First I'd like to say how strange it feels, not having Monica in the
top ten. Apart from when her ranking went into freefall after the
Stabbing, and a brief dip in February 2000 after five months out
injured, Monica has been in the top ten constantly since 1989. She
doesn't deserve to be outside the top ten, but is being penalised by
the best-of-17-tournaments ranking-system for playing only 14
tournaments in the last 52 weeks due to a recurring foot-injury.
Drusilla^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^HAnastasia Myskina took Monica's Doha title
last week, and with it her #10 ranking.

I believe her Dubai final will put her back in the top ten next week,
though! :-)


Monica put her Doha disappointment behind her to beat Francesca
Schiavone 6-3 6-2 in 64 minutes in her opening match in the second
round on Tuesday. This was a particularly significant victory as
Schiavone had upset Monica at the Hopman Cup 2002.

However, Monica was not at her best against Schiavone, and revealed
that her ankle-injury (from which she had declared herself fully
recovered just before the Qatar Open) was troubling her again.

"I'm not playing my best tennis of my career, so I'm just happy to
win today. I am just trying to do my best. I still feel a little bit
of pain on the ankle."

Monica also had to contend with windy conditions. She admits in her
autobiography that she is not a good wind-player (which is ironic, as
"seles" means "windy" in Hungarian!). I would have thought the wind
would be worse for Schiavone, who is a claycourt player with long
backswings.

"It was difficult to play in these conditions, and it was a tricky
opening match. It was hard to get my timing, which is why it was a
good win."


If Iroda Tulyaganova could only pull out a win against seventh seed
Magdalena Maleeva on Wednesday, she would set up a mouthwatering
first-ever match with Monica!

When I looked for Iroda's result, I found it first on Slovak
Teletext: to my delight, Iroda beat Maleeva 7-6 (7-2) 7-5! This was
confirmed at the Iroda Tulyaganova Yahoo! Group, and when I got home,
on CEEFAX.

ITV Teletext did not share this sunny outcome. Like some nasty
Lynchian character-shift, they had Maleeva beating Iroda 7-6 7-5, and
what made their argument so damb convincing was that they gave an
order of play for Thursday with Monica playing Maleeva in the quarter-
finals!

The joy drained from my heart, like a farmer who counts his chickens
before they hatch. I still thought Iroda had won, but I had to go to
bed with a Sense Of Doubt, and I really like No Doubt! ;-) What if
all the sources who said that Iroda won had copied the result from an
incorrect primary source? It wouldn't be the first time this had
happened to me, all of which have been false wins.

If ITV Teletext had been correct, it would have rankled in my mind
forever if Monica and Iroda had retired without ever playing each
other.

In the morning, however, ITV Teletext had changed their story to
agree with all the other sources. Iroda really /was/ through to a
quarter-final with Monica! :D


It's always a joy for me to have two of my players play each other,
partly because I get off on the idea of them being on court together,
and partly because it's a win/win situation. Monica is my favourite
player of all time, and she deserves all the success she can get
after everything that she's been through in her life. But if she's
going to lose, I'd rather it was to one of my other favourites.

In the event, the Monica v Iroda quarter-final was something of an
anticlimax, with Monica breezing through 6-1 7-5. I was hoping for a
much closer scoreline, but Iroda should have learned a lot from
playing Monica, and I'm grateful for that.

In the first set, Monica hit the ball too hard for Iroda, as is her
wont against any opponent. Above all, though, she was too consistent
for Iroda, and consistency is the biggest difference between Monica
and Iroda at the moment.

The second set must have been really great though. Iroda ran harder,
retrieved more tenaciously, and also took more chances to attack.
Iroda broke for 3-1, but Monica - like all great champions - broke
back immediately. If Iroda could have consolidated her lead, she
might have been able to instil some doubt in Monica's mind.

Iroda moved so well in the second set that she sometimes induced
Monica to go for too much. Not least when Monica served for the match
at 5-4, only to hit a forehand long at deuce, followed by a double-
fault to drop serve for 5-5.

