Omg....The next time Daniela wants to meet up with Hingis, it had better not be in a dark alley! Or at least Dani had better be equipped with boxing gloves and a face mask! Thankfully Hingis didn't choose to take things out on Daniela after a bad drop shot or a double fault. Let this doubles pairing, which once looked so promising, RIP.

Hopefully Daniela can get a decent draw and she can go on a run. With this being a mandatory premier it's important that Daniela does well here.

I suppose that Daniela will probably play with Lisa Raymond again like she played with Peng Shuai in Tokyo & Beijing last year.

It's a tough draw although Daniela has a good record against Li Na and has won the last two, including the first round of the Olympics. Daniela's in the position of being the underdog with not too much pressure but at the same same time having confidence from her record against Li, so it's similar to the Olympics. The winner would play Cirstea or Jovanovski then Lisicki, a qualifier or Venus Williams. This really is one tournament where the cliche of one match at a time applies.

Daniela's playing doubles with Lisa Raymond again and they've got a pretty decent opener against Kudryavtseva & Rodionova with the winner playing Groenefeld/Peschke or Lisicki/Medina Garrigues. It's the first decent doubles draw Daniela's had for a while although I'd have preferred a better singles draw. Mind you, after the US Open we can't really complain about singles draws for a while.

If Hingis had done that to Sol Campbell, she'd be every Spurs fan's perfect woman. We never did find out exactly why he disappeared to Bruges.

Lost 0-6 4-6. Didn't watch the match,but those that did say it was a case of Li Na playing superbly,rather than Daniela playing badly-and that she did fight very hard in the second set.

I didn't see the match but from what Benji and eddy say it seems like Li played really well. Just looking at the stats, Daniela's serve was always under pressure as she was only getting 51% of her first serves in , winning 60% of them and she only won 38% of her second serve points. Maybe if Daniela had served better then things could have been different. She did fight hard to come back from losing the first 10 games of the match and if she'd taken the BP at 3-4 in the second then we could be talking about one of the great comebacks.

We'll how Daniela does in the doubles, she's got a decent draw there so hopefully she can have a decent run and get something from this tournament.

It does seem that over the past few months Daniela's had more than her fair share of matches against the elite players or players in great form. She lost to Agnieszka Radwanska in Carlsbad, tournament winner Halep in New Haven, Azarenka at the US Open and US Open semi-finalists Pennetta & Li Na in Asia. Even Petkovic was the best qualifier in Cincinnati.


Li Na beats Daniela Hantuchova in straight sets
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Share:Date: 2013.09.29
Fans gave the world No.31 Daniela Hantuchova a warm welcome when she entered the Diamond Court to compete in her first-round match of the 2013 China Open tournament on Sunday afternoon.

But the fans gave an even warmer welcome, including a standing ovation, yelling "Jia you, Li Na!" and waving Chinese flags when Li Na was introduced.

Hantuchova entered the match with a 4-2 record against world No. 5 Li. The last time they met, Hantuchova upset Li in three sets in the first round of the Olympics in 2012. On Sunday, Li came to the court prepared and defeated Hantuchova 6-0, 6-4.

"I think Hantuchova has a very flat stroke. And I don't think I can follow the normal way I play when I play against her. In the practice yesterday and the preparation today, Carlos (Rodriguez) repeatedly emphasized I had to lower my body a little bit. This is the strategy we made according to Hantuchova's playing style." Li said.

Hantuchova only made 51 percent of her first serves, causing her to lose all her serve games in the first set and her first game in the second set.

It took Li just two minutes to break Hantuchova's first service game of the first set, a game in which Hantuchova had a double fault followed by a first-serve fault.

In the fifth game, Hantuchova had 10 first-serve faults out of 16 first serves. Li struggled to win the game needing five break points to win the game.

When Li started to relax after a 4-0 lead in the second set, Hantuchova adjusted her serving and forced Li to run across the baseline, causing fans to yell: "Come on, Daniela!" Hantuchova was able to overcome her service problems and won three consecutive games, narrowing the gap to one game.

"I think I have a pretty good start of the match until 40-love in the second set. So I saw it was 40-love, I was like ‘OK, maybe I should relax a little bit.’ But in this level, I cannot do this. You can see the score in the second set. If I was relaxing a little bit, just give opponent all the time have the chance." Li said.

I shall willingly accept donations of ketchup and barbecue sauce to help me eat my crow.
Since this was in the wee hours of the morning, only seeing the final score was upsetting until I just read your comments. Daniela's usual fighting mode to make a match out of a debacle is encouraging. Frustrating are these first round draws, but there still are a few chances for her to raise her ranking. I'm not ready to exit the roller coaster yet!