Filderstadt, Germany. Singles round1
Magdalena Maleeva def. Jelena Dokic 7-5 and 6-0

The match started at 4pm local time but there was only one player on court who actually played tennis at the beginning of the match, and her name was Jelena Dokic!

She broke Maleeva at love and only when Jelena was up 40-0 at her first service game, the bulgarian managed to score her first point of the match! But after Maleeva hold quite fortunate it happened again. Jelena served two double faults in her second service game, and though she answered the first one with an ace straight away, she got broken for 2 all.

When the slightest thing goes wrong Jelena often lost her concentration, her ambition, her confidence and the match in the last weeks. But not this time. This time she fought back!

She broke "Maggie" again for 3-2 and hold quite impressive for 4-2 next. But things did not change much from the beginning of the match. Like in the third game, Maleeva hold at 30 and then broke Jelena back, who again served 2 double faults.

Again something had gone wrong for Jelena but for the second time today she recovered from that! And how! She broke Maleeva for the third time to have the opportunity to serve for the set! Down 0-30 she even served her second ace for today and equalled the score for 30 all, but still had to commit the re-break. When Maleeva hold for 5-6 it was the first time Jelena had to serve under pressure, and though she has done so well until now, she couldnt handle that situation and got broke again to loose the first set 5-7 :-(

This was actually so sad to watch. Everyone knows what difficult situation Jelena is in at the moment, how low her confidence is, etc. And she did so well. She got herself out of so many difficult situations. She played some really great balls, and though it wasnt a great match, it was a great fight Jelena fought against herself on court. But this time it was not a slight thing which went wrong, this time it was some major thing. The disappointement of loosing this set was to much for her to handle.

She lost the second set 0-6, scoring only 9 points in that set (only 6 until 0-5 down...), though the audience felt this girl is having major problems down there, and gave her great support at the beginning of set 2. But nothing could help her at this moment. Jelena Dokic had already lost the fight against Jelena Dokic.

Unlike at Moscow, Jelena did not beat herself this time. It was rather that she couldnt win over herself today. She played some great tennis in the first set, and showed somewhere deep inside her, there is still that amazing talent, we would all love to see so much.