Jelena Year in Review, Pt.VI:
*2001 Overview/2002 Preview*
"The Learning Curve Shortened, but Will it Be Eliminated?"
by Todd Spiker


"I really didn't expect it to go as well as it did."  That was Jelena Dokic's initial reaction to the completion of the 2001 season, the 18-year old's most successful to date and one that saw her raise her singles rank from #26 to #8.

Considering Dokic entered the year with the goal of reaching the Top 15 by season's end, she succeeded far beyond even her own expectations.  In doing so, she managed to cut a large chunk out of the usual champion's learing curve over the past year, and that she did it while her game still exhibits a handful of noticable (but fixable) flaws is a sure sign that this season's great success may have only scratched the surface of what she's capable of achieving.

Now, Dokic has always had great potential.  She was the junior #1 in 1998 and won the US Open girls title, after all.  But great junior success isn't always replicated on the WTA Tour, as the pressures on a young player to continue to achieve can sometimes be overwhelming.  Jelena's 2001 solidified the notion that she won't be left to revel in past success, for her greatest moments are still in her future.

It should have come as little surprise, really.  Dokic has always been adept at putting her head down and finding a way through the numerous chaotic situations she's seemed to find herself in during the past three years on the Tour.  This year was no different, but the fact is that, except for the firestorm that accompanied the Australian/Yugoslavian citizenship controversy of January, the relative absence of Damir's name in newspaper headlines helped foster a better, comparatively quiet, environment in which Jelena's game was allowed to prosper like never before.

In the first season on the WTA Tour in which she wasn't hampered by age restrictions (though she didn't begin playing a full schedule until just before her April 12 birthday), Dokic won three singles titles (including Tier I events in Rome and Moscow, tying for the most on the Tour in 2001), was RU in three others (including Zurich's Tier I) and advanced to the SF in three more.  Not only that, but her three singles crowns came on three different surfaces, as did her three Tier I finals.  After winning her first title in May, she finally cracked the Top 10 in October... then closed out her post-US Open period with a 19-5 run that included trips to the finals in five of the six events she played before closing out the year with a QF loss to Lindsay Davenport in her debut appearance in the season-closing Sanex Championships.

The remarkable nature of Dokic's late-season success was helped along with her development of an all-important consistency in results against lesser-ranked players.  Jelena had her share of upset losses over the course of 2001, but she ended her season with a 12-match winning streak against players ranked below her (with marks of 26-1 and 29-2 in such matches stretching back to the Spring) and her improved fitness and greater composure were evident in a series of come-from-behind victories (most notably, against Arantxa Sanchez Vicario in Hamburg, then Elena Dementieva in New Haven).

But Dokic's biggest personal obstacles were just as apparent.  Often, breakdowns in her own service games led to back-breaking lapses in confidence and concentration, usually resulting in some of the most disappointing and disheartening losses of 2001.  The most conspicuous loss in that category being the US Open defeat by Martina Hingis, a player Jelena should have had a chance to overpower... but instead saw her own game collapse after a quick start was undermined by mental backsteps on her own side of the net.

Against Top 10 players, Dokic was just 3-16 (with the losses accounting for 69.6% of her 23 defeats on the year) and had a string of 8 consecutive defeats against such players during the four-month span between her victories over Amelie Mauresmo in Rome and Kim Clijsters in Tokyo.  Even with a potent power game of her own, Jelena was still at a decided disadvantage against the physically-intimidating likes of Lindsay Davenport and the Williams sisters, going a combined 0-8.  Against the next level of power hitters, Jennifer Capriati and Monica Seles, she was 0-5.  Obviously, the riddle of "Big Babe" tennis is something that will have to be solved in 2002 for Dokic to be able to make the goal to "strive for #5" a reality.

So, while Dokic's learning curve was shortened in 2001, can it be eliminated in 2002?  Without a doubt, it can.  Here are a few of the more important things to look for next season:

1)HER SERVE:  It's the improvement of Dokic's serve that will be the top priority this offseason.  While her serve doesn't need to become a Venus-like deciding factor, it does need to cease to be an occasional liability... for it's a downturn in serving consistency that's generally the starting-off point for collapses like the one that happened against Hingis in New York.  Jelena has the ability to have a good serve game (she opened the '01 season serving better than ever, then saw her serve break down more and more as the season went on), and will need it to better compete against the Big Babes ranked ahead of her.  One break of serve in the 1st set, after all, is often the deciding moment in Dokic's matches against Top 10 players.  She's always had striking numbers when winning the 1st set (she never lost a major junior match after having been up a set), and it's carried over to the pros.  She was 49-6 when doing so in '01 (as opposed to 7-19 when down 0-1), with the two big wins over Mauresmo and Clijsters coming after she gained the confidence instilled by a 1-0 advantage.  New coach/"tennis friend" Radmilo Armenulic stated last month that Jelena's up-and-down serve was the first and most important thing that the two would work on leading into the new season, along with her...

