Paola Suarez from
Argentina was treated as the next Gabriella Sabatini in 1992
as the right handed player reached the final of the girls
competition of the French Open, and now, nearly 11 years
later, its becoming quite clear that she will never make it.
Nowdays, Paola Suarez is 25 years old, currently no 29 of
the world at the WTA singles rankings and the proud no 1 in
doubles! And though has won 2 WTA-single titles, both at
Bogota (1999 and 2001), 12 ITF-titles which is not bad
either, and outstanding 25 WTA-doubles titles, 3 of them at
Grand Slams, its just not Sabatini like..... especially as
the girl who admires Pete Sampras never made it to the top
20.
Paolas first doubles title at Roland Garros also leads me to
the head to head comparision between the Argentinian no 2
and the Jugoslavian no 1: They have never faced eachother at
a WTA singles event, but both girls met 5 times with
different partners at doubles tournaments and Suarez won all
5 of them, most importantly the final of the French Open
2001 where Jelena and Conchita Martinez lost to
Suarez/Pasqual in straight sets. The other matches where
both girls got to know eachother:
February 1999:
Suarez/Montalvo beat Dokic/Gorrachategui 4-6, 6-3 and 6-4
September 2000: Suarez/Miyagi beat Dokic/Morariu 5-7, 7-5
and 6-3
July 2001: Suarez/Tatabini beat Dokic/Dementieva 6-3
and 6-0
October 2002: Suarez/Shaughnessy beat Dokic/Petrova 6-3
and 6-1
Paolas favourite surface is clay, in fact, she can literally
be counted as clay-court specialist! She has won 64% of her
matches on clay which is pretty impressive for a player who
claims no 22 as career high ranking postition, but won only
46% of her matches on hard-court, only 30% on carpet and
lost nearly 80% of all her matches on grass!
Actually it made me wonder why the girl from Pergamine is so
good on clay and so bad on grass as she knows very well how
to attack her opponent at the net, and also her serve is
only 10 miles slower than Jelenas, which means, it can still
be counted as way above average! And only by reading my way
through her interviews, she has given in the past few years,
i found the solution:
Though Mrs. Suarez is a fighter who never gives up she tends
to get nervous at close matches and most of al: She hates
speed! And Jelena has even more advantages for tomorrow:
Paola stays in the top 40 for three consecutive years now,
but she is very much in danger of dropping into nowhere as
she has not one decent result for 8 months now! From August
2002 till the end of the season, she played 8 tournaments
and won only 3 matches. In that period she was also 0-3 vs.
top 30 players, and 2003 seems to become not much better.
Against top 40 players she is 0-4 this year! Her last
successful tournament was the French Open last year, where
she destroyed the hopes of the french supporters by beating
Dechy, Mauresmo and Testut to advance to the Quarterfinal,
which was her best result in 33 Grand Slam tournaments, and
where she lost to former Argentinian Clarissa Fernandez, but
that was nearly a year ago, and the date where she has to
defend those points is coming closer and closer. If you
think Jelena has/had a crysis how do you call that?
I thought i end my preview by admitting that i have not
found any information about a match that was held in 1999 at
the fed cup competition between Australia and Argentina
beside the following:
Jelena Dokic beat Paola Suarez in straight sets!
--
Gerhard
www.jelena-dokic.com
