In an unintentional nod to George Orwell just after what would have been his 100th birthday, our fair Jelena has spent a large part of the past nine months experiencing how the other half of her sport lives just as Orwell did by spending time with the streetpeople of two of Europe's great cities over 70 years ago.
   With her 2003 Wimbledon behind her, just like Orwell's 1933 novel, Jelena's spring can rightly be titled "Down and Out in Paris and London."
   In truth, there was barely more than slight hope that any grand change in pattern was going to occur at SW19 this year.  And, guess what?  It didn't.  For the third straight slam, Jelena failed to last until the second week as she posted her worst Wimbledon result (3r) in her five trips there.  And, in a turnabout-is-fair-play for the ages, the one-time 16-year old who ousted the world #1 in her All England Club debut in 1999 was herself put out to pasture by another 16-year old making a name for herself in a slam for the first time.


**JELENA's WIMBLEDON LOSSES**
...................OPP#.....JD#
99 QF-Stevenson....86......129
00 SF-Davenport.....2.......30
01 4r-Davenport.....3.......16
02 4r-Hantuchova...12........7
03 3r-Sharapova....91.......12
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**JELENA -- THE LAST 4 SLAMS**
........................OPP..JD
02 Wimb 4r-Hantuchova..12....7
02 US 2r-Bovina........61....4
03 RG 2r-Pisnik........54...11
03 Wimb 3r-Sharapova...91...12


   Those romantic notions about the grass failed to come to fruition, but enough DID happen to encouarge at least a little hope for the near future.
   Jelena walked a tightrope against #149 Elena Baltacha in the 1r, escaping with a win in a match that she admitted afterward she might have lost earlier this season.  After a bad 2nd set, she held her serve throughout the 3rd when a break likely would have cost her the match, then broke Baltacha on match point to give herself the slightest advantage in the match (tied 13-13 in games, with Jelena winning 90-89 in total points).  With the victory in hand, Jelena looked to the friend's box, clenched her first and pounded her heart.  Hmmm, very Petrova-esque, no?  Maybe she WAS paying attention in Paris, after all.  Additionally, her postmatch comments were certainly a step up from the "not expecting much" garbage from Eastbourne.  Could Borna Bikic (or is it Barna Bikic, or maybe Borna Bykic? -- let's just call him BB) already be providing some generous advice?  Jelena followed the win up with a confident 2r start (up 4-0) en route to one of her easier victories of 2003 versus Emmanuelle Gagliardi (0-5 vs. Jelena, 0-2 at Wimbledon).
   Then came Maria Sharapova.
   The 3r match against the 16-year old Shrieking Siberian Supernova was a picture of blown opportunities, big points lost and double-faults... all of them by Jelena.  A quick look at a few stats will show why Jelena lost.


.................JELENA......SHARAPOVA
Aces/DF..........2/7...........8/1
2nd Serve Win %..27%...........60%
Break Pts.Vs.....0/4...........2/5


   Jelena led the Russian in 1st Serve percentage (73%-61%) and 1st Serve winning percentage (78%-70%), but it was at the big moments that she faltered.  She opened the match with 2 DF in Game 1, leading to the break that cost her the set when she failed to convert a break point immediately afterward in Game 2 and then two more in Game 10 when Sharapova served for the match at 5-4.  In the 2nd set, Jelena had another break point in Game 2 that went by the wayside (with Sharapova winning the game on her sixth game point).  She was never able to carve out another chance.
   Jelena did well to give herself such opportunities, but that she wasn't able to convert a single one (and saw her own serve broken at love in Game 5 of the 2nd set) shows where ol' BB needs to first direct his attention on the practice courts.  As has been the case for the last few years, Jelena's game improvement must begin with her serve, her serve and her serve.
   But, in the late-going against Sharapova, something else that was a bit interesting happened.  Lo and behold, Jelena actually SERVED-AND-VOLLEYED on TWO STRAIGHT POINTS.  She won both points, as she finished off one easy volley and Sharapova hit a return out.  So, maybe Heinz Gunthardt's teachings ARE starting to finally make their way to the surface, albeit at moments that are (too) few and far between considering the effective change-of-pace spins and dropshots that Jelena used against the Russian generally worked to her advantage, and might have turned the match in her favor had she made more of an attempt at something that finally resembled the "Plan B" that has so long been absent from her game.
   But the important thing is that those two points were proof that the knowledge of the forward, more diverse game that Jelena professed to want to perfect IS indeed rattling around up there in her brain somwhere, fighting to get out.  Hopefully, amidst the bad stats of Wimbledon 2003, that brief moment gave berth to a small ray of hope that SW19 WAS the first step in the long road back that Jelena was hoping that it would be.
   Was it a fleeting sighting of "New" Jelena?  Maybe, but I'll get more into that next week with the 2nd annual "State of Jelena's Game" mid-season report here at JD.com.

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ALSO THIS WEEK: The Jelena Awards for the 2nd Quarter