2)SHOT VARIETY AND IN-MATCH STRATEGY: Dokic is often criticized for not having a "Plan B" during a match.  She rips her powerful groundstrokes around the court, but if they're not landing inside the lines, or the opponent is handling her pace, she isn't quite sure what to do besides hit the ball even harder and go for still riskier shots than the ones that are the usual stock and trade of her game.  The criticism isn't entirely unfounded, for Jelena has surely seen her game go down in flames after a quick start was halted by a rough patch through which she could never escape due to the avalanche of unforced errors that resulted when she felt the need to hit out on EVERY shot once she got behind.  She starts to miss, then loses confidence and... well, it isn't a pretty sight.  Armenulic, along with Damir (of course), will certainly use the offseason to elminate this flaw.  In the Belgrade press conference of a few weeks ago, Armenulic mentioned that he would work with Jelena on her shot variety, incorporating more net play into her game along with ways to better utilize her excellent drop shot so that it's an effective weapon rather than simply a pretty shot whose landing spot sometimes seems to surprise Jelena as often as it leaves opponents flat-footed.  If nothing else, no matter what Armenulic's official title turns out to be, it should be good for Dokic to have another set of eyes on her side.  She will need to be on her game when she opens her season in Tokyo in late January against players who will have already had several weeks of game action under their belts.

3)FITNESS:  Dokic made great strides in improving her fitness in 2001, and her better on-court results were apparent. Her increased stamina likely played a part in many of her come-from-behind victories, better three-set record (12-11) and number of wins after 0-1 set deficits (7 in 2001, after just 3 total in '99-'00).  Trainer Mike Nishihara became a full-time, traveling member of Team Dokic following the Toronto tournament in August... and Jelena herself made a point of mentioning how big a role her fitness played in the impressive run of five finals in her last seven events in 2001.  A full year of such attention from Nishihara should work even greater wonders in the coming season.

4)SCHEDULING:  In her first full-time year on the Tour, Dokic stuffed her schedule with events (she played every week but one from Roland Garros in late May to the WTA Championships in early November) in an attempt to gain ranking points and to serve as something of a test run to determine which tournaments she liked to play the most.  Considering how tired her body must have been after such a schedule, 2001's late-season success appears even more impressive.  Jelena stated after the season a desire to schedule more rest for herself over the course of the year to stay fresh as the long season winds to a close with the Autumn North American/European legs of the tour calendar.  Considering all the points she'll have to defend late next season, the fresher and healthier she is will be even more important than it would normally be.

Of course, even as these improvements are being made in Jelena's game, her 2002 season is now fated to begin with an Oz controversy once again, only this time it will be due to her absence from Australia rather than her retreat.  When it was announced that she would skip the Australian circuit due to Damir's feud with Australian Tennis officials and media (as well as barely believable talk about the country being so "far away" and the factor of her tiresome late-season schedule), she became the only woman ranked in the Top 100 to not commit to the season's first grand slam event in the nation she used to call home.

The 2002 Australian Open, what with the improvement in her game and resulting high seed, seemed to be perfectly set up for Dokic to target it as her first legitimate chance to grab a slam title.  The 32-seed format would have protected her from another 1r matchup with the likes of Davenport, and the opportunity to silence her Aussie critics (and maybe even earn back a portion of their grudging respect?) with a gritty performance Down Under so soon after the chaos of last January seemed like it would be too enticing a stage to pass up.  That hasn't turned out to be the case, at least not in 2002.

