For a second there, it looked like another lesser movie sequel was in the making in Qatar... and this one wasn't going to be honored with eleven Oscars, either.  It might have been called "Jelena Dokic's Day Off" (with apologies to Ferris Bueller), and it had the appearance of a cringe-worthy bomb.
   After dropping, with a loud thud, a 0-6 1st set to Nicole Pratt, that sound that everyone heard was the collective gulping of Jeleniacs everywhere as they tried seemingly in vain to keep their hearts from leaping from their throats and onto the floor.  Jelena had lost 26 of the last 29 games she'd played.
   Everyone could see it all playing out again.  The fading shouts to get out the emergency paddles to shock the Fair One back to life.  Stat!!  It was a Code Blue of the highest order.  It was all just minutes from reality:  the pictures on Yahoo! of Jelena with a tear in her eye, her head down and a look of disbelief on her face... the post-match comments about a lack of confidence and all the rest.  You know the drill.  The next few months were hanging precariously over the edge of a cliff, and Pratt was jumping up and down on Jelena's self-image so effectively that she was about to turn over the Fair One's 2004 table as if Jelena was a moneylender in the Temple and Mel Gibson had just yelled "Action!"
   Who would have thought that Jelena would win 12 of the next 19 games?  Well, actually, she's had so many dramatic mid-match shifts in the past, it would have been equally likely for her to lose 0-6/0-6 as win 0-6/6-0/6-0.  Apparently (and thankfully), even Miss Dokic can take only so much.
   She closed out the Aussie 6-3/6-4.  Hmmm... could she have been scared by the horror of potentially seeing Gerhard and Glyn in "Agassi disguises" over seven months before Halloween?  Or maybe she just feared she was going to be the one needing a disguise unless things changed in a hurry.
   Sure, she's only ranked #45, but Pratt is the highest-ranked of 2004's tetrad of fallen opponents (Cara Black was #48).  There's no reason to think this win is the initial domino that'll fall en route to Jelena's first final of the season, or even that she'll knock off China's Jie Zheng and face Anastasia Myskina in the QF.  But for the first time in weeks, she CAN let out a deserved breath of relief.  Even if Tuesday didn't completely vanquish her inner ghosts and doubts, Jelena's not dead yet.  For a few moments, it looked as if she might be just that.
   Match #1 in Doha was Dokic in a nutshell:  dramatic, a touch scary, but ultimately exhilerating in the end.  It looks like the girl just can't help it.  This time, though, the nut inside the shell wasn't rotten.
   As a result, Jelena & Co. won't be hopping a plane to America earlier than she'd hoped.  For that, everyone can be thankful... especially the Fair One herself.