Article by Glyn James

This week, Jelena participates in the first British WTA event of the year at the DFS Classic in Birmingham.  The tournament is of the Tier III rating, and has a total prize money of $170,000.  It is hardly a massively prestigous tournament, but it serves as a great warm up session for many players who want to get used to the British grass before the Wimbledon championships.  Past champions of the event include France's Nathalie Tauziat, and tennis legends Billie Jean King and Martina Navratilova.

   This year, Jelena is the player in the spotlight as the number one seed, but tough competition comes from Sandrine Testud, Magdalena Maleeva, and Tamarine Tanasugarn.  Jelena will undoubtedly want to win this tournament.  She has a great win/loss record of 21/7 on the grass and Wimbledon has certainly been her best Grand Slam, with a QF, SF and 4rd to her name.  Jelena has recently been showing the sort of form that we have come to expect from her.  Sticking with her all or nothing style of baseline play, she's finally starting to click and get into an injury free rhythm.  The fast paced grass should suit Jelena, and who knows?  Maybe she'll be confident enough to mix things up a little and come into the net a few times.  The fact that Jelena has commited herself to two British grass court tournaments before Wimbledon shows that she's looking forward to playing on the grass, and that she really wants to do some damage at Wimbledon.

   This week, she has a brilliant chance to prepare for Wimbledon, and show what she can do on the grass.  As the number one seed the draw was never going to be extremely difficult.  Here's how it looks:

1-Jelena Dokic Bye
WC-Lucie Ahl v q
Cara Black v Jennifer Hopkins
q- v 16-Elena Likhovtseva

11-Ai Sugiyama v q
Jana Nejedly v Greta Arn
Eleni Danilidou v Mashona Washington
5-Tatiana Panova Bye

4-Tamarine Tanasugarn Bye
Kristina Brandi v Jill Craybas
q- v Sarah Taylor
Clarisa Fernandez v 15-Adrina Serra Zanetti

12-Rita Grande v Irina Selyutina
Elena Bovina v q
q- v Alicia Molik
8-Lisa Raymond Bye

6-Anastasia Myskina Bye
Selima Sfar v Stephanie Foretz
q v q
Wynne Prakusya v 10-Alexandra Stevenson

13-Magui Serna v WC-Elena Baltacha
WC-Julie Pullin v Angelique Widjaja
Meilen Tu v Janet Lee
3-Magdalena Maleeva Bye

7-Anne Kremer Bye
Marissa Irvin v Miriam Oremans
Maureen Drake v Yoon Jeong Cho
Saori Obata v 9-Daja Bedanova

14-Nicole Pratt v Tina Pisnik
Lilia Osterloh v Alina Jidkova
Jana Kandarr v Marlene Weingartner
2-Sandrine Testud Bye

   A handful of familiar names crop up in Jelena's half of the draw.  Most notably, Elena Likhovtseva and Tatiana Panova, both of Russia.  Panova has had an impressive season so far.  This year, she has reached the final of the Sarasota Open, and the final of the ASB Bank Classic, Auckland, in the first tournament of the year.  Her win/loss record on grass though could do with some improvement.  It currently stands at 15/12, and Jelena would definitely be the favourite should the two meet.  Jelena's earlier possible hurdle, Elena Likhovtseva, has a better record of 24/13 on the grass (since 1996), and showed a lot of promise when she reached the 4rd of Wimbledon at 21 years old.  She is yet to really make her mark this season, but she did reach the QF of this event last year.  Again, it would be a big upset if Jelena was to fall to her.

   Jelena's most likely opponent in the SF is Thailand's Tamrarine Tanasugarn (originally born in LA, California).  Her most success has come on the grass, and she has a 32/16 win/loss record on the grass.  She is still awaiting her first title, though she has made 5 final appearences, including 2 this year at Canberra and Doha.  She was also an unlucky loser in the DFS Classic final in 2000, and will be hoping to put things right this year.  She is a danger to Jelena, but hopefully Jelena will not underestimate her opponent, and come away with the right result.

   The other half of the draw is a lot more competitive than Jelena's half.  With Myskina, Kremer, Bedanova and Stevenson all trying to upset the number 2 and 3 seeds.  However, both Magdalena Maleeva and Sandrine Testud are expected to prove themselves worthy of their respective seedings by going far in the tournament.  Jelena defeated Maleeva 6-1 6-1 in their previous meeting (Hamburg, April 2001), and has beaten Testud on the both occassions they've met.  Neither of these players have really hit form though this year.  Maleeva still hasn't reached a final this year, and Testud's best performance this year is a final in Dubai.  The chances of one of these crashing out of the tournament early on are bigger chances than Jelena crashing out.

   Jelena is on a semi-high after reaching the QF at Roland Garros last week, and if she can only cut down on her double faults / unforced errors, then there really shouldn't be any problem for Jelena, other than the good old British weather that is, and the not so good British press.

PREDICTION - Jelena takes all the glory in Birmingham.