there are only 5 days left to start this season. I am curious about Daniela´s form and about everything in her career. I believe in much better season than 2009. Something like 2007 would be great.

While definitely one of the characters of the men's tour, Baghdatis teamed up with one of the stalwarts of the women's in Daniela Hantuchova yesterday to play a charity doubles match with Australians Casey Dellacqua, Scott Draper and rising Queensland academy stars, Ashleigh Barty and Travis Boon.

The money raised went to the Kim Walters foundation for research into breast and ovarian cancer. The former wife of Brisbane NRL star Kevin Walters died of breast cancer at the age of 30.

It is hard to believe the svelte Hantuchova is about to embark on her 12th year on the WTA tour at the age of 26. She is ranked No 24 and for the past six years has not been outside the top 30. But she has set a goal for 2010 to get back inside the top 10, where she finished in 2007.

Helping her in that quest is former Andre Agassi and Lleyton Hewitt coach, Darren Cahill.

And it's not just her serve and return, renowned Cahill traits, she has been concentrating on.

"I've been working on everything with him. He's been fantastic and what a privilege to be able to work with him on the court," Hantuchova said yesterday.

"I can't say enough how thankful I am for that opportunity. There's so many things he can add to my game and his experiences are just fantastic.

"I'm really enjoying every day practising with him."

As fourth seed, Hantuchova fell in the first round in Brisbane last year, the second round in Sydney and the third in Melbourne.

"We'll see what happens this year," she said.

"My preparation's been great. I've worked really hard and I'm injury free. I'm a completely different player. I really know what I want to do on the court and I'm really going for it."

Good draw to start the year with:

[1] Clijsters vs. Garbin
Molik vs. Makarova
Safarova vs. Groenefeld
Q vs. [6] Wozniak

[4] Hantuchova vs. Q
Peng vs. Szavay
Bammer vs. King
Petkovic vs. [8] Benesova

[5] Kleybanova vs. Pavlyuchenkova
Errani vs. Vinci
Bacsinszky vs. Q
Dokic vs. [3] Ivanovic

[7] Czink vs. Hradecka
Govortsova vs. Zahalvova Strycova
Dellacqua vs. Q
Henin vs. [2] Petrova

Tough break for Nadia.

Well the draw is not too bad, altough you never know with Danka. A qualifier has already won some matches and she was in trouble against Szavay and Bammer in the past. Peng, King and Benesova shouldn't be big threats. If she plays well, she'll reach the SF which would be awesome (especially against Kimmy).

It's a pretty good draw and Daniela should be able to go on a good run here. The qualifier will have some matches under her belt and could be tricky but Daniela should win easily enough and she should be able to beat the other players in her quarter. I always go by the mantra of one match at a time and Daniela could have an off-day or face an inspired opponent but I feel confident she'll do well here. She can pick up a lot of confidence and momentum from this tournament for the Australian Open.

The thing about the draw is that it was Petrova that did it:

Will there be any streams for that ? Any info about schedule of play?

Im so happy, hope Dani will succeed!

edit: Ive just found out Dani will be playing on Monday

The thing about the draw is that it was Petrova that did it

i wonder if that was the moment she realized how tricky her first round is gonna be..


huuuuuuuu, I'm so exited to see Dani and Henin playing again