Daniela lost 6-2 6-2 to Lindsay `Pug-Dog' Davenport in 52 minutes -
as many games as when she lost to Davenport 6-3 6-1 in the Hopman
Cup final. :-(

Losing 2 & 2 to Davenport certainly has to be better than losing 2 &
2 to Lina Krasnomodemroutskaya as Daniela did in Sydney, and at
least she didn't get worse in the second set! ;-)

Davenport was firing on all cylinders, apparently: "I was really
trying to stay positive and trying to get a lot of good balls back
if I could, still go for my shots, so I felt so happy with the way I
was able to perform today. I felt like I did all of the goals I've
set up for this match. It's probably the best match I've played this
year so far."

Daniela: "Definitely she played a great match. She's been playing
great on this [fast] surface, she won here three times, so it's
really hard to play against her here. I felt like anytime I had a
chance today, she was just too good, especially she was serving very
well and returning very well, so it was tough to do something
against her today."

This is the downside of Daniela having beaten Maria Sharapova in the
second round (though not from everyone's perspective I suppose).
Maria has been a great big-match player in the last couple of
months, would have got many more games off Davenport than Daniela
did, and it would have been a more valuable experience for Maria
than for Daniela.

But there are a lot of positives Daniela can take from this
tournament, which was more like 2002 than 2003 for her. Losing close
matches that she should have won was what upset Daniela so
particularly last year, and this tournament was certainly much
better for her in that regard.

One swallow doesn't make a summer, but I feel strongly that this
tournament could prove to have been the turning-point in Daniela's
recovery from the demons of 2003.


Photo: http://makeashorterlink.com/?G5C054357
(Should this link not work, try http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?
tmpl=story&u=/040206/ids_photos_sp/r3315235674.jpg - Yahoo! will cut
up this URL, so you'll have to stick it back together.)

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