Not playing Pattaya? I wonder what her goals are this year given her circumstances right now.

If Sveta(a 2-time Slam winner)is prepared to do the hard graft and play qualifiers,then Daniela has no excuses.

Dani loves playing at Carlsbad,and I'm sure she'd turn up,even just to play doubles. Treat yourself,Alex.

It's difficult to know what Daniela's plans are. I think she was anticipating doing better in Australia and resting for Fed Cup and that's why she hadn't committed to Pattaya. That could change and I'm sure she'd get a wildcard if she wanted. She could want to save herself for the Fed Cup or she could feel that she needs to rest and recover and pace herself through the season as she's been hampered by injury already this year and needs longer to get over injuries. The season is long and it's important that she is healthy enough to play well through the entire season. She hardly has any points to defend after February so if she's fit and is able to play well and get wins then she'll be picking up points, a good run somewhere, anywhere really will give her a big boost. It's the points she losing at the moment that are the worry and it'll be sad to see Daniela give up Pattaya without a fight.

Daniela's ranking should be good enough to get her into the Middle Eastern tournaments but unless she does really well there she's not going to be seeded for Indian Wells or Miami, although it's been a while since she's won in Indian Wells so maybe starting in the first round could help her there.

Daniela will be competing for wild cards with other players like Kuznetsova, Zvonareva and Pennetta who've slid down the rankings lately and chances are she'd have to qualify for a lot of Premiers although she'd probably get into Internationals. It's weird that both her wins this year have been against top 50 players, one was against a top 10er, but she's lost to two players outside the top 100 and the no 81 and they were all players she'd always beaten in the past. Daniela's very resilient but losing on outside courts to lousy players will hurt her.

One thing is that Daniela's always worked hard and been very dedicated. You just look at the sacrifices she's made and how much she's pushed herself over the years, she'll do everything she can to turn things around.

Kimiko Date-Krumm gave Nadia Petrova a complete thrashing 6-2 6-0, so it shows that Daniela can still have a few years left and/or that anyone can have an off day.

It's good to hear that your wife is getting better, Alex, it would be great if you could both go and see Daniela win some matches.

Chan was pretty competitive against Ivanovic and won a set 6-1 and she won more games and points, not that it does Daniela any good but it maybe puts her result into a bit of perspective. Tsurenko beat Pavlyuchenkova here so it's not like Daniela's lost to players that have done absolutely nothing, they've at least had good performances afterwards.

Dominika lost to Valeria Savinykh, a Russian qualifier, so Jana Cepelova is the last Slovak in singles.

Daniela's doubles match is on Margaret Court so it'll be televised and there should be a stream. Hopefully Daniela can put in a good run in the doubles and salvage something from this tournament and if she plays mixed it would be great to have a run there. The must important thing is that she gets out of the tournament healthy, she's able to heal and recover and she can be able to play well the rest of the year.

Anyone else watching the Australian Open matches think that the standard of tennis is amazing this year? Not just the men, but the women are seriously hitting so hard, and those that are more finesse players just haven't a chance..

No I didn't but the ball is so fast and hard! I just don't think Daniela can deal with the pace atm...such a shame her match wasn't on a show court..court 19 looks so ugly too...almost not in the complex!