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Article written by Glyn James
Pacific Life Open:Welcome to Indian Wells -This week, Jelena travels to California to participate in the Pacific Life Open, Indian Wells as the no. 6 seed. The two week event is something of a bright spot in the WTA tour. It is a Tier I event with a staggering $2.1 million available for prize money. Both Jelena's racquet and clothes sponsors (Head and Fila) are involved in sponsoring this tournament, while other sponsors include Pacific Life, Mercedes-Benz and Penn Sport. The tournament director is Gavin Forbes and can be contacted at Gforbes@imgworld.com. The site itself is one to be admired. The Indian Wells Tennis Garden cost around $75 million and features a 16,100 capacity stadium. Over 88 acres of space, the site consists of two stadiums. eleven sunken courts and six practice courts. If anyone's interested in going there this year, the nearest airport is Palm Strings International Airport. More information about the city can be found at http://www.indianwells.org. If you're not fortunate enough to catch the event live, you can always catch it on the TV. ESPN and Sky Sports are the two major networks covering the tournament, but the tournament is going out to 15 different locations. You can check full TV listings here -http://www.pacificlifeopen.com/en/tournament/tvschedule.asp. Jelena and Indian Wells -Jelena made her debut at this event last year, but lost to the oh so familiar Anne Kremer in the third round 6-3 6-0. Prior to this match, Jelena pulled off a win against the big Russian Elena Bovina, but it was in three sets and wouldn't have done a lot for her injuries at the time. This time around, it's probably her best chance to kick start her season. With Indian Wells being a two week tournament, and with a draw the size of a Grand Slam draw, Jelena's early round opponents are not going to be of a great standard unlike previous first hurdles. It is vital that Jelena starts hitting some form before her title defense in Sarastota in a few weeks time. The early losses so far have been made a little easier to swallow by the fact that she doesn't have many points from last year to defend, but this is all about to change. This time last year, Jelena was nearing the end of her injuries and made some fine performances in Amelie Island and Sarasota. If Jelena isn't able to pick herself up before these key defenses, she could well find herself falling out of the top ten. She needs some victories under her belt and needs to regain that belief which seems to be absent. For Jelena, the struggle begins here. The Draw -The draw was made on Tuesday, and looks like this:
After a first round bye, Jelena will be likely to face Barbara Rittner. The German hasn't played since crashing out of the Australian Open in the first round to the Australian Evie Dominikovic. Rittner has a 0-3 record for 2003 and despite all of Jelena's recent worries, you would still favour the Yugoslav to be victorious if she was playing left handed and blind folded. Next up comes a slightly more difficult challenge in the form of a slice backhand. Yes, it's Conchita Martinez. The ex-Wimbledon winner has a 4-4 record for 2003, and is just the type of tricky player Jelena would like to avoid. Still, if Jelena can keep concentration and not give away too many unforced errors, she will be sure to out-hit the Spanish veteran. The fourth round brings prospective meetings with either Pistolesi or Panova. Both are hard workers who won't give much away, but severely lack any real weapons. It will be another case of either Jelena winning, or throwing it away. Judging by the draw, you would fancy Jelena to reach the quarters, even if she's not on best form, but whether she can go beyond this point without playing her best is another matter. The QF match-up will be against defending champion Daniela Hantuchova (who beat Hingis in last year's final to capture her first WTA tour title). Daniela has been very consistent in 2003 so far, reaching the QF at least in every tournament she's played in, and Jelena will have to be back to her old self to upset the Slovak. Should Jelena be in the mood to do some damage this fortnight, she will come up against the number one seed Kim Clijsters in the Semi Finals (assuming Clijsters doesn't repeat last year's performance and fall at the first hurdle). Rubin and Sugiyama are the only players who could really stand any chance of ousting the number one seed before this point. A year or so ago and you would've fancied Jelena to go all the way to the final at this event, but where as Kim has developed her game nicely, Jelena seems to have fallen the other way, and it's very hard to see Jelena getting past this point. Should she surprise us all and defeat the Belgian, she would come up against either Capriati or Mauresmo in the final. Conclusion -This is a huge two weeks for Jelena. The tournaments now seem to get bigger and bigger for Jelena, as the longer this rut goes on, the harder it will be to climb out of. It's still not too late by any stretch of the imagination though. She has been presented with a favourable draw and she simply can't afford to throw it all away again. I know that last week's prediction was way off the mark, and I am desperately seeking guidance on how to eat my words, but being the happy camper that I am, I'm still going to predict good things for Jelena. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Prediction -1rd - Bye 2rd - Jelena def. Rittner in straights 3rd - Jelena def. Martinez in straights 4rd - Jelena def. Pistolesi in straights QF - Hantuchova def. Jelena in three SF1 - Clijsters def. Hantuchova in straights SF2 - Capriati def. Mauresmo in three F - Clijsters def. Capriati in three ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Any comments to glyn_james@jelena-dokic.com |
