Dates: December 29 - January 4, 2012
Venue: Brisbane, Australia
Tier: Premier
Prize Money: $1,000,000
Surface: Hard/Outdoors
Tournament Director: Cameron Pearson

Official website: www.brisbaneinternational.com.au

Last Appearance: 2012 Quarter-final. Lost to Lesia Tsurenko 6-3 6-4

Singles:
1R: [Q] Ashleigh Barty (AUS) bt Daniela Hantuchova 6-3 7-5

Doubles:
1R: [1] Kveta Peschke/Katerina Srebotnik bt Daniela Hantuchova/Sabine Lisicki 6-3 6-4

Well, guys, the day we look forward to each year has arrived……not Daniela's first match, but the first day we can obsess over her draw. However, this year we are thrown a curve. Daniela got a qualifier. So Obsession Day must wait one more day. For your sake I looked ahead, which is not my norm. 2nd round would most likely be Sharapova, then in theory, Wozniacki and then Serena. (Obsession is allowed for that!)
Daniela will pair with Lisicki, and they drew the top seeds, Peschke and Shrebotnik.

It's a decent draw. There are a few potentially tricky players in qualifying and as eddy said, we'll have to see who the qualifier is first. It'll be someone who's played on the courts and will be used to the conditions, but Daniela's been in Australia preparing so she'll be ready too.

Shazza's withdrawn from Brisbane the past couple of years so if Daniela can get to the second round then you never know what could happen but if Shazza's healthy then it'll be a very tough match for Daniela, if nothing else hopefully it means that Daniela and Shazza won't play a practice match later on in the month. It would be great for Daniela to get to the quarter-final here and defend her points from last year which should get her a seeding for the Australian Open, but if she goes out before that she probably won't get a seeding so a run here is important but we have to take things one match at a time.

We'll see what happens in the doubles. Daniela & Sabine get on well and could be a good team but they've got a tough draw against the top seeds.

Daniela has quite a good record against youngsters however Barty will have the whole stadium behind her. Really glad we should be able to watch the match.

Not going well 3-6, Barty better pretty much in every department. Daniela many errors and looks very rusty..going for too much as ever...

So many errors off returns

It's like Daniela has forgotten how to rally in a point. not sure at all about Sanchez, he seems to have made her even more one dimensional....

Well at least Daniela's not peaking too soon before the AO 3-6 2-3 Daniela hasn't had a break chance yet..a better game 3-3

Daniela breaks 4-3 comon!

Holds saving a break point 5-3 comon! So much better point point construction.

Serving for the set 5-4 broken to love woeful tennis, awful game, poor Daniela..I can't see her taking this to 3 sets now..

Momentum has completely gone 5-6..

Lost 36 57

Just wasn't good enough. So many errors and when finally got the momentum 5-3 up just completely lost all momentum.

Barty played solid but nothing spectacular. Was well played in from the qualifying matches. I guess at 17 years old you have no fear.

But Daniela's performance here was very worrying...she could barely stay in the point and so many return errors. Here serve was quite good but costly double faults at silly times.

I'm not sure what Daniela can take from this match other than she is far away from where she needs to be. there needs to be much more shape on her ball rather than just hitting a winner. She hasn't found the balance at all and 5-3 to 5-7 is unacceptable particularly as Barty didn't really step up and win those games, Daniela just handed them to her...very depressing as this would have been a good draw for Daniela, and a match against Sharapova would have been awesome.

To add salt in the wound there goes her AO seeding...

Watching parts of the match again it seems Daniela came out too full on at the beginning so when she tried reigning it in she couldn't find the balance.

I think Barty defended very well and some of her topspin shots were a bit lucky.

I shouldn't judge Sanchez too soon but I find his manner tpo intense. I think Daniela plays well when she has a calming influence and I just don't think it's a good match. Although she said she had a great offseason with him and her team so hopefully she's put the gremlins of this match to bed and can at least play better in Sydney. Especially returning serve and staying strong and secure in rallies.

Apparently he said it in the middle of the 1st set too.

I guess he just wants Daniela to be more bullish on court. I don't mind that attitude but there are different ways of showing it than grunting..

Guys, something happened in my life today which I won't get into that makes this one a lot easier for me to swallow. If there were no coach issues or inexplicable defeats, we wouldn't know who we were rooting for! Perhaps Barty is the next big thing……maybe she knocks off Sharapova or goes on to have a big year from out of nowhere like Halep. If this is going to be a normal Daniela season, there will be a lot of good days as well.