Jelena Year in Review 2001, Pt.III:
Hard Lessons, None Easily Learned
by Todd Spiker

In the spring of 2001, Jelena Dokic's on-court results turned positively lethal to the rest of the women's field.  Everything culminated in the first singles title of her career at the Italian Open in May.  It was that result in Rome, and the scintillating sense of purpose she displayed in attaining it, that sparked the notion that something big was on her immediate horizon.

The confounding losses to lower-ranked players had finally dried up, replaced by thrashings of the highest order and an increasingly more confident aura that showed itself even as the game's best players stood on the opposite side of the net.  But, even with such obvious improvement, Dokic couldn't escape this exciting period of her young career without being rudely reminded how much an 18-year old such as herself still needed to learn before she could become a truly great tennis champion.

Throughout the remaining 2001 grand slam season, the thought that a career-defining moment might be just around the corner for Dokic never wavered... but by the time her US Open had concluded in early September, she'd been forced to endure three consecutive disappointing slam results.  They left her far from satisfied with how she had followed up the tremendous run during the European clay court season that had earned her her first WTA Player of the Month Award in May.

The string of important lessons began for Dokic at Roland Garros.  It was in Paris where the air of possibility quickly surrounded Jelena... and ultimately engulfed her.  It would rate as the low point of her entire 2001 season.

Dokic swept into France with the #15 seed (a first for her in a slam) and the look of a real contender.  Suddenly, with her status as the tour's hottest player coming into Paris, she was one of the prohibitive favorites.  Everything seemed to fall into place as a magical path to her first grand slam final quickly moved past the stages of mere possibility.  Top players withdrew, she got a favorable draw, higher seeds fell early (#12 Kim Clijsters was quickly the highest remaining in Jelena's half of the draw), she ran roughshod over her two opening round opponents (giving up just three total games, and crushing Adriana Gersi 6-0,6-0 in the 1st Round) and won the Budding Star award from the world's tennis media for "pure talent and promises of the future."  The rampant whispers became very public... Dokic seemed destined to make her breakthrough at Roland Garros, not Wimbledon.

Maybe the whispers were too loud, for it wasn't meant to be.  The "ghost" of Hungarian Rita Kuti Kis saw to that.  It's possible that it was Dokic's youth that did her in, with the last of her immaturity and lack of experience with suddenly being thrust into the role of favorite so early in a major event forming a deadly combination.

It was a development for which Dokic only had herself to blame... something that she was (maybe too) quick to point out after her shocking 3rd Round loss to another unknown Hungarian qualifier named Petra Mandula (ranking #131 in the world).  Dokic led 6-3,3-2 before (as she later admitted) allowing the potential of an upcoming QF match with Clijsters or SF against Justine Henin to cause her to lose concentration.  It brought on an out-of-nowhere return of the inconsistent, unforced error-prone version of herself that Dokic felt she'd left behind with her success in Rome.  Her frustration was immediatey evident in her post-match comments, as the "Hungarian Curse" continued.

As she had eighteen months earlier in Melbourne, the unfailingly (too?) honest Dokic didn't give Mandula much credit, saying that she shouldn't be beaten by a player such as her and noting that it wasn't as if her opponent had "played all that well."  "It was a matter of just getting the ball back.  I couldn't do that," Jelena said, further showing her anger at her lost opportunity by saying that she hadn't played like someone in the top 100, or even 200, in the loss and that she "hardly recognized" herself.

Mandula had indeed done little of note in the match, and had nearly as many unforced errors as Dokic, but she hadn't given away the biggest victory of her heretofore nondescript career (and even survived Dokic's furious late rally, finally winning on a seventh match point).  Mandula deserved more credit than Jelena was ultimately willing to give, a disappointing development considering her conciliatory comments toward Kuti Kis in Rome and similar level-headed statements about the importance of being friendly toward everyone on tour.  In Paris, Dokic showed that she was still a teenager trying to learn as she goes along just which skills it will take for her to become a champion, both on and off the court.

