Hantuchova hires Solomon as coach

Posted December 7 2003

No top-10 women's player took a bigger plunge in 2003 than Daniela
Hantuchova, the underweight (but, no, hardly anorexic) Slovakian who
once was tipped as a legitimate challenger to the Williams sisters.

She fell from No. 8 to No. 19, had a losing record following her
deflating second-round loss at the French Open. After three more
months of undistinguished play, there was the predictable change of
coaches.

Out: Nigel Sears, the respected Englishman that had trained her for
three years.

In: Harold Solomon of Fort Lauderdale, who has been coach-less since
Anna Kournikova went into ad hoc retirement earlier this season.

Hantuchova, 21, is tall, ultra-slender and has a couple of essential
weapons with powerful, consistently deep strokes off both sides from
the baseline.

But she needs more ... much more. She needs better quickness, a
bigger serve and the ability to play inside the service line. You
can't stand still in women's tennis today, and what beat Justine
Henin-Hardenne and Martina Hingis on the way to winning Indian Wells
in 2002 is no longer good enough.

Hantuchova is another product of an overzealous media which has the
bad habit of focusing far too much on a female player's appearance
and not nearly enough on her game.

When her agency's publicity machine got rolling after Indian Wells,
she was touted as glamour competition for Kournikova, "and she's won
a tournament."

She finished out 2002 at No. 8 and reached the quarters at the
Australian Open in January, losing to Venus Williams. Everything
looked still on schedule. Then the slide began, slowly at first. She
went out in the quarters defending her Indian Wells title and, two
weeks later, in the first round at Key Biscayne to Alicia Molik.

But it was her loss to Ashley Harkleroad in the second round at the
French that put her in full retreat. By this time, reporters were
weekly calling attention to her weight. Some called her anorexic,
which seemed ridiculous. She had never retired from a match and had a
better than average record in three-set matches.

Defending herself in press conferences, she said she was perfectly
healthy. But she was, perhaps, privately angry at the route her
career was taking -- both on and off the court. She won only eight of
19 matches after the Harkleroad defeat.

And so, with Solomon, there is a new beginning. She can add weight,
Solomon said. But he didn't seem overly concerned about her thinness.
There's a lot more to concentrate on with Hantuchova's game.


http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/sfl-tencol07dec07,0,482896.story