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by Prip Second day of qualifying, and the first three matches featured prominent players. Martina Sucha would take on Hong Kong's sole player, Tong Ka-Po, and should have little trouble. Sure enough, she took the first set 6-1, but the Chinese girl cleaned her act up considerably in the second set, taking advantage of a lapse in concentration from the Slovakian. Martina managed to get through anyway, and set a potential date against Maria Emilia Salerni, should the Argentine get through against Anna Zaporozhanova. Over on the other side, Spaniard Ana Isabella Medina Garrigues took on Julia Vakulenko, and had little trouble against the Ukrainian. Playing a very explosive game in her first hard court tournament since February, the Spaniard took quick control of the points, and worked hard to dictate play. She was in full control, and Julia had absolutely no idea to counter the barrage of balls coming at her. Ana took the match 6-3 6-2, and walked off court to prepare for her upcoming doubles match. Meanwhile, Jelena Kostanic was struggling in her match against Liezel Horn. It wasn't so much that Liezel was troubling her than Jelena was battling with her own demons. The Croat was drifting in and out of the match, her shots flying all over the place, and tactically, there was nothing coming from the Croat. She was trying hard to make the play, and to play aggressively, but simply could not follow through through pure lack of concentration. She somehow managed to keep it together long enough to take the first set 6-3, but was totally gone in the second set. Regular readers of my match reports can pretty much refer to any of my previous observations on the Croat and they'd still hold true. Jelena was serving a little better than she had in the first set, but still had nothing on the ball. Through pure guts and lots of scrambling, she kept herself in contention in the third set after dropping the second 3-6. Her serve was failing her miserably, but she looked like she was getting a grip on the rest of her game again, until 3-all when a double-fault capped of a miserable service game, giving the South African the crucial break. All hell broke loose for Jelena in the next game, and she had progressed from mumbling to herself yelling rather loudly. Her coach could only sit and watch his new charge self-destruct. His philosophy -- go ahead, break your racquet, talk to yourself, pay the fine, just don't lose your concentration and let your opponent know that you're falling apart. Through some miracle, and aided by several careless errors from Liezel, the Croat barely held on to her service game to stave off match point. Once again, she started to play well when she found herself down in the match. Instead of playing recklessly, she played aggressively, going for the lines and finding most of them. Her backhands and forehands have changed very distinctly, and instead of constantly brushing the ball up on her backhand, she's started hitting the ball a little flatter. She's also hitting her forehands with a lot more topspin instead of flat like she used to. Showing glimpses of what the Croat is capable of, she refused to go away quietly, and put in an incredible amount of effort, forcing the plays and making things happen on court. The small crowd appreciated her effort, and had decided that she deserved the match more. She evened the match up again at 5-all, but couldn't sustain the level of concentration she had, and a flurry of silly errors undid her hard work. She once again found herself down and facing the prospect of an early exit from the tournament. Liezel continued to approach the net whenever possible, but Jelena stayed calm and got a nice passing shot down the line, and an unforced error from the South African left her trailing 0-30. The next point saw the players trade backhands, and the tension in the air was so thick you'd need a hacksaw to cut through it. Jelena, very smartly, suddenly threw a slice in, and the change managed to catch Liezel off-guard enough to get the error off her racquet. A service return from Jelena flew long on the next point, but that was only a temporary setback, and the Croat followed that with a couple of strong groundies, forcing the error and evening the match yet again at 6-all. Once again, an all-too familiar situation for the Croat -- a third set tie-breaker. Tough high-tension situations seem to be a prerequisite for Jelena's matches. Jelena started the tie-break serving, and in a change of pace, started slicing her backhands. She threw slice after slice across the net, and Liezel found a bit of difficulty adjusting to the different spin after having returned more than a match's worth of topspin backhands. Liezel herself decided to throw a slice in on the next point, but mistimed and totally mishit the shot, leaving her a sitting duck on the court. Jelena did all the work on the court, making the play, taking her chances, and found herself up 4-2. Both players had played a long match in the hot and humid weather, and Jelena had done an incredible amount of running, but she was still ready to keep going, and scrambled around all over the court. Her serve was a huge liability, and left her on the defense from Liezel's strong returns, and this point was no different. She quite nearly got herself out of trouble, but Liezel was in the right place in the right time, and got the break back for 3-4. She couldn't consolidate the break, though, and Jelena got the next point on a strong forehand winner. Drifting in and out of the match, she pulled her backhand a little too high and the ball landed long on the next point (something her coach has decided to work hard on rectifying). An unlucky netcord evened the tie-breaker up at 5-all. The next point was pretty ugly, both players resorting to throwing moonballs in the air, until one from Jelena landed long. Match point # 2 for Liezel. Jelena once again turned the volume up, and played an incredible gutsy point, hitting the ball without abandon. She kept moving forward, hitting the ball hard and deep, pushing Liezel backwards, and finally forced the error from the South African's racquet. Almost predictably, the Croat double-faulted on the next point, bringing her back to square one, and faced match point # 3. Choking under the pressure, Liezel made a silly unforced error, throwing that one away. Liezel followed her serve into the net on the next point, and Jelena made the wrong choice for her passing shot. Liezel guessed correctly, and was right there waiting when the ball came across the net. Match point # 4. She got a nice second serve in, but Jelena stepped into her return and hit the ball on the rise. Inching her way forward, the Croat had the point in her hands, and finished it off with a beautiful winner on