Dates: 21 -26 September 2015
Venue: Guangxzhou, China
Tier: International
Prize Money: $226,750
Surface: Hard/Outdoors
Tournament Director: Mr Huang Jianting

Official website: www.guangzhouopen.org

First Appearance

Singles:
1R: [5] Svetlana Kuznetsova bt Daniela Hantuchova 6-4 7-5

We'll see how Daniela does here. Hopefully she's fit and healthy and she's had a good time training with Carlos Rodriguez in Beijing so she can come in here feeling good.
I think Daniela will be seeded here which helps a bit as she'll avoid one of the really top players early here. Her performances against Doi and Buyukakcay don't give a lot of cause for optimism as most of the players here are at least as good as them and she's lost to Radwanska and Linette this year so any opponent will be tough. Daniela has to respect whoever she plays but I know that she'll give her best effort and a run here would be fantastic.

Daniela starts with fifth seed Svetlana Kuznetsova which will be tough. Kuznetsova got to the final in Madrid but she hasn't done too much the rest of the time. Her best win since then was beating Pennetta at Eastbourne while she had a losing streak at the start of the year. Her last two wins were against qualifiers outside the top 100 at Wimbledon and Washington. She withdrew from Washington and didn't play again until the US Open where she lost to Mladenovic so she's not in great form. Having said that, she's still a lot better than anyone Daniela's beaten recently so it's a difficult opener for Daniela.

The second round opponent would be either Urszula Radwanska or a qualifier while Jankovic is the seeded quarter-final opponent so Daniela's got a few bete noires to overcome.

Singles draw:
MDS.jpg

Matches have been suspended for hours now as it rains in Guangzhou, and it's in the forecast well into tomorrow. So likely we will have to wait even another day to cheer on Daniela.

Anguishing. Will our gal ever win a singles match again?

She just lost 6-4 7-5

To many UE..there was a little drama with the umpire on the 2nd set

It was a fairly tough opener for Daniela although Kuznetsova's recent form hadn't been great. Daniela gave a reasonable enough performance but she just couldn't hold serve and she only won 45% of the points on her first serve and that's what really hurt her in the match as well as losing 7/11 of the BPS she faced. Her second serve points won was at 41% which is fairly reasonable and she won 5/7 BP chances she had so she has things to build on. This is another tough loss but Daniela gave a decent performance against a good player but not good enough.

Daniela will have to qualify for Wuhan & Beijing which could be a good thing as she won't play against top players and she's a lot more likely to win and putting together some wins will be boost for her. Hopefully Daniela can learn from this and make the necessary adjustments.

I can't complain about Daniela getting a wildcard although it could be like Cincinnati again, but if she plays well then she can put a run together. She'd be more likely to get wins against the players in qualifying than anyone in the main draw but Daniela has to have a good match sometime. She has to sort her serve out because that's been her biggest weakness in her recent matches.