Dates: 21 - 27 February 2016
Venue: Doha, Qatar
Tier: Premier
Prize Money: $2,517, 250
Surface: Hard/Outdoors
Tournament Director: Saad Al Mohannadi

Official website: www.qatartennis.org

Last Appearance: 2014 1st round. Lost to Ana Ivanovic 7-5 1-0 retired

Singles:
Q 1R: [5] Anastasija Sevastova (LAT) bt Daniela Hantuchova 6-4 6-2

Doubles:
1R: Margarita Gasparyan/Monica Niculescu bt Daniela Hantuchova/Ekaterina Makarova 4-6 7-5 10-3

Daniela's the second match on Court 1, play starts at 2pm.

This sucks. Normally Daniela's still involved in a tournament two and a half hours after the tournament thread is started. Mayfly's last longer. Daniela was 40-0 up at 4-5 in the first set but couldn't break and ended up losing the set. Daniela used to be great at fighting back from a set down and winning in three but now if she doesn't win the first set then she'll lose in straight sets. I'm sure her desire is strong but she just doesn't have any reserves to call upon. Daniela was 1/5 on BPs in the first set while Sevastova won both of hers and then she was 16/18 service points won in the second set.

Daniela's never been the same player since she played Dubai the day after Pattaya last year, beating Barthel that day really has been the ultimate pyrrhic victory. She should have rested but she just wrecked herself.

We'll just see what Daniela can do in doubles if she decides to play. She'll keep going because she loves playing tennis but she can't love losing to players that she'd have beaten easily just a year or so ago. The worst thing is is that I'm not that shocked about this because there have been so many results like this over the past year so I'm used to it. A couple of years ago I'd have been upset for a couple of days at a result like this but now I'm just shrugging my shoulders and I'm philosophical about this. I don't know what this must be like for Daniela because every loss puts her further and further away from the Olympics.

It's very very sad but I guess Daniela needs to go play some ITFS...if she's not willing to do that then it's time to leave the sport...

Whoa, good news for a change. A 10th career doubles title would be sweet.

Due to long matches on Court 2, Daniela's match was switched to Court 6 and is underway, with Dani and Makarova up a break at 4-2.
Breaking three times, including on a deciding point on set point, Daniela and Ekaterina won the first set, 6-4.
Down 1-3 in the 2nd, Dani/Makarova get the break back and it's 3 all.
Now 5 all, as Daniela & Ekaterina break at 4-5.
Broken to 5-6, missed on deciding/set point, losing set 5-7. On to the ten point tiebreaker.
1-0, 2-0, then suddenly 2-4.
2-5, 2-6, 2-7
2-8, 2-9, 3-9.
3-10. The misery and endless wo continues.

Ach, this sucks. Daniela and Makarova were up a set and were 3-3 and 5-5 in the second set but lost it and they were 2-0 up in the supertiebreak but lost nine points in the row to effectively lose the match. This is disappointing because this was a winnable match but Daniela & Makarova couldn't keep their lead. I was hoping that this would work and they could put a run together as this is the second tournament where Daniela's had a really good doubles partner but lost a winnable match and that's going to make it harder for her to get a good partner in the future.

Oh well, on to Kuala Lumpur, hopefully that can become the new Pattaya.