Alain's Wimbledon Report
^{By Alain Desmier - July 9, 2000}

On precisely the same day last year (Sunday) I was writing a Competition Review telling the readers of how the young Serbian born Australian had proved to be the hit of the tournament winning fans and beating seeds for fun. There may not have been any seed slaying but the attention and focus on Miss Jelena Dokic has been greater second time around. Jelena arrived at Wimbledon last year amidst scenes of controversy after the antics of her father in Birmingham, however she soon started writing headlines of her own after the straight sets win against Hingis. This time around as with so much of Jelena's year, she wasn't the only Dokic in the spotlight. Over the fortnight Jelena's Father, Damir was to become a well known character as British journalist's splattered pictures and articles about him and his "mobile phone incident" across the back pages of all the national papers. However Jelena unfazed by all the extra media attention simply got on with the job at hand slipping quietly through to the first semi finals of her pro career. So how did she do it? Read on and all will become clear.

Qualifiers at Wimbledon can no longer be underestimated, not even by the number 1 in the world. The wins of Dokic and Stevenson last year showed that there was a lot of talent coming through the qualification ranks and if given a stage it would be unleashed. So Jelena's first match at Wimbledon against Greta Arn, a qualifier herself had to be approached cautiously by Jelena. The rather unglamorous court 6 was to provide the venue and it was not too long before the surrounding area was completely packed out, leaving even the Dokic family without a seat. The match, although tense at the end ended in a resounding win for Jelena 6-1 7-6 (9-7) and ended fears of a repeat performance of the Australian Grandslam. Although little know Arn ranked 171st in the world was not to provide too tough a test for Jelena, just having the peace of mind knowing that she had made it the second round must have been valuable in her preparation for the next game. The match was useful also, to measure the popularity that Jelena has retained during her year away from the courts of SW19. Not just this one but every single match Jelena played in, including mixed and ladies doubles were absolutely packed and if you wanted a seat you would have had to have queued for ages before hand. The British public seemed to have taken Jelena to heart and if she never achieves nothing in her career (Of course she will but just for arguments sake) she will always be loved at Wimbledon. On paper Jelena's second game was to prove three times as hard, or so the ranking suggested. Gala Leon Garcia ranked 47th in the world was Jelena's next opponent. The match largely missed by the press was again, to only last two sets with Jelena never really losing control. There were parts in the 1st set that had the numerous Jelena fans gathered around court 14 worried, including the tie breaker, but the 2nd set was to prove a lot more convincing with Jelena taking the match 7-6 6-1. Many of the surrounding crowd found it hard to believe that this young girl had so convincingly swept away a player ranked only 17 places below her. It was made even harder to believe that this was only Jelena's 2nd Wimbledon competition. In the run up to Wimbledon, the British press were particularly derogatory about Jelena's performances since Wimbledon 1999, calling her a one hit wonder, describing her year since beating Hingis as a failure and also attacking her decision to play in Holland instead of Birmingham or Eastbourne in the run up to Wimbledon. If you ask me wins against players like Kournikova, Testud, Clijsters, Schett and eventual Wimbledon champion Venus Williams, suggest anything but failure. Consistency has been a problem for Jelena, but the fact that she has beaten all these players surely suggest that she is just more than a one off. The British press like the Australian press are an odd bunch. They seemingly build players up to knock them down again. It is just not tennis players that suffer, British football, Rugby, cricket and Athletics all suffer from the press's need to print bad stories. I think however that because of the criticism Jelena is going to become a better player. Already it is clear that she is mentally harder than most players are and does things her way and not how the popular perspective would like her to do it. This hardness has to be credited to headline maker Damir Dokic. He has kept the Dokic family as a single unit and will not let anyone come between them, including coaches. I think he realises the danger of the media spotlight on Jelena and only wants what any parent would want for their daughter, the best! At some date in the future he might be deemed over protective but for now its essential he continues in his role as general manager/coach to stop Jelena turning out like doubles partner Capriati.

In the 3rd game of the millennium championships Jelena was drawn to play American Brie Rippner. Rippner although ranked 126th is no amateur and talking to a few journalists from the states, had she not had to have had two operations on her back they reckon she would have made it to the top 40 by Wimbledon time. Bearing this in mind Jelena still had a lot of work to do and made a return to court number 13 where she beat Studenlikova in the 2nd round last year. Other than Centre and court 1, court 13 is my favourite court. It has a bigger Grandstand than court 18 and is also a lot closer to the actual court than 3 is. To add to that it's away from the main show courts so if you get there soon enough you can often find a seat. Anyway the scene was set for another Dokic victory and the sun tanned Aussie girl didn't disappoint. In a completely dominant match Jelena walked away winner 6-2, 6-1 completely destroying Rippner allowing her to hold serve only 3 times in the whole game. It was all over in 45 minutes and the crowd were even treated to some customary Wimbledon rain which seemed to affect Rippner rather than the ever cool Jelena. Fans from the last Wimbledon will remember that Jelena looked like she was in a great position to beat Stevenson until rain interrupted the match and the pendulum swung the other way. With the 3rd win in a row under her belt Jelena moved into the next round against someone who was quite familiar to her. 6-1 6-0, that was the score between Kristina Brandi and Jelena Dokic when the met in Holland for the Heineken cup, one week before Wimbledon. Brandi's destruction of Jelena meant that the 4th round tie at Wimbledon, would surely be the hardest match so far for Jelena. Court 3 was chosen for this match which would see the victor through to the quarterfinals. Brandi is one of the many players that people predicted big things for and yet hasn't really shone through.

