Article sent by Gerhard Grundhammer

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, 11 years later, its becoming quite clear that she will never make it.

Nowdays, Paola Suarez is 26 years old, currently no 29 of the world at the WTA singles rankings and the proud no 1 in doubles! And though she has won 2 WTA-single titles, both at Bogota (1999 and 2001), 12 ITF-titles which is not bad either, and outstanding 27 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 1in doubles: They faced eachother 5 times with different partners  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

In singles they only meet once and that was not to long ago. Acutally it was Jelenas first clay court tournament this season at Sarasota, and Jelena did not only loose the match 6-3 and 6-3 and the chance to defend her 2002 title there, but it bacame also clear that this season is very much in danger of turning into a nightmare for Jelena and her fan-community.

2003 seems to become another very solid year for the 1.70 meters tall girl. She reached the third rounds of both Grand Slams which has been held so far, the semis of Bogota, the quarters of Madrid and Sarasota and had pretty good appearences at Amelia Island, Charleston and Key Biscane.

Paolas favourite surface is clay, in fact, she can literally be counted as clay-court specialist! She has won about 60% of her matches on clay which is pretty impressive for a player who claims no 22 as career high ranking postition, but won only 45% of her matches on hard-court, only 30% on carpet and lost nearly 80% of all her matches on grass!

The match will of course be played on center court, where both players had won their matches today (Suarez beat Wartusch in straight sets) and the weather forecast promises a boiling heat for todays afternoon when the match will be held at 3pm local time, with temperatures around 36° Celsius (thats nearly 100° Fahrenheit)!!!!!!! That means that the match would get interupted for about 15 minutes before a possible third set to allow the player to cool down a little bit!

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! But though i tried very hard, i just cant imagine we get the same scoreline today...