Jelena Dokic V Elena Bovina                    

                       ‘The 2004 Jelena – New and improved’

It was certainly an interesting match, it had everything the neutral fan could want, for the fans of Jelena Dokic though all that was missing was the final set. In fact give or take the odd point in the close fought 2^nd set we could be sitting here now musing over the return to form of Miss Dokic. Instead those much needed points at the end of the tight 2^nd set went the way of Bovina and the Dokic return to form theory descends into oblivion. Or so you would think……….

The final score belies the overall feeling one got from watching Jelena’s performance. Being lucky enough to be at this match in Paris I was intrigued beforehand to see just how Jelena was playing. Her performance the week before in Tokyo was impressive. Grinding out results and digging into her mental and physical reserves is something that some people thought was missing from the previous year or so but in Tokyo Jelena showed the doubters that she is on her way back to her best.

So with this in mind the match against Bovina, herself a hard hitting fighter, was always going to be a good test for her.

As said before, the match was always going to be tough for the players and so it proved but something that became apparent almost straight away was that this years Jelena was playing different to the Jelena of last year. There was confidence in shot selection, there was power with precision and most importantly there was a determination about her. Bovina in fairness gave almost as good as she got but she couldn’t quite compete with Dokic. When it came to hitting those winners, those sweet shots down the line, the inside out backhands there was only one player on that court doing it, that’s right it was Jelena. Playing the better tennis she broke Bovina at 4-4 and took the 1^st set 6-4, it was just the start she needed. Of course it wasn’t all Jelena in that 1^st set, Bovina to her credit kept the pressure up on Jelena point after point but Jelena stood firm and held her nerve.

The big question following that impressive display in the 1^st set was, could Jelena keep up this level and see off the threat of Bovina. The 1^st 6 games of the set were a servers nightmare, the first hold of serve came at 3-3 with Jelena holding to make the score 4-3. The tension built up steadily and as the score progressed, Bovina found herself 5-4 up with set point in hand. Jelena though showed her spirit and nerve by breaking the Russian to take the match to 5-5, it was getting very tight and you could feel the tension in the players, 2 games away from winning - 2 games away from a 3^rd set, which way would it go.

A tiebreak would eventually decide the outcome of this match, it was in the end absolutely key to this match. With the score reaching 5-5 Jelena was 2 points away from an excellent victory, unfortunately the 2 points went the other way and Bovina took it 7-5.

Having played so well up to this point things then took a turn for the worse, the explanation for the following 6-0 set is unknown. Jelena didn’t play overly bad in that final set, she still hit good winners and at times played some fantastic shots, proving that she had the game to beat Bovina. Perhaps the tiebreak took its toll on her, Bovina was lucky to still be in this match, let alone take the final set 6-0.

Its not all doom and gloom though, in fact it’s almost the complete opposite in my opinion. Jelena showed enough in this match to prove that she is very close to getting back to her best. She lost the match yes but the final score line does not show the true story behind it.

Jelena is almost there, taking a one way ticket back to the Top 5.