Generali Ladies Linz,

Presented by Bank Austria Creditanstalt.

In what must be a surreal time in the Dokic camp, Jelena travels to Linz, Austria, with genuine aspirations of reaching the latter stages of the tournament.  It is a Tier II event with $585,000 as prize money, and is once again played on the fast indoor hardcourts.  The tournament website has an English version as well as a German version, so if you're still interested in buying tickets then the process looks fairly simple.  You can visit the official tournament website at http://www.generali-ladies.at/ or you can email Peter Michael Reichel at p.m.reichel@matchmaker.at.  Good news for fellow Europeans is that Eurosport are showing coverage of the tournament, check out www.eurosport.com to check local listings.

Who's that girl? -

Last week, I had the honour of witnessing the beginning of Jelena's comeback.  When a fist pumping, determined, power generating young lady stepped on the court hitting the ball deep, with pace, from corner to corner, I have to be honest and say that for a split second I had to pinch myself to make sure this was really happening.  In a trip where I feared Jelena's first round match would somehow be played on the Sunday and she'd crash out and that would be it.  Instead, Jelena dominated Rubin from the back of the court, and one can only imagine what the scoreline would've been if Jelena's serve was working well.  Jelena's good form contunued throughout the week and she overcame Alexandra Stevenson, who's served looked like one of the best on the tour, along with defending champ and home favourite Patty Schnyder.  Then we have one other small victory, where Jelena outplayed the WTA's #1 ranked player to prevent a 7th all-Belgian final.  Despite the fact that Jelena produced a tired-looking performance in the final, it was certainly a week to savour, and given the recent situation, was one of the finest week's in Jelena's history.  Now though, the situation could prove to be a little more difficult.  Jelena once again has to deal with the expectation all over again.  She will not be the completely ruled out underdog that she was last week, but rather, an unseeded player who will be looking to force her way through to at least the semi-final and improve on her ranking which has just climbed from 25 to 14.  With the right draw, Jelena could make many a fan happy once more.

The Draw -

 

1st  round	2nd round	QF	SF	Final	Winner
Clijsters(1)	Myskina(1)
Bye
Ruano-Pascual
Schaul
Pennetta
Granville
Loit
Sanchez-Lorenzo(8)
Tanasugarn(4)	Petrova(4)
EClijsters
Pratt
Barna
Ashley
Qualifier
Flipkens
Sharapova(5)
Srebotnik(6)
Sequera
Gagliardi
Weingartner
Black
Qualifier
Cohen-Aloro	Zvonareva(3)
Daniilidou(3)
Molik(7)
Grande
Tatarkova
Medina-Guarrigues
Qualifier
Qualifier
Bye	Sugiyama(2)
Rubin(2)

 

When you draw the #5 seed in the first round of any tournament, usually the primary feeling is disappointment.  This time around however, Jelena will fancy her chances against an off form Hantuchova, who is desperately trying to re-find her form, just as Jelena has been over the course of the 2003 season.  Despite never beating Hantuchova, Jelena will take comfort from Daniela's first hurdle loss to Paolo Suarez last week.  Hantuchova was not producing anything like the form she is capable of and looked particularly week off the forehand.  Next up would probably come Barabara Schett.  Schett is a capable player with a great serving action.  She is not a threat to be taken lightly, and will probably put up more of a fight than Hantuchova will in the first round.  Next up, in the quarter finals, you'd have to favour the #2 seed Ai Sugiyama, although Stevenson is well capable of toppling the number 2 seed, and if both were on top form, you'd have to say that Stevenson has the bigger weapons.  Should Jelena reach the semi-final stage, she would almost certainly come up against Russia's Vera Zvonareva, who's run through to the semi-final stage looks straight forward enough.  Should Jelena surpass this stage, she's most likely going to come up against another Russian, whether it be the #1 seed Anastasia Mysina, ex-doubles partner Nadia Petrova, or the hard hitting tower of strength, Elena Bovina.

Conclusion -

Jelena's run through is far from plain sailing.  Jelena has many difficult matches ahead of her and is probably not going to be 100% physically fit,  It is easy to get ahead of oneself after such an inspiring performance last week, but it is absolutely crucial that Jelena keeps her focus and gives 100% concentration.  If she can do that, then we should be in for another treat, but if she gets ahead of herself, we could quite easily be in for some disappointment.

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PREDICTION -

1rd - Jelena def. Hantchova in two;

2rd - Jelena def Schett in two;

QF - Jelena def. Stevenson in three;

SF - Zvonareva def. Jelena in two.

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comments: glyn_james@jelena-dokic.com.