Monica broke Iroda again, and thus served for the match a second time
at 6-5. Iroda put up good resistance in this game, and had two break-
points to force a tiebreak (the second break-point was after a bad
line-call that had Monica furious - which is how I know that it must
have been bad!). But Monica was relentless with her powerful drives.
At match-point, Iroda tried to break up the pulverising pace with a
drop-shot, but put it wide, and hurled her racket at the courtside
bench in frustration.

I didn't get to see this match, but I know Monica and Iroda well
enough to visualise that last game very vividly! :-)

"I got a little bit tight out there and am happy to get it done,"
said Monica.


On Friday, Monica faced a repeat of her Dubai 2002 semi-final against
Amélie Mauresmo, who had beaten her then and gone on to win the title.

In windy conditions, it was Monica who prevailed in the first set.
Mauresmo was broken for 4-2 after three double-faults in six points.
Serving for the first set at 5-3, Monica saved two break-points at 15-
40, producing a brilliantly faded forehand drive winner and then a
bold ace. Monica then sealed the first set 6-3.

In the second set, Mauresmo pulled a muscle in her right thigh, and
had to retire at 2-2. "I aggravated the abductor during the match.
The game before I left the court, I really felt something strong.
There is no point in staying on the court if you can't play. I
couldn't really move the way I like to move."

It's always a sad state of affairs when a player has to retire
injured, and not the way I would like Monica to win, no matter how
much I love or dislike her opponent. But after all the misfortunes
Monica has had to endure, she should not feel too guilty about being
the beneficiary of someone else's bad luck once in a while. After
all, Mauresmo retired of natural causes, not because someone wished
to put a stop to her success.

Monica: "It was so close in the first set, so it was a shame it
finished in that way. I started noticing two points from the end that
she wasn't moving properly. However the good thing is that I didn't
make too many errors in the wind, and that I am looking forward to my
first final here."

sf Photos:
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/030222/161/3bxlt.html
(juicy!)
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/030221/168/3btd2.html


But Saturday was a Black Selebbath as the nightmare of Wimbledon 2002
returned to haunt Monica and she lost to the now top-seeded Justine
Henin-Hardenne in an extremely closely-fought match, 4-6 7-6 (7-4) 7-
5.

Monica was 2-4 down in the first set, but won four games in a row to
take it 6-4.

Monica had championship-point at 6-4 5-4, but Henin-Hardenne levelled
up at 5-5 after three deuces, and took the second set on a tiebreak
with some "great" one-handed backhands.

The third set was a titanic struggle between two players striving for
supremacy. If I may parody J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings,
long Monica fell, and Henin fell with her. Ever Monica hewed her, and
ever Henin clung to her, until finally she threw down her enemy and
her fall broke the mountainside.

In more mundane terms, they traded breaks late in the third set:
Henin-Hardenne double-faulted at 4-4 30/40, but broke back when
Monica served for the title at 5-4. Henin-Hardenne held for 6-5, and
Monica lost when she netted at match-point down.

It's a disappointing loss, not because there's any shame in it, but
because this was Monica's great chance to win another Tier II title,
with no Williams sisters or Lindsay Davenport opposing her. Instead,
it looks as though Henin-Hardenne may have joined that short list of
players who regularly have the upper hand against Monica (see the
Polls section), although it's a bit early to judge that after only
two defeats.

Monica: "I made more errors, and the second set was very emotional."

Henin-Hardenne: "Sometimes my serve was great and other times not so.
I tried to play aggressively and it worked. It was unbelievably hard
for me physically in the second set at match point. But mentally on
the important points I won."

f Photos:
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/030222/170/3c3dp.html
(backhand)
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/030222/168/3c4t0.html
(trophies)
http://www.wtatour.com/assets/story_image/SelesTrophy022203.jpg

Colourful off-court photos:
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/030218/168/3av3v.html
http://www.wtatour.com/assets/story_image/ArabianStars021803.gif
http://www.wtatour.com/assets/story_image/SelesArabian021803.gif
http://www.wtatour.com/assets/story_image/SelesGalleryA021703.gif
http://www.wtatour.com/assets/story_image/SelesGalleryB021703.gif
http://www.wtatour.com/assets/story_image/SelesRoundTable021703.gif

--
Andrew Broad
http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~broada/
http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~broada/tennis/
http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~broada/tennis/seles/
http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~broada/tennis/tulya/

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/irodatulyaganova/