Miami has been a good tournament for Jelena over the years. She reached the quarter-finals in 2001 and 2003... and reached the fourth round this time round.


Jelena was due to play Nicole Pratt in the second round on Saturday - a good draw for her as Pratt was the only player she had beaten in her four previous tournaments (0-6 6-3 6-4 in the first round of Doha). Unfortunately Pratt had to withdraw before the match with a stomach-strain, so Jelena advanced to the third round with effectively two byes.

The media called it a "boost" for which the struggling Jelena should be "grateful", but it would have been much more of a boost if Jelena could have beaten Pratt on court. It's always a sad state of affairs when a tennis-match is decided by injury - not only for the loser, but also for the winner.


But Jelena made up for it with a 7-5 6-4 win over Kristina Brandi in the third round on Sunday. If Jelena had lost, it would have been no better than losing in the first round (in terms of ranking-points - not prize-money), so beating Brandi to advance to the fourth round was, in this sense, worth three victories.

Brandi is a strong baseliner with a good backhand down the line, who took a set off Monica Seles at Wimbledon 1997. Monica had to work unusually hard to break down Brandi's game those two days - I'm surprised we haven't heard more of Brandi over the years.

The first set of Jelena v Brandi was an ugly set of break and counterbreak, which Jelena won 7-5.

Serving first in the second set, Jelena went 2-0 up, but was broken back, and again for 2-3. The break-counterbreak pattern continued, Jelena trailing 3-4 with a break, then 4-4.

Jelena held to 15, leaving Brandi serving to stay in the match at 4-5. Jelena missed two match-points at 15/40, but was third-time lucky after the second deuce to win 7-5 6-4.

However, Jelena's match-statistics were far from impressive, with 52 unforced errors, 10 double-faults, 54% of first serves in, and only 32% of points won when she had to use her second serve (68% on first serve). On the positive side, she hit 36 winners (Brandi made 9 winners and 21 UEs), and won 8 of 12 points at the net.


This set up an intriguing fourth-round match against Elena Dementieva. Back in 2000, Dementieva appeared to be Jelena's nemesis, beating her in the first round of New Haven, and more significantly in the semi-finals of the Sydney Olympics.

But Jelena had beaten Dementieva five times in a row after 2000, including in the final of Moscow 2001, as Dementieva struggled to fulfil her early promise. But Dementieva has enjoyed a resurgence in the last year, and is now the world #8. It was going to be a tough match for Jelena.

The match started at 17:15 EST on Monday, just as Maria Sharapova's match against Serena Williams finished. I didn't have time to follow live scores for both matches (17:15 EST = 23:15 BST), so I came back at 19:15 EST, expecting the match to be over, but the score showed Dementieva serving at 5-7 6-1 5-1 with Advantage Dementieva!

Jelena saved that match-point, and two points later had broken back for 2-5. She recovered from 15/30 on her own serve, winning three points in a row to hold for 3-5. Perhaps the painful memory of the last time I followed live scores for Jelena - against Mary Pierce at the US Open 2003, when Jelena managed to lose from 5-1 up in the third - was about to be reversed.

Sadly it was not to be, as Dementieva held to 15 to seal a 5-7 6-1 6-3 victory at 19:22 EST. But wait, I'm getting ahead of myself! Let me take you back to when it all began...


Records of the first-set scores are patchy to say the least, but it appears that Dementieva was serving badly; Jelena struggled to hold her own, but won the set 7-5 by breaking Dementieva in the last game (courtesy of a double-fault on set-point).

Jelena didn't hold serve once in the second set, which she lost 6-1 - the only game she won was when she broke Dementieva's serve in the second game. Apparently Dementieva sorted out her own serve, and attacked Jelena's serve well.

Jelena also won the second game of the third set - this time on her own serve. She wasted several break-points and game-points on her way to the 1-5 deficit, before adding a modicum of respectability to the scoreline of the last two sets, as described above.

Again, Jelena's second serve let her down, with eight double-faults (only one of which was in the first set), and winning only 30% of second-serve points (62% of first serves in, winning 57% of first-serve points). Dementieva made a monstrous eleven double-faults, seven of them in the first set.

It was a bad day in terms of Jelena taking her opportunities, as she broke six times from 19 break-points (32%), whereas Dementieva broke nine times from 14 break-points (64%). But clearly Jelena needs to work on the reliability of her second serve.


Photos:
http://dinarasafina.proboards20.com/index.c....0524487
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm....3292319
http://www.wtatour.com/photogallery/
http://www.wtaworld.com/showthread.php?t=99022

Sources:
http://www.jelena-dokic.com/board/ (records of live score-updates)
http://www.nasdaq-100open.com/ (match-statistics)

--
Dr. Andrew Broad
http://www.geocities.com/andrewbroad/
http://www.geocities.com/andrewbroad/tennis/
http://www.geocities.com/andrewbroad/tennis/dokic/

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Jelena...ers_Lounge_II/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/jeldani/