's	Nov 4 2001	J Dokic (6) - M Shaughnessy	7-6⁴ 6-2
1	Toyota Pr.	Oct 8 2000	J Dokic (8) - M Shaughnessy	6-4 6-2

Up until September last year, Jelena demolished Meghannn in all of their previous meetings. Then Shaughnessy seemed to regain the form that allowed her to be a consistent top 15 player when she defeated Dokic in a comfortable straight sets scoreline. This will give her added confidence as she heads into the match. However, it was around this period in which Dokic began to start losing to lower-ranked players and after taking last week off to recuperate, she will hopefully be able to produce a win tomorrow!