Article by Gerhard Grundhammer

I decided to start that preview with a question: What do Jelena and I have in common? Jelena Kostanic caused both of us more problems as we thought.

 Jelena played the no 194 (at that time) last spring in Vienna. Her first match on clay after wimbledon, and she won the first set as expected 6-1. Things went strange as Jelena needed a tie-break to finish the match, and even more strange as she lost it! As Mrs. Dokic was down 2-0 in set three there was a massive rain delay, the match was re-sheduled for the following
day, and the desaster started! Jelena lost 4 straight games, whithout being near to score in one single game! Jelena lost to a player she did not even
think she could loose to! She lost the decisive set 0-6! And she shocked her young and growing fan-community at Jelena-Dokic.com!

 My problems with Kostanic? Well, actually I like writing about unknown players more, as I do like writing about stars. I was looking forward for todays work, but I found nothing, nothing, nothing..... nothing at all about her!

 Kostanic has no web-site (http://kostanic.tripod.com/ is not working, at least not on my computer), and other sites have no proper information about her, and that bit of information I found is contradictory.

 So I guess she is a left-handed player (about 70% say that, for 30% of sites she playes with her right hand), she is either 1.68 or 1.69 meters (5`6" or 5`7"). Jelena is born in Split, Croatia, on 6 July 1981 and lives either still there or in Zagreb, Croatia, and she is something like no76 or 83 or something in between of the world......

 What I know is that she has not won a WTA-Title in her career, but I found different informations about ITF-Titles again :-(

 Her biggest success in 2001 as well as in her career, which started 1999, was reaching the semis in Vienna 2001 ( ..... :-( ..... ) , where Patty Schnyder stopped her brilliant run. 1999 was also the year where Jelena and Jelena met first (as far as I know). Dokic won the qualification match for Linz 7-6 and 6-3.

 2002 is a complete disaster for Kostanic. She lost in early stages at Auckland, Sydney and the Australian Open. Later she tried her luck at the Tournaments in Doha, Dubai, Indian Wells, Porto, Budapest, Bol and Warzaw, whithout any success, again. She even tried her luck at non Wta tournys, but the trips to Ortisei and Minneapolis only caused costs, and everything she won there was experience.

 Actually Jelena (Dokic) should have no problems at all with Jelena (Kostanic), but we thought that once before.....

The match is sheduled as fourth match on center-court. Action starts at 11am local time, so I guess the match will start at about 4pm local, which is 3pm in London, 10am in New York and 6am in Portland.