It's not too bad a draw if she can get past Schiavone.

That,of course,is a very big if.

Schiavone will be a difficult first round opponent as she won Marbella on clay and she helped Italy into the Fed Cup final so she's in good form and her confidence will be high, but I don't think she'll be happy with the draw. This is going to be a tough match and hopefully Daniela's fit. Daniela beat Schiavone the last time they played and Daniela's had great results and performances in her recent tournaments so she'll be confident of beating Schiavone. If Daniela beats Schiavone then the draw opens up and she can go on a nice run but she's got to beat Schiavone first.

Just realized why Daniela has this draw... It was Ivanovic helping out for it!

I don't like the draw at all, as not only is Schiavone going to be a difficult first opponent, but Maria Martinez would be a handful in a potential round two.

On another note, Schiavone is the rare player who is playing her best tennis ever, well into her late twenties. Something to keep in mind as Daniela just turned 27.

The weather in Rome is going to be terrible...

It's a good thing she only has a second round to defend, because I don't see her pulling this off. Francesca has the king of game Daniela hates, especially on clay, and she's going to have the whole crowd behind her. I really hope Daniela proves me wrong, but I doubt it..
Daniela is in a tough spot when it comes to her ranking. She needs some really good results to move up, but as long as she's unseeded at big tournaments, that's going to be difficult to do. Roland Garros is her last chance to pick up points, she has 4th rounds to defend at Wimbledon and the US open and she had decent results on the US hardcourts lat year, so I really wonder what her plan is. She keeps talking about getting back into the Top 10, but unless she wins a premier-level event and gets to the quarters or semis at the Slams, how is she going to make that happen??

Feedback please....

Absolutely! Although her results this year have so far been consistently good, so we must stay positive that more and better results like this are round the corner.

I think the WTA ranking poiints distribution has gone out of hand. It doesn't seem to reward consistency anymore. Below shows you why:

Rezai is only ahead of Daniela because she won the Bali tour of Champions at the end of 2009. I still don't know why Daniela didn't accept that wildcard!

Zheng is only ahead of Daniela because of Australian Open SF.

It's all very well doing a great week once or twice a year, but when people criticised Safina and Jankovic when they were no.1, I thought they were hard done by.

I'm not sure how Petrova is still ahead of Daniela as they did relatively similar in all the grand slam events over the last 18 months. The only exception is Nadia's quarter final appearance at AO which sneaks her ahead.

Daniela just needs to go far (ie. at least SF or RU or WIN) Rome or Madrid and she'll be right up there. I think Daniela is playing better than her rank for sure. She should be around the 16-19 ranking. However, big events on clay and hard court haven't been that great. Indian Wells was a real disapointment, although she was unlucky to play in really windy conditions.

However, there is a healthy 200 points gap between Daniela and A.Bondarenko who sits at no.25.

Basically the next 5 weeks is crucial. I also think Daniela should enter Birmingham and Ordina (although there more points at Eastbourne) and Wimbledon, and then skip Stanford. I think when Daniela has to make a choice between a big or small tournament that clash she should always pick the bigger one. ie. Eastbourne.

I think Daniela sometimes overlooks the amount of points on offer at tournaments. Sometimes you have to be a bit savvy when it comes to what tournaments one should enter. Definitely Radwanska and Wozniacki choose to enter lots of the tournaments that offer more points to prop up their ranking.

Unfortunately after Stuttgart, she is now losing touch of the top 20. There are over 200pts now between her and Peer at no.20.

Daniela was watching Nadal-Gulbis SF match! I'm sure it was her presence that helped push Rafa over the line. Thanks Daniela!