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Article written by Glyn James
Telecom Italia Masters -Welcome to Rome: This week, Jelena returns to one of her favourite cities, Rome, to play in the Telecom Italia Masters, a Tier I event with a grand total of $1.3m as prize money and more importantly, Jelena's first WTA title (2001). Once again, it will be played on the familiar red clay, and it usually proves to be a sufficient preparation for the French Open in Roland Garros which is only a few weeks away. Good news for us Europeans is that full coverage of the sport is to be shown on Eurosport, and we could even get to see Jelena as soon as tomorrow. My Italian is by no means great, and a very popular search engine's translation tool brings humourosly random translations such as "Field centres them," and "One crowd of children to the Italico home," proves to be nothing more than a cheap gag, so I'm afraid the more in depth information about the tournament will be hard to obtain, but I will try my best. Early information suggests "La giocatrice belga Justine Henin-Hardenne, numero 4 del mondo e finalista al Foro Italico l’anno scorso, ha annunciato," which in real life means that Justine Henin-Hardenne has withdrawn from the competition after a splendid victory over fellow Waffle Kim Clijsters in last week's tournament final in Berlin. Anyway, tournament sponsors include Telecom Italia, Mercedes-Benz and Siemens Mobiles. If you fancy yourself as an Italian speaker and would like to find some more information about tickets and the location, please visit http://www.telecomitaliamasters.federtennis.it. But if you think we should get on to Jelena, clap your hands, because there's a lot to talk about this week. *clap* *clap* The Jelena Situation: This week, Jelena's infamous father Damir has sparked more outrage and has given some Australian reporters, whose jobs were probably on the line, one massive life line and a frenzy of quotes and information to wallow in. They can't just get enough of him. Internationally, the story headlining "Damir doesn't want Jelena anymore," has been echoing over news sources wherever you turn. There's just no escaping it, and Jelena certainly has to be feeling it. Everyone seems quick to judge Jelena as being similar to her father, but then the quotes (from the people who really know Jelena) about Jelena being a pleasant and friendly person seem to be ignored or deemed useless. We've seen it it time and time again. Damir's eccentricity will be calm and all will seem good and proper in the world of Miss Dokic and before you know it, he's already turned the poor girl's world upside down again. Now Jelena has refused to blame her recent below-par form on family or personal issues, but rather on tactical changes, but one has to wonder just how much these personal issues have affected her game. The thought of losing our families is unbearable for the majority of us, yet this is the predicement Jelena finds herself in at the moment, and not only that, but she has to face the wrath of money grabbing, ignorant, know-nothing idiotic journalists posing dirty and personal questions to her about something which is none of their business. But we all know that Jelena can fire back some replies to embarrass and reden the faces of these so called tennis reporters, so expect some more fireworks this week. Jelena deserves a barrel load of respect for facing the reporters this week, and she deserves as much support as possible. The Draw: Let's take a look forward to what the draw has in store for Jelena this week:
Last week's drop in the rankings from 10-11 means that Myskina gets that final bye, whilst Jelena is faced with the prospect of a first round match. One position in the ranking can make all the difference, but we're still early in the season, and Jelena has not played as much as she, and everyone else, has expected, so there aren't really any issues over fitness to be concerned with, and in all honesty, she could do with the match practice and the confidence that an early win should bring. In the opening round, Jelena faces the tricky prospect of facing a Spaniard on clay. This time it's the turn of the veteran Conchita Martinez. But on the bright side, Conchita has been going through a bad spell herself lately, and Jelena has won the last five of their previous meetings, so a shock first round exit, although not impossible, seems unlikely. Next up, Jelena will most likely come across the Swiss Emanuelle Gagliardi. Gagliardi has only ever taken one set from Dokic in their total four past meetings, and that set was taken in Warsaw back in 1999. In the last meeting, Jelena stormed to a 6-4 6-2 win in the first round of 2002's Roland Garros (aka French Open). Once again, you expect Jelena to pull through, despite all of the factors that seem to be working against Jelena at this current time. Should the seedings go according to plan then Hantuchova would be Jelena's 3rd opponent, but judging by Hantuchova's recent form, she won't get this far. Magui Serna is probably the most likely player to advance in that part of the draw, despite last week's loss to this week's first round opponent, Elena Likhovtseva in Berlin's 3rd last week. Serna is another capable clay courter, but Jelena overcame her in Poland a couple of weeks ago, and Serna has never conquered the mighty Dokic. Now we come on to the big rounds, and the ones where we don't expect Jelena to get passed. Jelena, should she reach this stage, will surely face Serena Williams in the QF. Serena has lost just once this year, in the Charleston final, to Justine Henin-Hardenne, but as we all know, she has a tendancy to under-estimate and maybe even disrespect her opponents. Don't get me wrong, Serena is probably the most capable player the women's game has ever seen, but even the Titanic sunk, and Jelena is due a big win, although don't go betting your house on it. Should Jelena come through that stage, she would be likely to face Frenchwoman Amelie Mauresmo, who completely outplayed the "injured" Venus Williams a few weeks ago in Warsaw, but then was unable to beat Henin-Hardenne in Berlin. Following Henin-Hardenne's withdrawal this week, Kim Clijsters will most likely be the player that comes through the lower half of the draw with a frighteningly simple route through for a Tier I event. Conclusion: Jelena faces two key battles this week. The first is her tactics. We know that we can't expect any fireworks soon from Jelena, and that these new tactics will come good eventually, but will we start to see some more hope this week? The second battle, and perhaps the most important battle, is Jelena's battle against her family demons. Damir's words would obviously have hurt Jelena, and she does have the tendancy to show some emotion from time to time, but in the past she has shown some fantastic mental strength to pull herself through some tight situations, and for that, we have hope. Only time will tell which Jelena turns up this week. Either way, she still has the full support and backing from her loyal fans. ------------------------------------------------ PREDICTION: 1RD - Dokic def. Martinez in two; 2RD - Dokic def. Gagliardi in two; 3RD - Dokic def. Serna in two; QF - Serena def. Dokic in three. ------------------------------------------------ comments: glyn_james@jelena-dokic.com |
