Dates: 3 - 9 January 2016
Venue: Brisbane, Australia
Tier: Premier
Prize Money: $885,500
Surface: Hard/Outdoors
Tournament Director: Cameron Pearson

Official website: www.brisbaneinternational.com.au


Last Appearance: 2014 1st round. Lost to Ashleigh Barty 6-3 7-5

Singles:
Q 1R: Ysaline Bonaventure (BEL) bt [3] Daniela Hantuchova 1-6 6-4 2-6

Daniela's the third match on Show Court 2, play starts at 10 am.

Oh my, really not the best way to start the new year. It's unlikely that Daniela will get an easier match than this and she lost it so it's very hard to feel optimistic about the future. The worst thing about this is that I'm not that shocked or upset as this isn't that much of a surprise any more. Daniela was actually 4-1 down in the second set so it could actually have been worse. Daniela seems to have played badly as she served nine double faults against just two aces, she won just 11/31 second serve points and she was just 3/10 on Bps saved compared to 5/8 saved by Bonaventure.

I guess she can still play doubles and salvage something from the tournament because this is a big body blow and I don't really know how many more she can take. Daniela loves playing and competing but when she loses like this to players she'd have absolutely thrashed in her prime then it has to make her question how much longer she can go on. At the same time she is one of the oldest players on the tour and she's still playing when so many of her peers have retired.

Here in New York the match ended before the ball dropped in Times Square. So I shall consider this the fitting ending to the horrifying second half of 2015.

Alex, I consider this one of your most clever posts and more so, I hope you are correct.

Daniela's not in the doubles and she's not on the direct entry list for Sydney or Hobart so she's either going to have to qualify again or get a wildcard.

Bonaventure lost in the final round of qualifying to Vesnina 7-5 7-5 and Vesnina's been playing poorly for a long time. If Daniela loses to someone bad, it feels a wee bit better if that player goes on a run or beats someone good but it wasn't the case here. Barty had a similar ranking to Bonaventure when she beat Daniela here two years ago.

Dani was listed on today's Sydney practice schedule from 11:30-noon Australia time.