> Hantuchova hires Solomon as coach
>
> Posted December 7 2003
>
> No top-10 women's player took a bigger plunge in 2003 than Daniela
> Hantuchova,

Jelena Dokic (I'm a fan of hers too) took a bigger plunge,
unfortunately (she was #26 at one point), but she has already started
to turn it around (she's now #15). I can only hope Daniela will do
likewise in the New Year.

It's not uncommon for a young player to have a great year, followed
by a "sophomore slump". I know some people think Daniela's problems
are more sinister than that, but now her weight is going in the right
direction, and once she's got over the pressure of expectation, her
mental/emotional state can only improve.


> 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.

Who coaches the coaches? ;-)


> 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,

Agreed. Tall players often don't have the best mobility, but movement
also has a lot to do with attitude. For example, Maria Sharapova and
Venus Williams are even taller than Daniela, but they will run over
broken glass to reach a shot.


> a bigger serve and the ability to play inside the service line.

Is someone criticising Daniela's net-game?


> 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.

Daniela's game /is/ good enough, especially how she played at Indian
Wells 2002, or even against Marion Bartoli at Wimbledon 2003. She
just needs to get back in the right frame of mind.


> 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.

Daniela is not a /product/ of the media, she is a product of Igor
Hantuch and Marianna Hantuchová.

Just how much the media's focus on her weight-loss has contributed to
her mental/emotional problems this year is anybody's guess.


> 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.

Daniela is very ambitious, so it's been especially hard for her to
come to terms with a year like this.


> 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

It will be very interesting to see how 2004 will begin for Daniela,
after the Tears and Sears of 2003.

We can expect a huge drop in the rankings early in the year, because
most of the points propping up her ranking of #19 are from January
and February. But she has to ignore that and concentrate on how she's
playing - play like she has nothing to lose - and then we should see
her on the way up again.

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