Next up: Galina Fokina

By Pierre Cantin
Date: 3/10/2001

To say that Jelena expected to face Anna Kournikova in the second round is an understatement. When she won her first round, she probably looked quickly at the draw and supposed that Anna would have an easy match...Well it was everything but easy.

Jelena will instead face young Russian prospect Galina Fokina, a player that probably none of you have seen play or even heard of. I have been gathering as much info as possible about her (thanks to SuperG and Conchita for their help) and here is what I found.

So Galina was born January 17th 1984 in Moscow Russia and still resides there. Her best career performance would probably be her semifinal at the 2000 Junior US Open. About her style of game, I was told that she was a scrambler and although she does have a lot of good shots, it is her capacity to return everything and run all the shots down that really makes her such a threat.She has two or three wins against top 100 players but her win against Kournikova certainly ranks as her top victory on the tour. Should Jelena worry ? Probably not, but she still needs to play well and not give a chance to Fokina of getting any confidence going...

Think Jelena will win or wanna bet on an upset ? You can get 1.20* by betting on Jelena and 3.55 by betting for Galina Fokina at Gamebookers.

*=By betting 5$ on Jelena, you would win 1.20 times your bet = 6$:)