Filderstadt Germany, doubles round 1

Barbara Schett and Patty Schnyder beat Jelena Dokic and Maja Matevzic 7-5 and 6-1.

This first round doubles match was the last match of the day at Filderstadt and started at about 9pm local time. The center court showed nearly no empty seats during the day-time singles matches, but only about 500 people stayed for this doubles match, and anyone who had left before that match missed the best part of the day!

It was Schett who started serving and hold savely, but Dokic showed only a minute later that her serves are even better and the girls from Ex-Yougoslavia hold at 15. Patty Schnyder was the girl of set one. She never got in trouble at her service games, hit some great winners, showed shes an excellent doubles player and her savety on court was just unbelievable. She had some excellent moments when fighting with Dokic from baseline to baseline whilst the other two girls waited on the net for the slightest mistake of either of them, to jump into the ball and to score from net. Also Jelena showed the long missed savety in her game and so most of these spectacular points went to the younger ones.

But when the duo from the alps managed to put pressure on Matevzic the points were mostly decided earlier. Majas game from the baseline was just to less powerful, and so it happened too many times, that Jelena and Maja found themselves on the baseline, trying to defend "undefendable" net-attacks.

Down 4-5 and still no break, it was Mrs. Dokic who had to defend the first two breakballs in the whole game at her service and they also meant set-points! But Our Girls scored 4 straight points to level the score for 5-5.

Down 5-6, Jelena and Maja were down 15-40 again, but this time with the slight disadvantage of Maja to serve, and the young slovenian couldnt handle the pressure and set one went to the austrian/swiss combination.

In set two, Schett and Schnyder took an easy 1-0 lead, then broke Dokic after about 10 deuces and saving uncountable break points in their next service game for a frustrating looking 3-0. But our girls did not give up! Maja hold savely and then they had break chances on Schnyders serve for the first time today. And like Dokic in set 1, Schnyder showed some great serving at this crucial moment and managed not only to hold, but also to break the willpower of Dokic/Matevzic, as they werent able to get a break in 9 games now.

The last two games of the day still showed some great points, which all went to Jelena and Maja and earned them standing ovations of the audience, but all "little" points went to Schnyder/Schett who took set 2 with a score of 6-1, which sounds much worse at it actually was!