The Mandula loss wasn't just the first bad loss of 2001.  Under the circumstances, it was maybe the most disappointing loss of Dokic's young career (one that overshadowed the fact that her 3rd Round result was still her best-ever RG finish, and raised her singles ranking to a career-best #16).  That it came almost directly on the heels of her most satisfying victory only secured it as a memorable lesson along the winding path to be navigated before Dokic is capable of climbing to the top of the women's game.

The lesson continued at Wimbledon.

Dokic had entered the 2001 grass court season hoping to erase the memory of Mandula and the blown chance at Roland Garros.  The lawn courts at the All-England Club had already been the scene of many of Jelena's greatest moments.  She'd always seemed to have a natural feel for the club's courts, and was almost immune to the inherant pressure cooker of the swirling tabloid press.  Considering her consecutive QF and SF Wimbledon appearances, as well as a #14 seed, she had every right to believe it to be a reasonalbe goal to rekindle the spirit of 1999-00.  As usual, it would be an interesting, headline-grabbing and oft-wild ride for the Dokic clan.

Dokic managed to maneuver her way through the first three rounds without dropping a set... but ended up making just as much noise off the court in the Anna-starved atmosphere fostered by the London tabloids. Jelena... 1)commented about how too much attention was paid to whether or not the players looked good on the court ("we're not models" out there, she noted... ironically, just days before she appeared in a fashion spread in Hello magazine along with Clijsters and Barbara Schett); 2)was irked by a tabloid (in search of sex appeal due to Kournikova's absence, having signed a contract to back Schett throughout the fortnight) dubbed the "glamour girl" 3rd Round matchup between new "pinup" Schett and Dokic as a battle between "the beauty (Schett) and the beast (Damir)," who was supposedly prepared to "psyche out" his daughter's opponent from the sidelines; and 3)was the center of controversy again with claims that Wimbledon's transit organizers -- "bandits," she called them, wondering aloud how anyone could run a tournament if they couldn't get something as simple as transportation to go smoothly -- failed to provide a car to take her to the Schett match, forcing her to hail a taxi that arrived just ten minutes before the match... a story that Wimbledon officials disputed.  Of course, none of it prevented Dokic from rather handily dispatching Schett, leaving the tabloid to wonder how it could have chosen its new "favorite" quite so unwisely.

On court in the Round of 16, Dokic met up with her constant grand slam tormenter:  Lindsay Davenport.

For the third time in five slams (and the second straight Wimbledon), Davenport bounced her from the field by a 7-5,6-4 score.  It was a match notable for the opportunities squandered by Dokic, most conspicuously two BP chances in Game 2 that would have given her a quick 2-0 lead over a Davenport somewhat discombobulated by Dokic's stinging groundstrokes (it was the instant that Jelena later said was probably the moment where the match was lost), as well as a give-away break after having broken the '99 champ to go up 4-2.  Dokic had obviously gained confidence from her tight three-set Aussie Open loss in January, but she was still unable to play the big points (going 1-for-5 on BPs, compared to 3-for-5 for Davenport) as well as her veteran counterpart nor serve with the same power (though she did have six aces) or consistency.

By July, it had become unbearably apparent that Davenport's game particularly vexes Dokic.  The rangy American constantly looms on the other side of the court and her penetrating power strokes generally keep Dokic pinned behind the baseline, leaving her unable to fully take advantage of her mobility advantage as often as she needs to to emerge with a win.  That being the case, she MUST seize every chance that Davenport allows... and the chances WERE there.  In this third career contest, Jelena set herself up for several attempts at a knockout shot but wasn't able to connect with a single meaningful blow.  It was a disappointing, though encouraging in its own way, performance for Dokic, especially after the way Davenport proceded to corkscrew Clijsters into the ground in their uncompetitive QF with the same groundstrokes that Dokic was able to make occasional plays on.  Still, the answers to the riddle of how to defeat Davenport would be something that Jelena would still be striving to discover by the time the 2001 WTA season ended four months later.