the sidelines. The linesman suddenly changed his call, though, and deemed the ball out. The umpire had probably had had enough of the match, and refused to overrule the call. The crowd got a little noisy, as the ball had landed inside the line, and was clearly in. Jelena protested a little, but quickly saw that the umpire wasn't going to overrule, and dejectedly went to her chair. It was evident throughout her matches that there is a lot going on with the Croat. The youngster has unlimited capabilities, and has the potential to absorb information like a sponge. While the extremely talented youngster has had a dismal year, she is hoping to make a fresh start next year. Helping her will be her new coach of only a couple of weeks, Alain Maric. They have formulated what I think is a very good programme for the year-end break and are certainly focusing on the right things. Hopefully, things will go as planned and the youngster will crack the top 50 by mid-year. For the Katarina Srebotnik fans, Kata once again had a clean match, this time against Saori Obata of Japan. Stringing two wins in a row for the first time since the end of January this year, Kata pretty much demolished her opponent 6-1 6-3, and looked positive throughout the match. Things were starting to look a little more encouraging for the Slovenian. All she needs is a couple of match wins to give her confidence a jump start, and things will start picking up again for her. Maria Emilia Salerni was having an equally easy time of it. The Argentine was still showing very lackluster play, not doing much with the ball and pretty much winning the match off Anna Zaporozhanova's errors. For the second time in as many matches, I came off disappointed with the Argentine's tennis, which was nowhere near the standard she had shown at the Olympics. As the players shook hands at the net (the score was identical to Katarina's), I harboured hopes that the junior number one will pick her game up by the next round. Lying in wait is Martina Sucha, and the Slovakian is more than capable of taking Maria out of the tournament. The rest of the matches for the day were pretty straightforward. I took a break while the doubles qualifying matches were determined. Joanette Kruger was once again going to try her hand at getting through to the main draw, this time with Mini Battle Tank Tatiana Panova, and was seeded second. Their first opponents would be Ana Isabella Medina Garrigues and Alienor Tricerri of Switzerland. Anne Kremer and Sandra Kleinova were already halfway through their first round qualifying match against Jolanda Mens and Julia Vakulenko, and were having little trouble handling them. Anna and Sandra came through 8-4, although the match wasn't as close as that. The match started out looking like the second seeds would have an easy time, but that was only because the Swiss girl was looking absolutely lost on court. Her partner was doing well, looking like she had quite a bit of experience on the doubles court, but Alienor kept making terrible decisions, finding herself out of position on court, making poor choices of shot, and all in all being the definite weak link in the team. Her reaction at first was lukewarm, but as her partner made brilliant shot after brilliant shot, keeping her team in contention, the Swiss girl gradually picked up her game as well. Learning from her mistakes and being more aware of what was going on on court, the Swiss girl started holding her own pretty well. The games were still even, up to 7-all. Joanette and Tatiana kept to their tactics to attack the Swiss girl, as the Spaniard was still raring to go, and looked fully into the match. Every now and then when her partner missed a shot or made a really stupid mistake, she'd looked exasperated and frustrated that her hard work had gone to waste, but only for a moment, and never toward her partner. She'd then turn around, and offer nothing but support and encouragement to her partner. The match went into a tie-break, which could have gone either way. One team had to emerge victors though, and the Spanish-Swiss team found themselves the upset winners, when the got the decisive break at the very end to take the tie-breaker 8-6. Joanette and Tatiana looked fully disappointed in themselves, as they had probably expected to get through into the main draw. On the other hand, the Swiss girl looked delighted and proud of herself for having turned her game around, while her partner looked more relieved than anything. They headed off court to see who their next opponents would be. On the adjacent court, Maria Emilia Salerni was back on court again, this time in doubles action with Tina Hergold, winner of the event in Cardiff. They had an easier task ahead of them, in the form of Eun-Ha Kim and Saori Obata. Once again, there was a definite weak link among the four, and this time it was Tina. Nothing she tried seemed to go right, and after a game or two, the Asian pairing took advantage of her shaky tennis to put themselves in contention. Maria was holding her team up well, though, giving her partner every opportunity to pick her game up. And pick her game up Tina did indeed, not only holding her own towards the end of the match, but certainly also establishing her presence on court. Tina and Maria ended up taking the match 8-6, but it had definitely gone a lot longer than it should have. While the players were given reasonable time to rest, Anne Kremer and Sandra Kleinova went back on court against top seeds Stephanie Foretz and Zsofia Gubacsi. Common sense would put Anne and Sandra as favourites in this match, and once again they had little trouble, coming away with another comfortable 8-4 win. Back on the other court, Salerni, Hergold, Medina and Tricerri were starting their match. Tina Hergold had finally settled down and started the match as well as she had ended the previous, no longer putting all the weight on her partner. Maria, on the other hand, showed good familiarity and confidence on the doubles court, and looked considerably brighter than in her singles matches. The number one junior in doubles, as I had noted 6 weeks ago, is comfortable playing from all over the court, and has the most decent net game of any junior coming into the WTA in a long time. Medina and Salerni both looked tired towards the end of the match, as both had played three matches and were probably unused to this pace both physically and mentally. The Argentine-Slovenian pairing took the match handily, and moved into the final round of qualifying. Barring any sudden lapse in performance from either player, this team is fully capable of progressing to at least the second round (quarterfinals) of the main draw, should they come through in the final qualifying round. Singles qualifying second round:
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