This disappointing decision means that Jelena has squandered a chance to quickly put the Australian issue behind her, and assures that it will linger into 2003... when she will be faced yet again with the decision of whether the time is right to return.  Hopefully, '03 will be when she decides to take command of the story by using it as a motivation to succeed on the court in Melbourne and "pay back" those she feels wronged her family there.  THAT would be her best revenge, rather than ducking out on the entire experience.  She certainly can't allow it to follow her around indefinitely, for the one certainty about this entire issue is that Dokic can't truly challenge for #1 if she's willing to voluntarily bow out of grand slams (especially one of the two on her favored hardcourts).  Eventually, Jelena will realize that... and then try to make her belated return a triumphant one.  Too bad it couldn't have happened next month.

But the continued evolution (and resolution) of "The Australian Absence" is just another lesson in the learning process -- Tennis 101, if you will -- that goes along with becoming a true champion.  Dokic is not yet the complete player, physically and mentally... on and off court, that she'll need to be to fulfill the destiny she wants for herself.  She certainly knows that.  Her three late-season losses to Davenport were an important reminder that her Autumn surge will not be replicated, and surely not surpassed, without even more of the hard work that got her to #8 in the first place.

Dokic got a taste of big-time success in 2001, and it's sure to only whet her already voracious appetite for more.  But it's her disappointments that will serve to be catalysts for the focus she'll need to make the next step up the tennis ladder.  As with all top level athletes with an internal desire that matches their physical talents, the battle starts with the personal struggle to determine how much they're willing to give of themselves to be as successful as they know they CAN (and how angry they'll be if they don't live up to their own high standards).  Jelena set the bar for her future successes pretty high this year, and now she'll have to find a way to do it all over again in 2002.  The thought here is that she won't be lacking for motivation.

This journey is different for every player.  Jennifer Capriati's was rocky and wasn't completed until she was 25, while Monica Seles was so overpowering and oblivious to pressure at 17 that she had pretty much demoralized no less a player than Steffi Graf before the stabbing incident in Hamburg sidetracked what looked about to become an all-time great career.  At the same time, Hingis was smarter and seemingly more emotionally mature than anyone when she was just 16... then a delayed reaction to the pressures of the Tour and, quite frankly, simply growing up served to be the first sign of her game's recent downward trend.  The current plight of ex-#1 Hingis -- as well as the past one of recent #1 Capriati -- is a situation that Dokic should learn from, and a trap she must be sure to not get snared by.  Again, she's always seemed level-headed and family-oriented enough to be able to avoid such a pitfall, though.

Dokic has never had a problem with stoking her own fire.  She's a very determined, head-strong young woman, and her rise in the tennis world despite the controversy that tends to swirl around her family is a testament to her ability to focus on what she deems most important.  Hopefully, she won't lose that quality as she appraoches her 20s and reaches full maturity on and off court.  If so, then some great moments lie ahead in her career.

2001 was a year of change for Jelena, and one that has helped to create new and greater goals for her immediate future.  If her rate of improvement continues at its current pace then, in a very short time, the sky just may be the limit.  Team Dokic is ready, willing and should soon be able to make those grand dreams come true.

The next leg of the journey kicks off in Tokyo.  Stay tuned.  It should be fun.

** **  **

*INSIDE THE NUMBERS*
2001 TOP 10
1.Lindsay Davenport - 4902
2.Jennifer Capriati - 4892
3.Venus Williams - 4128
4.Martina Hingis - 3944
5.Kim Clijsters - 3265
6.Serena Williams - 3004
7.Justine Henin - 2989
8.Jelena Dokic - 2780
9.Amelie Mauresmo - 2765
10.Monica Seles - 2306

