Back from Melbourne and have managed to sort and post a few pics I
took of Daniela's matches last week. They are in the
Daniela@Aust-Open-2005 album in the other Daniela group -
danielahantuchova as the albums in this group are full.

After watching about a set and a half (all that Ch7 Australia could
manage to show) of the 3rd rnd match against Dementieva I noticed that
Daniela was putting more on her serve than she has for a while. I've
dug up a few old stats and they confirm Nigel Sears comment that she
had lost 10 mph on her serve when she had loss weight in 2003. Now
her service power has returned or else that Yonex prototype she's
using has a lot of pop.

Service Speeds: 1st, 2nd, and Fastest

French Open 2003 2nd Rnd v Harkleroad avg 143, 2nd 117, max 167

Wimbledon 2003 2nd Rnd v Asagoe avg 148.12, 127.19 max 161

Wimbledon 2004 3rd Rnd v Sharapova avg 167.44, 2nd 152.95*, max 176

Aust Open 2005 Rnd 1 v Morigami - 164, 2nd 127, max 173
Aust Open 2005 Rnd 2 v Schett - 162, 2nd 135, max 173
Aust Open 2005 Rnd 3 v Dementieva - 165, 2nd 128, max 175

*I'd question this one, although they had Sharapova avg 96 mph (154.56
km/h) on the 2nd serve too. I remember back in the early 90s big
serving 6'4" Michael Stich averaged 93 mph (149.73 km/h) on the 2nd
serve at Wimbledon '91 and Sampras averaged 97 mph (156.17 km/h) at
Wimbledon '93. Then again with today's racquets everybody is serving
faster.

Just saw Daniela & Martina on TV losing 6-3, 6-0 to Molik-Kuznetsova.
Although Martina still has the best volleying hands her serve was too
weak. They lost Daniela's serve in the 1st game of the 2nd set with a
really bad missed call. Thereafter Molik-Kuznetsova were too
consistently powerful on serve and return.


Mandrake