Article by Pierre Cantin

So sad....

 Hello everyone once again! Today, I arrived at the Betty Barclay Cup with high hopes of seeing another day of great tennis and during the warmup on centre court I saw Jelena practice shortly with a hitting partner while Kim was practicing with Rossana de Los Rios on the same court.. It was great to see Jelena very relaxed, laughing a lot and having a good time, it certainly got me even more confident...

But a few hours later, after Venus had defeated Hingis, Jelena jumped on the court for the warmup and when she took off her outfit, we saw her skirt but also a huge bandage on her right leg, it meant bad news of course:( I talked to my neighbour about a few occasions this year when Jelena should have stopped but she kept trying to play despite injuries.. well I am afraid this was another occasion...

When the match started, the players had a lot of success on their serve holding fairly easily up to 4-4 where Kim was able to hold but Jelena made a few mistakes.. Also, since a few games (maybe at the middle of the set), Jelena had started to show signs she was bothered by that injury.. So Jelena was broken and thus lost the set 6-4..

When the second set started, I was very fearful of how things would go on.. but it was very surprising to see what was happeneing.. Even though she was clearly not at 100% and playing against the #3 player in the world, Jelena was still able to keep the pace and even took a 4-1 lead with 2 breaks, I was amazed and then thought she could make it after all... But then things turned around, Kim was able to dictate a few points and get Jelena to run a little which got things worse for her..

In only a few minutes, it was 4-4.. and Jelena took a medical time-out.. being only 3 rows behind her, I could see what the trainer was doing and she clearly was trying to get Jelena to stop, Jelena was in tears but tried to come back.. she played two more points and had to stop... She was crying and it was heartbreaking for anyone in the stands whoever you were rooting for.. Kim Clijsters has been very high in my opinion this week as she is so nice to everyone and once again was a class act not only talking to Jelena when they shook hands but going to see her a few minutes later to talk to her and comfort her, really she is a great person:)

Anyway, so Jelena left the stadium completly devastated but received a great ovation... let's hope she can recover fast but most importantly think very hard about if she should play in Berlin next week...

So, sad finish for me this week, I will now head back to Warsaw as it is Jelena I wanted to see in the final so I gave my ticket away (I also have an oral presentation to prepare for monday but I would have found a way to see Jelena play the final...)...

Pierre