Jelena Kostanic, the last remaining Croat (along with Goran Ivanisevic on the men's side), was scheduled to play two matches today, and would be the first on court for her singles match against Sylvia Plischke. Her second match, a first-round doubles match with Tina Pisnik against Surina de Beer and Jana "Houdini" Kandarr, was scheduled as the last of the day for the outermost court in Melbourne Park, court 21.

As has become the buzz word ever since Martina Hingis uttered it, it had been "spitting" all morning, and the start of the matches were delayed by about 15 minutes. By the time everything had settled down and the players had warmed up, it was already 10:40. Conditions were still less than ideal for tennis, with a cold wind swirling around, an overcast sky above, and light drizzles that lasted for perhaps 2 minutes, then disappeared. Just enough to make things miserable and get the courts wet.

The match might have been over for Jelena before it even got started. Halfway through warming up, when the two players were serving, one of the ballkids couldn't catch a ball that Sylvia had served. The ball rolled back on court, and the ballkid ran after it, but it rolled just behind Jelena, so the ballkid could only stand there and watch as Jelena tossed the ball up to serve. The ball had slowed down considerably by now, so when Jelena hit the serve, she only just missed landing on the ball. I don't know if she noticed it, but to think that she escaped a possibly serious injury by a fraction of an inch...

Halfway through the practice, the match came close to being delayed, as a fairly strong drizzle started to come down. The players had to sit and wait it out for a couple of minutes, Sylvia pulling her jacket on. Jelena hadn't brought hers along, so she draped several towels around her shoulders and over her legs. She actually looked rather cute with those towels hanging on her, like a little kid caught messing around in the laundry basket.

Anyway, the drizzle soon stopped, as expected, and the warm-up session went on. Jelena had won the toss, and had elected to serve. She opened with a good start to her 1st serve percentage, and held easily. Sylvia, on the other hand, was playing badly, and would probably have been better off staying in bed. Her service game went to deuce, and Jelena got the immediate break on a questionable call on the baseline.

At 30-all on her serve, Sylvia was standing on the baseline, and perhaps showed just how out of it she was by letting a ball land just on the line, and not hitting it. A good solid service return winner on the next point gave Jelena a 4-0 lead. At least now, Sylvia was starting to hit her shots. Jelena was doing well, though, to mix up her shots, not letting the Austrian find her rhythm at all. Down 15-30, Jelena double-faulted, giving her opponent a chance to get the break back. Sylvia was still struggling with her backhand, though, and Jelena was smart enough to recognize this. She continued to attack Sylvia's backhand, and wasn't reluctant to venture to net. Some careless play started creeping in, though, and Sylvia finally managed to avoid committing an unforced error long enough to get one break back.

Here, Sylvia finally started to get in the game, and made significantly fewer unforced errors. On the other hand, Jelena was having another lapse in concentration. Both combined to give Sylvia her service game. Jelena went on the open her service game by double-faulting. She didn't let that bother her, though, and good serving gave her her service game easily.

Serving to stay in the set, Sylvia did well to force an error off the return. On one point, Jelena played a silly dropshot that not only popped up too high, but sat up, and Sylvia got to it easily. Lucky for Jelena, she managed to get to the shot and won the point anyway with a beautiful topspin lob. She soon found herself holding match point, but totally blew an easy overhead. Sylvia played well, and saved a total of 4 set points before finally chipping a backhand into the net to give Jelena Kostanic the first set.

In the second set, Jelena had a horrible patch where she was absolutely outdone by Sylvia Plischke. Sylvia was hitting her shots with more bite and authority, and the Croatian was having difficulty doing anything right. She made some silly returns, got herself in trouble by not thinking about where she was hitting the ball, was out of position on the court very often, and simply not concentrating on the match. Sylvia made an amazing comeback, taking the second set 6-0.

Jelena by now was absolutely frustrated, and was talking to herself after nearly every point. Not one to bow out so easily, though, Jelena started afresh in the third set, forgetting about being blitzed in the previous set and thinking solely about stopping the Austrian's momentum. She unforced errors started disappearing, and the serves started landing in. Sylvia managed to maintain her game, but wasn't getting many more free points. In the end, it came down to who did better on the important points, and this time, it was the Croat. Jelena escaped with a 6-3 0-6 6-4 victory, simply because she fought harder in the end. Aw her coach says, it's good for her to get in these situations so early in her career, so that she'll learn and gain experience, as well as build confidence and match toughness. Both players would have come off the match learning quite a few things.

Next up, I went to see Anna Kournikova and Barbara Schett. There's no prize for guessing who the crowd favourites here were. Anna and Barbara managed some pretty good doubles play, Anna being a pretty experienced doubles player despite her young years and a "mere" 6 doubles titles under her belt. Anna has been overshadowed by Martina Hingis in their partnership, but I continue to be impressed with the Russian's street smarts. She is eager to learn from all her experiences, and makes examples of other's faux pas'. She is most obviously the boss on the court, and while their basic game styles might not be the most complimentary ones, they do well together. And it can't hurt that they possess a lot of confidence knowing that they're ranked high and look good on court. The guys in the stands won't let them forget.