NOTES:
...Dokic's drive for #5 has a good chance to become a reality by the Summer of 2002.  Her 2001 results have provided her with a nice foundation from which to begin this next important journey.  Since the vast majority of her ranking points were accumulated at the end of this past year, she'll hold most of them (and her Top 10 rank) for much of the early seasib.  That means she's assured of being very highly-seeded in events the first 4-5 months, giving her a good shot to pick up points she missed out on while sitting out at the beginning of '01, and provide her with a cushion to protect against late-year results that might not match this past Autumn's impressive exploits.
...The Drive actually begins on January 3, although Jelena won't hit the court in a match that counts until the end of the month.  Since Dokic was able to play just one match in the first three months of 2001, she'll lose no points by skipping out on the Australian circuit this January.  Of course, by waiting until Tokyo to begin her 2002 campaign she also misses out on an opportunity to pick up a large chunk of points in Melbourne since she lost in the 1r this year and couldn't have faced a player ranked ahead of her until the QF thanks to the 32-seed format that wasn't in place last Oz. She could actually see her ranking rise without picking up a racquet if #7 Justine Henin (up 209 points) fails to defend her two early-season titles in Canberra and Gold Coast.  But it's then that the Aussie absence might give her Top 10 standing a temporary setback.  Both Henin and #5 Kim Clijsters (485 up) only have 4r performances to defend in Australia, while #6 Serena Williams (224 up), #9 Amelie Mauresmo (15 back) and #10 Monica Seles (474 back) all made the QF.  #4 Martina Hingis (1164 up), though, will have to match RU points in Oz soon after returning to the tour from the ankle injury that ended her 2001 season.  If Hingis has a slow start (she also must defend a title in Sydney and RU in Tokyo), Dokic might be within striking distance of her in Japan, where they could possibly meet in a rematch of the US Open 4r loss that sparked Jelena's late-season run.
...It's during the early Summer, though, that Dokic has a chance to make her move to #5.  She has her own good '01 clay season results to defend, including a Tier I title in Rome in May.  But the other contenders have to keep pace, as well, as Mauresmo won four clay titles last Spring, Clijsters was Roland Garros RU and Henin made the SF there (before being RU at Wimbledon).  If Jelena can maintain her position in the ranking up to RG, she'll finaly get the chance to wipe away that horrific 3r loss to Petra Mandula there in '01 (and possibly pick up additional points with at least a QF result), and then head to Wimbledon having to defend only 4r points (her worst result in three trips to the All-England Club).  If everything falls right, the Drive for #5 could be completed in London in early July with a strong run on the grass... of course, that's when he even more difficult task of staying there through the Autumn calendar would begin.  I'm sure Jelena would love to be faced with the headache, though.

*2001-02 DOUBLES*
Jelena was closer than any other woman to being ranked in the Top 10 in both singles (#8) and doubles (#12, just 86 points from #10) in 2001.  While not as important as her singles success, being able to boast a double-Top 10 ranking would certainly be something to realistically shoot for in 2002.

Dokic has never really had a consistent doubles partner over the course of her career (she's teamed up with 25 different woman in 54 tournaments).  In 2001, though, that changed slightly as she managed to raise her doubles ranking 39 spots from #51 in 2000.  One can effectively argue that Jelena's improved doubles results played an active role in her greater singles success, as she used the additional match action to polish her net play and get work in while still maintaining a "game face," but having fun on the court, too.

Teaming up with veteran Conchita Martinez paid huge dividends early in the year, as the two were RU at RG in Jelena's first professional slam final appearance.  But Martinez's Achilles injury (and resulting decline in play over the course of the season) saw the partnership drift away around mid-season, ironically opening the door for what looks to be a promising pairing.

When Dokic teamed up with Nadia Petrova, her partner in just one WTA event in '00, their success was immediate as they were RU in their first event in New Haven.  In their third pairing, they walked away with the title in Linz, Jelena's first WTA doubles crown.

Russian-born Petrova, 19, raised her singles rank from #62 to #39 in 2001 and will undoubtedly play more big tournaments in 2002, making her available to team up with Jelena more often in the new year (and possibly beyond).  Petrova, like Dokic, loves to play as often as possible, too (she played more events than any other player in the Top 50, with 30).  Unless Dokic re-assumed, as she did late this season, her great junior doubles partnership with Kim Clijsters (or another excellent doubles vet without a reliable partner, say an Ai Sugiyama or Martinez once again), teaming with Petrova more often than not would seem to be her best shot at combining the pressure-relieving atmosphere of doubles with the opportunity to be successful as well as work on the aspects of her singles game that need to be improved.


NEXT WEEK:
WTA 2002: The Top 10 Stories to Watch
JANUARY 7, 2002:
"And They're Off"... WTA 2002: Week 1


*WTA SCHEDULE -- Jan. 2002*
Dec.29-Jan.5...Hopman Cup (Perth)-ITF
Dec.31-Jan.6...Gold Coast, Australia
Dec.31-Jan.6...Auckland, New Zealand
Jan.7-Jan.13...Sydney, Australia
Jan.7-Jan.13...Hobart, Australia
Jan.7-Jan.13...Canberra, Australia
Jan.14-Jan.27..AUSTRALIAN OPEN
Jan.28-Feb.3...Tokyo, Japan