Dates: 17 - 25 September 2016
Venue: Tokyo, Japan
Tier: Premier
Prize Money: $1,000,000
Surface: Hard/Outdoors
Tournament Director: Kentaro Miyamoto

Official website: www.toray-ppo.com

Last Appearance: 2014 1st round. Lost to Jarmila Gajdosova 6-2 5-7 7-5

Singles:
Q1R: Daniela Hantuchova bt [WC] Yuki Naito (JPN) 6-1 6-2
Q2R: [8] Aleksandra Krunic (SRB) bt Daniela Hantuchova 6-3 6-1

Daniela's in qualifying for the Toray Pan Pacific Open in Tokyo. She starts against Japanese wildcard Yuki Naito. Naito's a fifteen year old junior who was a month old when Daniela first won Indian Wells. She's mostly played juniors and she got to the 3rd round of the US Open juniors. It's match that Daniela should win but any opponent has to be respected. Daniela would either have a rematch with Erika Sema or play Aleksandra Krunic in the next round but she has to get past Naito first.

Thanks for the info on Yuki, Chungwit. Daniela must have respected her, because she pulverized her! 6-1 6-2 in 53 minutes. This is the most lopsided match she's won probably all year. Some of the stats are really whacko. Dani won 52 of the 76 points played in spite of only getting
53% of her first serves in. (It was 47% in the first set, yet she won 24 of 32 points, including 10 straight as she raced to a 5-0 lead.) She took 18-20 on first serve, and 12-18 on 2nd serve, with two of the points lost on her 2 DF's. There was one brief Maalox moment when Dani dropped serve for the only time at 4-1 in the second, then was down 40-15 in the next game, but was able to win the next 4 points for a break. She served the match out with aplomb.
I would have loved to see our gal get another crack at Sena. But that's not happening. She was Krushed by Krunic by the same score Daniela won by.

A good win although it is a win that Daniela should get. Daniela raced to a 5-0 lead in the first set and won that really easily. The second was a bit tougher as Daniela came from 40-0 down to break Naito in the first game and get to a 4-1 lead with a double break. Naito threatened to make a contest of the match when she broke Daniela and was 40-15 up to get the match back to 4-3 but Daniela won the next four points to get the break and a 5-2 lead and she was able to serve the match out to 15. Daniela should still have been able to win from 4-3 in the second but 5-2 double break lead is a lot better and she won the match from there.

Krunic will be much tougher but Daniela had a fairly easy win which shouldn't have taken too much out of her.

Daniela lost to Krunic 6-3 6-1. It looks like a hammering but the difference was break point convertion, Daniela had 9 BPs but only won one while Krunic won 5/6. Another big difference was second serve points as Daniela was 3/21 while Krunic was 14/25.

Daniela was broken in the first game of the match and the first set was on serve until the seventh game when Daniela lost 3 GPs to get broken on Krunic's 2nd BP. She was able to break back - the only time she broke in the match - but she was broken in the next game to lose the set. The first game of the second set was probably the decisive game as Daniela had 3 BPs but couldn't break and a break there could have shifted the momentum of the match but Krunic held and broke Daniela in the next game. Daniela also had 2 BPs in Krunic's next service game but Krunic held and also had a BP in Krunic's 3rd service game. It could have been 4-1 to Daniela but she was 1-4 down instead. Daniela got broken from 40-30 in the next game before Krunic served the match out. Daniela had GP in 5/7 games in the second set but lost it 6-1.

It seems like a match where Krunic got every break (in both senses) while nothing went right for Daniela. The second serve was the difference as that allowed Krunic to hold while Daniela's 2nd serve was so ineffective.

It's a shame, Daniela plays her best tennis at Tokyo and she shouldn't be exhausted. But maybe she is. Anyways Hawaii sounds a good place to win another few matches.