18 year old Karolina Sprem from Croatia defeated Tatiana Golovin in three sets to become Jelenas first opponent at Strasbourg.

And as a very clever person said: "When a player is in a crysis, no match is easy, above all against unknown players", i tried to find out as much as possible about the no4 of Croatia to make sure, after Jelena read that, she
will NOT play an unknown player, but a girl she knows everything about :-)

Karolians position at the WTA-rankings is 163. What does that mean? Karolina has earned 196.5 points in the past 12 months, mostly at ITF events. Thats an awful lot if you ask players ranked around these positions, who travel
from 10K to 25K tournaments all over the world to fight for 5, 6 or 7 points they get for a win, and possible 3 or 4 quality points towards them.......... on the other site Jelena has 134 points to defend this week, after she reached the final here, last year!

Sprem had an excellent start into the season, winning the first 4 tournaments she entered! The first one was Grenoble in January, a 10K ITF event, followed by two 25K tournys in Great Britain, where she even had to qualify for in February, and finally in March, where she won Castellon, also a 25K tournament and also after winning 3 qualifying rounds. After that Victory she had a winning streak of 23-0!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Her next tourny happened to be at Casablanca, this time a tierV WTA tourny, and Karolina had to qualify again. But after she won the first two rounds, and increased her 2003 record to 25-0 (!!!!!!!) she felt to worlds no 193, Rita Kuti Kis, and it seems that that loss was something like the turning
point. Next she went to Budapest, also a tierV tourny, and she could not qualify again. This time it was the other Jelena from Serbia, Jelena Jankovic, worlds no 132 who was to strong for her, and at Bol, where she recieved a wild card for a tierIII tournament, she lost the first round to worlds no 108, Samantha Reeves.

Actually statistics, which are very impressive on the one hand, if you compare her to all the other players ranked between 100 and 1000 in the world, who play at 10 and 25K tournaments, without free hotels, without a travel service, without a lot of spectators, without linesman and without even ballboys.

But on the other hand statistics, who show no danger for a top 10 player like Jelena Dokic, if there would have not been that fed-cup match between Croatia and Russia a few weeks ago, where Karolina beat worlds no 29 Elena Likhovtseva and took a set of Anastasia Myskina!!!!!!! Both players certainly underestimated her, and thats what Jelena should not do tomorrow!

Karolina is certainly happy about the draw, as she has no chance to win Strasbourgh anyway and the experience of a match vs. a top10 player in unpayable for a young talented girl, as Karolina is, and its only up to Jelena, to make sure, that Karolina "wins" only some experience, and nothing else!

Rowland Goodman has seen her playing in the final of Southampton and wrote the following report about that match and i guess its funny enough, to show it here, and also a big thanks to Rowland for the picture :-)

25.000 $ event in Southamton. Karolina Sprem def. M. Zdenovkova 6-1, 3-0 ret.

Karolina Sprem won the toss and elected to serve. The first two games went with serve. When the score was 3-1 for Sprem, her opponent, Magdalena Zdenovkova, was taken off court by the umpire to have her leg bandaged. (Magdalena had needed physiotherapy twice on her leg in the semifinal.)

Karolina won the first set 6-1, with lots of aces and unreturnable serves. In the interval between sets, the physiotherapist went and talked to Magdalena, but gave her no more treatment. Magdalena played on.

A photographer from the local newspaper walked on set during the change of ends when the score was 2-0 for Karolina. Neither player could believe their eyes as he started to assemble his cameras as they played what was to be the final game.

At 0-3 Magdalena could not continue; she had tried hard. It was an entertaining match, and we were all sorry that it ended that way. Final score: Karolina Sprem won 6-1, 3-0.

The photographer from the local newspaper took some photos of the presentation and of the doubles final. He had never taken photos at a tennis tournament before.