Article sent by Gerhard Grundhammer

Wimbledon 2003, third round, Court no1, 1pm local time. The future no1 of the WTA-circuit, the worlds hottest, most talented, and nicest girl the will be playing some medium talented teenager!!!!!!!

This, and nothing else should be the headlines for todays match up between Jelena Dokic and Maria Sharapova!

I know i will not make many friends with that article, and as i read the draw for Jelenas third round i feared the 16 year old girl from Nyagan in Russia as much as most of Jelenas fans. And after watching her second round match, where she completely demolished worlds no 22, Bovina, i feared her even more. Not because of the strange noises she makes (Bovina was even worse in my opinion, anyway), but more because of her 18 fantastic winners she hit, her two aces, her powerful groundstrokes, and her pretty fast serve which is nearly as fast as Jeleans first serve and only about 10 miles slower as her second one (and that is pretty fast by the way).

But after I did my usual research I was pretty much disappointed about the current no 91 of the world.

She turned pro about 14 months ago and won 4 ITF crowns since, which is about average for any future top 30 player. But at the 7 WTA tournaments she entered this year, she lost her opening matches at the Australian and French Open as well as at Key Biscane, Indian Wells and Charleston! She won only one single match at Hongkong (vs. Maleeva, ok....) and only had one decent performance last week at Eastbourne where she beat Dechy and Dementieva to proceed to the Semifinal where she lost to a player named Asagoe....

The russian no 12 hits the balls quite powerful, but as i tried to figure out how she competed to other top 10 players or to Jelenas following power hitters, I found neither any top 10 player nor Daniilidou, Shaughnessy, Tulyaganova or Petrova on the list of her opponents. So playing an opponent who "feeds" of her power and uses it, to create even more, will be a completely new experience for Maria.

As Jelena stated, that she did not watch Sharapova playing, and did not have anyone watching her, I thought "oh my god, girl, do you know what you are doing?". Now I know better! Jelena knew exactly what she was doing! Sharapova might be talented, beat Dementieva (the most inconsistant player i have ever seen) Dechy (a slice player) and Bovina (who is in a very bad crysis), but  after all we are talking about
-The no 12 of the world playing the no 91!
-An experienced 20 year old girl, who has been no 4 of the world only a year ago, playing a 16 year old girl, who has just entered the top 100!
-A player who has 5 WTA crowns under her belt playing a girl who had won nothing!
-And last but not least its Jelenas favourite surface, too!

But both Gamebookers and William Hill, the Sportbetting companies, state Sharapova as favourite for that match! They will pay you more than twice of your money back if Jelena wins. And not only because that is one of the worst insults, Jelena had ever to face in her career, all fans of her (and other people who want to get rich, too) should put every penny they find on our girl! If Jelena doesnt break BOTH legs at that match, you wont loose your money!

Maria will face a power she doenst know its existing now. She will face an opponent who knows exactly how to play against unexperienced players, and she will face Jelena Dokic, who found back her confidence and fire!

The 1.70 meters tall russian has about more websites about her existing as she has won WTA matches, and at one of them i found the following prediction:

What will happen tomorrow?
Maria is playing her best tennis of her young career currently even though Dokic is not in her best form she has the edge in experience here but even that might not be enough against Maria.  It will be tough for Maria but no doubt she has it in herself to beat Dokic.

Maria has it in herself to beat Dokic? Well, we will see.....

Jelena-Dokic.com has a better prediction:
Marias favourite book is Pippy Longstocking! Today she will meet the strongest girl of the world in person, and if Sharapova should make more than 7 games, we will be very much surprised.

( comments or hatemails to gerhardg@west.de )