Even with a SF in one tournament and a competitive 4th Round loss to a #3 seed at Wimbledon, the whole of the 2001 grass court season ended up being something of a minor disappointment due mostly to Dokic's (almost) absurdly fine performances at Wimbledon as a 16 and 17-year old, not to mention her superior clay court season.  Still, it was easy to take for granted how remarkable it was that, at 18, she had reached the Round of 16 at Wimbledon... and it was her WORST career result there.  Without the legimately high expectations, it would have been ridiculous to look down on her '01 performance.  But, as Clijsters' ranking rose to nearly Top 5 (while Dokic's fell to #23 after failing to defend her SF points from 2000) along with fellow Belgian teen Henin, who managed to reach her first slam final on the grass, it was difficult to NOT do so.

Following Wimbledon, Dokic decided to forego a committment to World Team Tennis and enter a handful of clay court events in Europe in order to gain enough ranking points to reach the Top 15 by the start of play at Flushing Meadows.  It seemed like a good idea at the time, but it turned out to be a disasterous one before she managed some measure of respectability in the closing week.

Seeded #2 in Vienna, Dokic lost to #169-ranked Jelena Kostanic in a rain-interrupted match spread over two days that ended with a 0-6 whitewash in the final set.  Then, seeded #3 after accepting a wild card to Knokke-Heist, she lost her first match again (and third straight overall) to #43 Denisa Chladkova.  The losses only added to the frustrating backstep that had begun following Rome.  The losses to lower-ranked players had seemed to finally be a thing of the past, but defeats at the hands of Kostanic, Chladkova, Mandula and #92 Alicia Molik (at Birmingham) had combined to reawaken old demons.  Her success had transformed the hunter into the hunted, and Dokic was forced to find a way to adjust to a role she hadn't played since she dominated the junior tour in 1998.

Riding a riptide of disappointment, a late decision to skip a scheduled week off to go to Sopot turned out to be a fortuitous one.  There, Dokic found her game again and breezed into her fourth WTA SF of 2001.  The prize of a second title wasn't attained, but the putting behind her of all the European defeats was an invaluable accomplishment.

With her game recaptured, a more confident Dokic travelled back to the U.S. to begin play on her favored hardcourts.  There was still one grand slam left in which Jelena could make her mark.  Unfortunately, while Roland Garros produced the worst loss of 2001, the US Open would prove to produce the year's most disheartening one.



NEXT WEEK:
Jelena Year in Review 2001, Pt.IV:
Setting the Stage
IN TWO WEEKS:
Jelena Year in Review 2001, Pt.V:
2001 Overview/2002 Preview... What Happened, and What Happens Next?



*JUNE-JULY '01 RESULTS*
-SINGLES-
--JUNE--
Roland Garros - 3r - lost to Petra Mandula
Birmingham - 2r - lost to Alicia Molik
s'Hertogenbosch - SF - lost to Kim Clijsters
Wimbledon - 4r - lost to Lindsay Davenport
--JULY--
Vienna - 2r - lost to Jelena Kostanic
Knokke-Heist - 1r - lost to Denisa Chaldkova
Sopot - SF - lost to Gala Leon Garcia

-DOUBLES-
Roland Garros w/ C.Martinez
...RU - lost to Ruano-Pascual/Suarez
s'Hertogenbosch w/ Dementieva
...QF - lost to Clijsters/Oremans
Wimbledon w/ C.Martinez
...3r - lost to Clijsters/Sugiyama
Wimbledon Mixed w/ Tarango
...3r - lost to Bhupathi/Likhovtseva
Vienna w/ Dementieva
...2r - lost to Suarez/Tarabini
Knokke-Heist w/ Farina Elia
...SF - lost to Dragomir Ilie/Vanc
Sopot w/ Farina Elia
...1r - lost to Dragomir Ilie/Vanc


*END OF MONTH RANKINGS*
SINGLES
June 25  --  #16
July 30  --  #20
DOUBLES
June 25  --  #22
July 30  --  #19


*MONTHY PRIZE MONEY TOTALS*
June:  $76,658
July:  $66,490
(Jun-Jul total:  $143,148)
(2001 total to July 30:  $452,241)


*AWARDS*
Prix Burgeon (Budding Star Award)
...presented by world tennis press at RG