shocking results,so many seeds out from 2nd round

What a great relief after that win. That was so important. Now the draw is open. Great chance for Daniela to make a good run.
But I think the next round will be a very tough match.
Hope that the win gives her a bit of confidence. That was a great fight. That is the thing that good players are made of. When you are completely out of form you have to fight. And that is exactly the thing Daniela did.

What can I say but well done Daniela. The first match is always tough especially seeing as the bye to the 2nd round doesn't actually favour the seeded players in terms of gettign used to the courts.

Daniela's courage and fighting spirit is incredible! I hope she can take advantage of the draw now...

On another note, it is now confirmed that Daniela ended her cooperation with Portas and is now working with Hogstedt. She felt that she needed someone more experienced to coach her, because she still has a lot of things to learn. After Miami Daniela will decide whether to continue with him or not. I think she needs a stable coach, so many changes in a short time-span rarely do any good.Well I hate to be critical of Daniela but it strikes me that she was already working with an experienced coach in Angel Gimenez,so why the chopping and changing? The whole situation still puzzles me.

Well I hate to be critical of Daniela but it strikes me that she was already working with an experienced coach in Angel Gimenez,so why the chopping and changing? The whole situation still puzzles me.According to Daniela Gimenez is a great coach but he teaches tennis, which was effective maybe 10 years ago. She felt she needed someone who better understands how much women's tennis has progressed over the last several years and who emphasizes power in tennis (that's how I understand it anyway). I am not sure I agree with her, but that's the way she sees it.

Yeah I certainly don't agree with her. The tennis that Angel taught her was good enough to get her back into the top 10 and winning tournaments again,which many people thought wouldn't happen. It was such a thrill to watch her play with comparitively good footwork and dramatically reduced numbers of UE as well. I felt the Sanchez-Casal boys got a raw deal quite frankly.

Sometimes I feel that Daniela has trouble seeing the forest for the trees. When I heard she was working with Portas,I said "WTF?That guy was playing on the ATP tour until recently! He's way too inexperienced!" Et viola,he's dismissed due to lack of experience. Hell,even Harold Solomon got longer than he did! I feel sorry for the guy.

Womens tennis has progressed over the last few years? It seems to have regressed badly from my point of view,and Justine's abrupt retirement certainly hasn't helped matters.

Good points Martin. I offer the following rejoinders:

1. The players today hardly have more weapons,it's all about ball-bashing. Read Steve Tignor's account of how little practise the women put into their volleying at tennis.com if you don't believe me. Daniela is one of the few players capable of playing an all-court game.

2. However you cut it,the quality of womens game has gone way downhill since 2007. I haven't seen one game this year that was as good as the Hantuchova-Schnyder Linz final,and that wasn't even the best match that those two played that year.

3. The power aspect of Daniela's game is a vexed issue for me,I really don't know where to rank her. The pertinent aspects are these-I think that in 2002 the hard courts and grass were a lot faster(I just rewatched Daniela-Henin at the US Open and was amazed by how much the ball zipped off the court in comparison to today),and Daniela did lose a lot of power due to her off-court problems in 2003. It was the same story after coming back from injury last year. The match with Cornet in Paris showed she can still give it a fair whack.

4. No.1 is a pipedream and Daniela should set more realistic goals. Matt Cronin is of a similar opinion.

5.Sveta is not a good example of a successful move away from the Academy.

6.Nor is Jelena a good example of a sensible approach to tennis fitness.

7. Daniela working with Pat Etcheberry is something I thoroughly approve of. Her previous training team really dropped the ball with regards to her heel problem IMHO.

1. The players today hardly have more weapons,it's all about ball-bashing. Read Steve Tignor's account of how little practise the women put into their volleying at tennis.com if you don't believe me. Daniela is one of the few players capable of playing an all-court game.I believe you, but the thing is that one-dimensional ballbashing is easily the most successful style of play. You don't need to have a perfect all-court game to win big. If you are not Hingis you are more likely to struggle with shot selection since you have many options how to play your game than be a really effective all-court player.

2. However you cut it,the quality of womens game has gone way downhill since 2007. I haven't seen one game this year that was as good as the Hantuchova-Schnyder Linz final,and that wasn't even the best match that those two played that year.That wasn't my point. I was comparing women's tennis in last few years and 8-10 years ago.

3. The power aspect of Daniela's game is a vexed issue for me,I really don't know where to rank her. The pertinent aspects are these-I think that in 2002 the hard courts and grass were a lot faster(I just rewatched Daniela-Henin at the US Open and was amazed by how much the ball zipped off the court in comparison to today),and Daniela did lose a lot of power due to her off-court problems in 2003. It was the same story after coming back from injury last year. The match with Cornet in Paris showed she can still give it a fair whack.But there are many other players who can whack the ball even harder. In 2002 there were only few players who could exploit Daniela's defense, 9 years later you have players like Wickmayer who can do it too and look where they are ranked.

4. No.1 is a pipedream and Daniela should set more realistic goals. Matt Cronin is of a similar opinion.Well, yes. But it's also something that pushes her forward and motivates her. This attitude is perhaps the main reason for Daniela's remarkable work ethics and as such I can't complain about it, rather I will support it.

5.Sveta is not a good example of a successful move away from the Academy.

6.Nor is Jelena a good example of a sensible approach to tennis fitness.I get what you mean, but you can't disregard their recent moves just because Jankovic's old schedule was beyond ridiculous.

Kuznetsova was really going nowhere in 2008. If you feel someone can't help you to solve certain issues you look elsewhere, which she did. Jury still out whether it was a mistake or not.

7. Daniela working with Pat Etcheberry is something I thoroughly approve of. Her previous training team really dropped the ball with regards to her heel problem IMHO.So, you see that not everything was perfect in the academy.