As we all know, if I awaken at 3:30AM to check the score, it's a lot nicer if it's a winner! Actually caught it 4-2 in the second facing a deciding point on serve. Drop that one and it could have been a different story, but Daniela and Raymond won the point, then at 5-3 served it out at love. Encouraging.

No-one enjoys going out in the first round all the time eddy-you do not fire your coach if you're satisfied with the way things are going.

Anyway,I hope she finishes strongly in Linz and Moscow.

Another good win in the doubles. Daniela's won more matches with Lisa Raymond as her partner than she did with Martina Hingis and in fewer tournaments. I think Daniela & Raymond can be a good team, especially as Raymond is a solid veteran whose focus is on doubles, so hopefully this partnership can continue. This is also the second time that Daniela's beaten Medina Garrigues in doubles since their partnership split up. Next up is Dushevina and Parra Santonja which is another winnable match.

Li Na gave Jovanovski a total beasting in the second round, losing just ONE game, so it does give a bit of perspective to Daniela's result.

That was a neat win for Daniela/Lisa, particularly considering the skewering Lisicki gave to Venus earlier in the day. And....take that, Anabel! Don't you know that you don't know what you got till it's gone!? Now I hope they get past the next team, and I'd really like for Daniela to get another crack at Keystone Kops-Jones and Broccoli Spears.

Yesterday, the WTA posted on Facebook a happy birthday to Ms. Hingis. Oh my goodness, did the venom and fire and brimstone come out! Her haters had a field day. But leave it to yours truly to put things into perspective. Accompanying the post was a photo that showed Hingis and Dani low-fiving after a point. Daniela's back was to the camera, and Hingis' face was very visible. And so I opined: Daniela is far better to look at from the back as Hingis is from the front!

Daniela's match is first on Court 1, play starts at 12:30pm.

It's a shame that they didn't force a championship tiebreaker but the match was very close.

At least gives a bit more preparation time for Linz next week.

I'm worried that Daniela could lose her spot in Sofia if she doesn't have a great next couple of weeks. Safarova just overtook Daniela and there are still three more International tournaments left for players to win that are above Daniela in the rankings, and Daniela's semi-final points from Luxembourg last year are coming off in two weeks.