Dates: September 22-28 , 2013
Venue: Tokyo, Japan
Tier: Premier
Prize Money: $2,369,000
Surface: Hard/Outdoors
Tournament Director: Toshio Noji

Official Website: www.toray-ppo.co.jp


Last Appearance: 2012 2nd round. Lost to Caroline Wozniacki 7-6 6-1

Singles:
1R: Flavia Pennetta (ITA) bt Daniela Hantuchova 6-3 6-3

Doubles:
1R: [1] Hsieh Su-Wei/Peng Shuai bt Daniela Hantuchova/Lisa Raymond 6-3 6-1

Daniela's got Pennetta in the first round and that will be tough as Pennetta got to the semi-final at the US Open so she'll have a lot of confidence and momentum. The winner of that would play Wozniacki which will be another tough match. If Daniela can get past the first few rounds then she can go deep in this tournament as the seed for the third round would be Flipkens and then Vinci in the quarter-final. I feel that Daniela would be able to beat most of the players in that section but she has two of the toughest in the first couple of rounds.

Daniela is 2-3 lifetime against Pennetta. For some reason this lull in her schedule has felt like it's gone on for months, at least to me. So more than usual, I would be quite unhappy with one and done. Certainly Dani has every chance to win over Flavia, and vice versa. The rest of the draw might be bothersome, but I long since stopped looking at them. Once Daniela wins a match, then I look at who's the next opponent. It causes me less agita!

I see that Dani has gone back to Lisa Raymond for Tokyo doubles. If she and Hingis team up again or if they don't, either way it's OK with me. I sincerely hope that a good friendship doesn't blow up over all this.

2nd on Court 3 singles tomo, i guess no stream...

I think the Daniela Lisa combination is a great doubles team.

Not a good night for me, guys. First Cat Deeley gets snubbed again at the Emmy awards, then this. I was really looking forward to Daniela playing again after her run in New York and picking up some more ranking points, but it's hard to win when the opponent wins 9 straight games. Phooey

Doesn't look like Daniela played too well. Flavia only served at 38%,but Daniela didn't make any dent in her service games after the initial break. Losing 9 games on the trot wasn't very helpful,either.

This is disappointing. Pennetta had a great run at the US Open so she'd be confident but losing 9 games in a row against anyone. I don't know if Pennetta was in the zone during that run of games or if Daniela was playing badly. Pennetta only got 38% of her first serves in, but won 78% of them and 66% of her second serves which shows how strong she was in rallies, she won 80% of her service points in the second set. I'd imagine that she was getting everything back and counterpunching and eventually getting errors from Daniela.
It's a worrying that Daniela's not beaten anyone in the top 50 since Birmingham.

We'll see what happens in the doubles although it's a tough draw so it's hard to be positive although you never know. Apparently Raymond's won a doubles tournament every year since 1993 so this tournament would be a good place to keep that streak going.

Thanks for the livescores, Patti.