Daniela had 2 break downs, one at first set ( 4-1 ahead )
and one at the second set ( 5-1 ahead !! )
At the second set, there was a 10 min time out - an injury perhaps ?
Anyway, i hope this defeat will not affect Daniela's rank
for the US Open.

Well, let's call it a strategic tank to avoid Serena in R2. At least Daniela can have some rest now.

I was a little concerned that Daniela might have a letdown after her exertions of the past few weeks, especially after all the tough matches she won last week and that seems to be what happened. The manner of the loss is disappointing as she had good leads in both sets and ended up losing them both after tiebreaks which had been such a strength for her this year.

Federer blew a 5-1 lead to lose the Tsonga match on a tiebreak, Tiger Woods blew a final round lead at the PGA and Yelena Isinbayeva didn't record a clearance in the pole vault at the World Championship. Shit happens and Daniela had a bad day or Shvedova had a good one. Hopefully Daniela can have a good run in the doubles and maintain her momentum. I'm disappointed about this because this is a match Daniela should have won but she's had a lot of wins recently and this is just one match after she's had a lot of good matches. She's got a good coach in Passos and she can take the time to prepare for the US Open and Daniela's due a run there.

As always,Daniela's scheduling is completely daft.

And I've long accepted that her mental frailties are a weakness that will endlessly re-occur.

If you ask me,4 tournaments on the trot in the stifling American summer heat is simply asking for trouble. Even the likes of Federer and Nadal don't put that much strain on their bodies.

As for the US Open,my hunch is Daniela simply doesn't like playing in New York. She has had one good run there in her entire career.

This schedule isn't any more gruelling than the schedule Daniela's had in previous years, if anything it's probably the lightest one she's had in terms of tournaments and travelling. In 2005, she played Cincinnati, Stanford, San Diego, LA, Toronto and New Haven then the US Open. In 2006, it was Stanford, San Diego, LA, Montreal, New Haven then the US Open. In 2007, she played the three Californian tournaments then New Haven before the US Open and in 2008 she played Stanford and LA before the Olympics in Beijing before she played New haven and the US Open. Daniela's always played at least four hardcourt tournaments between Wimbledon and the US Open and often a lot more. She had four weeks off between the Wimbledon 4th round and Stanford 1st round, she plays four tournaments and then has week off before the US Open. She spent a couple of weeks training in Florida between Wimbledon and Stanford to prepare for the hardcourt season and until this week, Daniela had had good results while she gives herself a week to prepare for the US Open, which she hadn't done in previous years.
Guga Kuerten normally took the week off before a slam, so I think this schedule, or at least skipping New Haven, owes a bit to Passos.

Sometimes Daniela's just had bad luck at the US Open, other times she lost to a better player on the day. She got to the third round in 2003 when she was going through terrible troubles; in 2004 she had a great win against Molik before having an agonising loss to Schnyder when Schnyder saved a match point with a freakish mishit before winning a third set tiebreak; in 2005 Daniela lost to Venus in the third round and in 2006 she got drawn against Serena early on and Daniela played a lot better against Serena than Ivanovic did in the next round. Daniela played badly and looked jaded against Vakulenko in 2007 although Vakulenko did play fairly well while Groenefeld was inspired last year. I'd say from 03 to 06, Daniela did as well as she could have reasonably been expected to do and with a bit more luck would have done better, but the last couple of years, especially 2007 although maybe not 2008, I feel Daniela should have done better. We'll see how she does at this year's US Open, she's due a bit of luck and a run and hopefully training the week before works better for her than playing has done.

Daniela has reduced the hardcourt tournaments she's played over the years and until Toronto she'd done well in the tournaments she'd entered. This is one bad tournament after a lot of good ones and Daniela will take next week off to rest and prepare. Between Wimbledon and the US Open Daniela will have played for four weeks with five weeks off and in previous years she'd spent more weeks playing then weeks off in that period. I think Daniela likes to play and she gets rhythm and timing from playing, it's finding the balance. I think we both agree that the US Open is the test of the schedule and hopefully she gets a decent draw although Shazza and Clijsters are around.

Pretty all the top women play at either Eastbourne or Rosmalen to get grass practice the week before Wimbledon and Daniela skipped Birmingham where she'd played in previous years. Daniela only played one grass tournament before Wimbledon, instead of the two she'd often played in the past, so she had a week off between Roland Garros and Wimbledon and she got to the fourth round at Wimbledon.

Warsaw's a tournament that you could argue either way about. The pros are she had a decent run and picked up good points, she hadn't played too many red clay matches prior to Warsaw and Razzano was a tough first round opponent that Daniela might not have beaten anyway; the anti is that she tired herself out before Roland Garros, Razzano had a very average record at Roland Garros and if Daniela had been fresher she'd have had a good chance of winning and going on a run which would have got her a lot of points. She's not repeating that at New Haven.