There is no doubt the young American has ability and her ranking of 39th proves that she can occasionally produce good things but the quarterfinals of Wimbledon was to prove a step to far for her as Jelena demolished Kristina 6-1 6-3. The match was one sided from the start, with Jelena breaking and holding serve for a 2-0 lead. From there she didn't look back and soon after Jelena prepared to serve for the match and then headed back to the locker rooms to reflect on another successful game. To say Jelena created some interest around court 3 is a serious understatement, the side stand was simply packed while the standing room bustled with people trying to look over other peoples heads trying to get a glimpse of Dokic. Jelena as calm as ever dispatched Brandi, signed a few autographs and then fought her way through the crowd to reach the safety of the player's lounge and with this win under her belt Magui Serna stood in her way to the semi finals.

Despite the fact that Jelena had her previous Wimbledon record to live up to, she also had ranking points that needed defending. Losing in the first round like at the Australian open or US Open last year would have meant a fall to around 70th in the world which in tennis terms would have been disastrous for Jelena. She wouldn't have had a good enough ranking to play the tier 1 competition's that attract the top players. So in turn she would have missed out on all the sponsorship opportunities, which would have meant a lot less money for Jelena. Even a loss to Serna in the quarterfinals would have meant a drop to 37th, some 8 places below her ranking going into Wimbledon. All of this meant that Jelena must have been under some serious pressure but she never once flinched, not even against Serna who on paper was the toughest player she had to play in the run up to the quarters. What was always going to be entertaining about this match was that, Magui Serna is a very similar player to Jelena. Both of their games revolve around the baseline and both are nervous about coming to the net. The scene was all set for a meteoric battle, so if you had told me before hand that the score would be 6-3 6-2, I would have probably called you a liar or mad. But so it was Jelena saw off the challenge of the Spaniard with relative ease even having time to miss a few set points before finally finishing off the 1st set and then romping home in the 2nd. The real key to this victory was Jelena's mobility around the court compared to the obvious struggle that Serna was having reaching Jelena's winners. With the match won, Jelena fans worldwide began to dream of a Grandslam win, but Jelena was a lot more pragmatic knowing exactly the vastness of the task ahead. The Serna match was vital for two reasons. It saw the development of a new found consistency in Jelena's game that has been missing for a long time now. It also proved to people that Jelena's success at Wimbledon 1999 was no fluke and that this year she had gone even further. The Davenport game would decide just how far Jelena would go. She is called the tower of power, and justifiably so, as the Californian born Lindsey Davenport hits the ball with such venom you end up feeling quite sorry for the small yellow Slazenger sphere's that take such a battering whenever she is around. They can't be that happy when they see Jelena coming either! However, whatever the tennis balls were feeling Jelena must have been more nervous. Although she never showed it, how could you not be nervous walking out onto Wimbledon's centre court to play the current Wimbledon champion in a Wimbledon Semi Final? Jelena however, did have time to have a quick laugh before the match curtseying in the wrong place. The match unfortunately was to prove not a laughing matter for Jelena as she went down 6-4 6-2. It could have been so different though, with Jelena holding then breaking Lindsey's serve to have a 2-0 lead in the first set! Only to be broken straight back and then not winning for the next two games. Hope didn't completely die though as Jelena fought back and squared the match at 4-4. Experience shone through though and very soon the players were walking back to their chairs for the 2mins allowed for the set break time, with Lindsey happy in the knowledge she was controlling the match. Jelena seemed to give in for the second set, and never really recovered from losing her serve early on and with 52 minutes gone, the match ended earning Lindsey another chance to win Wimbledon. Its hard to criticise Jelena for her failures during the match because Davenport despite her loss to Venus in the final is the arguably the best player on the circuit, and although Jelena had that brief match with Hingis I don't think she's ready for that level yet. All in all it was textbook stuff from Davenport and Dokic rarely could close to even troubling her. With the match over and crowd applauding, Jelena made her way from the Centre court and back to her hotel in Putney. The Wimbledon dream is over for another year but it has advanced along way since 1999.

So in reflection this has been a fantastic Wimbledon for Jelena Dokic, more so than last years. As a player she has come along way and unlike Stevenson and Lucic, the other hot shots last year, Jelena has proved that she was no fluke. After their match Lindsey Davenport said "She's definitely a very, very talented player. She obviously does well on grass. I don't think we saw her best tennis today. We'll see what happens the next few years." The key thing for Jelena to continue to improve is to get more variety in her game. Jelena's forehand and penetrating baseline shots are fine, and that is what holds her up at the moment, her serve must be worked on and her confidence in and around the net is vital to her continuation of success. If you look at the top players, both Williams', Hingis, Davenport, Seles and so on they all have complete games and there aren't that many weak spots that you can target in them. With Jelena there are a few gaping holes that need to be filled and once these are dealt with Davenport and co should watch out because she will be going a lot further than the semi finals.

I've watched Jelena play for a year and a half now and this is by far the best tennis she's played. Keep it up Jelena we are all proud of you!

Alain Desmier
adesmier@hotmail.com

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