Amy Frazier, a pretty good player in her own right, played a little nervously in the beginning. She tried to go for difficult shots to end the points early, but was missing a lot of them. Katie Schlukebir, on the other hand, did her job by covering whatever court she was supposed to and getting the ball back in play. Every now and then, she'd come up with a good shot to give her team the point. By the way, Amy Frazier looked rather tragic on court, being one of the few players who find it impossible to get a tan. While Amy and Katie went for broke in the end, they didn't challenge the sixth seeds much, losing 6-3 6-3.

Next up, the controversial pair of Jelena Dokic and Jennifer Capriati would take on their first-round opponents, Rosa Andres and Conchita Martinez Granados. The Spanish pair was clearly overawed by the situation, and could hardly get their racquets on the ball. They hardly put up any fight and lost the match 6-2 6-0 before anyone had even settled in their seats. Unfortunately for Dokic, as it turned out, as that brought on her first press conference since her tongue-in-cheek episode. Not wanting to miss this one, I took some time out from the courts to head to the conference room.

Jelena didn't have to wait for anyone to come in this time. The conference room was pretty much packed again as she walked in, and everyone sighed a sigh of relief when they saw she wasn't carrying a piece of paper with her. The relief immediately vanished, however, when she opened her mouth. Before anyone had posed any questions. Again. While what she said was, again, controversial and provocative, it was slightly better than the previous incident. Understandably, the Aussie felt the need to perform after all that had been going on in the Aussie and international presses. The one smart thing she did do, though, was to "pardon" Lindsay for her comment on Jelena's behaviour. In her eyes, there was one culprit and only one culprit in this tragic state of affairs - the media. Oh yeah, and maybe the tournament officials were out to get her, too. Jelena looked as cocky as ever, but her quavering voice gave away the tumult that was going on inside her. The fact that her father had actually shoved a Channel 7 (a local TV network that has sole rights to the open) cameraman and then taken his microphone, refusing to give it back, made things worse. Damir walked a few steps, then turned around in afterthought and offered the cameraman 500 dollars for the tape.

After that ordeal, I went to the eastern courts to see Tina Pisnik and Jelena Kostanic in doubles action. They were up against Surina de Beer and Jana Kandarr, the German hopeful who had come through the singles qualifying rounds and was still in the singles draw. Tina and Jelena, as usual, got off to a good start, and it took about half a set for Jana and Surina to figure out how to play them. Once they did, though, the youngsters had their hands full, and had to do all they could to keep themselves in it. Jana and Surina got a lot of easy points, while Jelena and Tina really had to work for theirs. By the end of the match, Jana and Surina were cruising, but the youngsters continued to fight, and were hanging by a thread. Guts alone was not enough to pull them through, and a handful of games that had more suspense and thrills than Silence of the Lambs, put the more experienced pair through to the second round. That signaled the end of the tournament for Tina, a disappointing first-round performance in singles and doubles.

That match ended just as Mirjana Lucic and Natasha Zvereva took to the court just next to it. Natasha still hasn't found a steady doubles partner to commit to this year, and is trying to find someone who she can click with. Good news for NZ fans, though, is that she hasn't given up the struggle to contend with Martina for the #1 spot in the rankings, despite having tumbled down (well, down as far as NZ is concerned) the ladder. I'm doubtful that playing the first Grand Slam event of the year with Mirjana (who hasn't played doubles in quite a while) was going to help, though. Anyway, for everyone who's been sitting on the edge of their seats, Natasha Zvereva will finally be playing with Katarina Srebotnik in doubles, and as soon as Tokyo, too. Unfortunately, with Katarina's current performance, they might not prove as formidable as originally expected.

Mirjana, the odd one out on the court (the other three are all Belarussian), was making her usual errors, but her good returning was making up for the blunders at net. NZ was doing an average job of things, by her standard, but that was enough to keep Nadejada Ostrovskaya and Tatiana Poutchek at bay. NZ and Miki struggled at first, and were in danger of losing the break in the first set, but soon settled down and wrapped the match up 6-4 6-0. The two Belarussian girls were having fun on court, though, and there were smiles going on all over the court. On one point, NZ totally mishit a return of serve, and it looked like it was definitely not going to make it past the net, when a sudden gust lifted the ball, and it trickled over the net. Nadejda and Tatiana could only stand and stare at disbelief, as Mirjana burst into smiles. Mirjana, standing just in front of where the ball trickled across, walked back to where NZ was standing, frozen, her racquet still in mid follow-through. NZ stood perfectly still with a shocked look on her face, while the other three players were having a good laugh. The crowd appreciated the humour, and applauded.

All in all, NZ and Mirjana look like they're having a ball on court, but Mirjana's performance in her first doubles match wasn't very impressive. I think it's very improbable that they'll make it all the way here, especially with the number of good teams playing here this year. Time will tell, however, and if they do actually get somewhere, the Srebotnik-Zvereva lobbyers will have more waiting to do.