Linz, Austria
Jelena Dokic def. Daniela Hantuchova 6-4 and 6-1

Last week, Glyn James of Jelena-Dokic.com had the honour of witnessing the beginning of Jelena's comeback. This week its me, who has the honour to follow the continuation of it :-)

Jelena was down 0-3 on head to heads to the slovakian number 1 before that match started and on all three occasions it was Jelena who had to face the pressure to be in favour to win the match. This time is was slightly different. Though Jelena was the higher ranked player again (14, Daniela was 16 this week) she had finally posted the long awaited good result last week at Zurich whilst Hantuchova is waiting for a result like that for more than 6 months now.

And Jelena took every profit of the advantages of facing less pressure and being more confident at the beginning of the match. She forced Daniela to 4 errors in a row to break her at love and only after Jelena was up 40-0 again, Hantuchova was able to score her first point in the match.

Then it was Huntuchova who took a 40-0 lead in her service game, but Jelena first levelled for deuce and then even broke again. But Hanuchovas willpower was not broken yet. She fought herself back into the match, had a break point at Jelenas second service game of today, and now Jelena double-faulted for the first time today to allow Daniela to put herself up on the scoreboard.

The next two games both went through deuces and as no player was able to hold her service Jelena was leading 4-2 after 5 breaks! But now both players were able to improve her services. First Daniela hold for the first time today, then Jelena saved two break points with two service winners and took a 5-3 lead with another two service winners, and after Daniela had hold at love, Jelena hold after two deuces (but no break point) and converted her third set point with her second ace for today.

After Jelena had broken the girl from Bratislava in the opening game of set 2, she nearly got into troubles. Annoyed about her own mistakes she lost concentration and her service. It seemed she had more fun throwing her racket on court as going for winners but a few angry looks of her coach made her concentrate again and from 1-1 and 0-30 she scored 10 points in a row to take a 3-1 and 40-0 lead which soon was turned into 4-1 and the match was decided.

Actually Jelena could have slowed down now, but she even increased the level of her game. She hold after 3 unreturnable services and even one ace and finally broke Daniela for the 7th time today to win the match 6-4 and 6-1.

Daniela never gave up fighting and if Jelena would have lost her momentum she could have well got into troubles at any stage of the match today, but as she never did, she was never in danger of loosing the match, and it even looked like she did not give 100%. Jelena always gave the impression like she could raise the level of her game if necessary, seemed better prepared for her opponents game, had the better tactics and more confidence. I guess thats what others call world class....

I call it just: "JELENA DOKIC" :-)