Dates: 17 - 23 August 2015
Venue: Cincinnati, USA
Tier: Premier
Prize Money: $2,400,490
Surface: Hard/Outdoors
Tournament Director: Vince Cicero

Official website: www.wsopen.com


Last Appearance: 2014 1st round. Lost to Ekaterina Makarova 6-2 6-2

Singles:
1R: Kristina Mladenovic (FRA) bt Daniela Hantuchova 6-2 6-1

We'll just see how Daniela does here. Daniela missed the last two weeks ill which really derailed the momentum she'd built during the grass season and we don't know how healthy or fit she is and she was sluggish in Istanbul as well. She'd be the underdog against most of the other players. Getting into the main draw is great but Daniela would be more likely to get wins in qualifying than the main draw but she's in the main draw and you never know what can happen and what Daniela can make happen. The good thing is that she doesn't have any points to defend here so any run will boost her ranking. Hopefully she's rested and refreshed and able to play well.

Daniela's got Mladenovic first round which I don't think we can complain too much about considering the field and the fact Daniela should really be playing qualifiers. Halep awaits in 2nd so Cincinatti will probably be a short visit however you never know with Daniela she can always surprise us all.

Daniela's practising with Karin Knapp on Court 14 at 6pm. Whether that means they're playing doubles together again or they're just practising together we'll find out when the doubles draw comes out. They got on well and were a decent team but Daniela and Sam Stosur were good as well, especially at Roland Garros, so we'll see what Daniela does in doubles, if she plays. It wouldn't shock me if Daniela played with someone else entirely.

Belinda Bencic won in Toronto when, after splitting 2 tiebreaker sets and 2 1/2 hours, Halep withdrew due to heat exhaustion. It will be interesting to see how many days off Cincinnati gives her. If we go by what we always suspect ( ), it will be one if Mladenovic wins, two if Daniela does!

Daniela is on Court 10, first match, shortly after 11AM Cincinnati time. I would've liked to have posted this hours ago, but they didn't release the schedule until a few minutes ago.

It's not looking too good for Daniela at the moment, she's just been broken in her first service game of the second set after having three GPS. 6-2 2-0 to Mladenovic.

3-0, Mladenovic holds to 0. Daniela has to hold next game as she's made no impression on Mladenovic's serve. A double break is too just big a deficit.
4-0, Mladenovic breaks to 0.
5-0, Mladenovic holds to 30. This is going to be one of the greatest ever comebacks for Daniela to win from here.
5-1, Daniela holds from 0-40 winning 5 straight points.
6-1, Mladenovic serves out to 15.

Ouch, that was absolute slaughter today. The serve was a huge difference today as Mladenovic won 76% of her service points ( 75% 1st, 78% second) while Daniela won only 48% of her service points. In the first set Daniela's first serve was really good as she was 9/11 (81%) won but she only got 52% in andshe was 3/10 on her second serve. In the games she held in the first set she got lots of first serves in, but in the games she was broken she didn't get first serves in and her second serve was punished. In the second set she looks like she took a little off the first serve to get more in as she got 79% in but only won 42% while she was 2/5 on second serve, Mladenovic was 8/8 2nd serve points won in the second set.

I wonder if Daniela's still sick because she's only won 5 games in her last two matches and while Tsurenko and Mladenovic are good players, she shouldn't beat Daniela that easily. I relied on the live scores so I don't know if Mladenovic was amazing or Daniela was bad or if it was a combination of the two. The only part of Daniela's game that was good was her first serve in the first set, in everything else Mladenovic was an awful lot better. I hope it was because Mladenovic was incredibly good today.