Confident, smiling, teeth-gritting, fist-pumping, ajde-ing, winner-hitting Ana. Into the semis of Rome. Woah.

More of the same really. She was steady, pushing Nads in the first set and causing errors. And using the big serve. Huh?

In the second set, Nads really started keeping the ball on the outside of the court, and going for it more. Ana did too, and the errors came. But she then managed to bring it back in, use the forehand. And when she got broken, she played big points right off the top of the next game and got them back. I don’t even.

MJMS is up next, a player who really impresses me. She doesn’t necessarily have the power or the skill of most, but she has the hands of a doubles player and likes to use the net. Furthermore, she doesn’t just sit back, she makes you beat her. It’s almost kamikaze, sometimes, and it can be fun to watch (it’s the reason why she does so well against Caro…) The good thing is that Ana hasn’t won these matches by playing like A-Rad. She’s been going for it. Oh, and SHE HAS A COACH NOw who can actually tell her how to prepare and WTF is up with this chick. Totally do-able. Get it, girl.

Huh? 6-1, 7-6? Over Elena? Two Top 10 victories in a row? Ha. The world must be broken. That or Delpo transferred all his awesomeness to Ana once he realized he wouldn’t be playing for a while. Ah yeah. That must be it.

I’ll save my reactions for the podcast, which is going down tonight. Plus she’s still got at least one more match this week, which I can save some blab for. I’m not used to that. Teehee. Excuse me, I have to go clean up the brain that has oozed out of my ears.

That’s right folks. It really did.

I’ll admit, I’ve been one in the past to try way too hard to look for the positives in Ana games when it’s been clear things weren’t going well. But this is the best Ana has played in a very, very long time. A 6-4 6-4 victory over a woozy Vika is the first win for her over a top 10 opponent in 18 months.

The joys of a coach. Instead of beating herself up and physically flailing after a bad point, she takes it in stride, and seems to keep herself mentally a float. Instead of being a total headcase and miss tossing balls on the serve left right and centre, she goes for it, and is thinking about what she’s doing and using the serve as a weapon again. Heinz, you rule.

Gotta keep it real, however. Vika took a medical timeout at 4-all in the first set, and I expected her to drop the set and retire. Instead she spent most of the second set up a break, while Ana seemed apparently blind to the fact that her opponent was barely upright. Props to Vika for hanging in there, as long as she’s feeling ok. But hey, huge win. Elena is going to be one hell of a challenge.

This one’s back too. The first set, it seemed Serena was either rusty, or only interested in making a trip straight back the beach. But then she kicked it into second gear, and well, that was the match.

Flavs continues to struggle, and to me, looks like a lost soul on court. Mentally, she seems distracted and only half there and instead of really going for balls and pushing opponents around like she did so well last year… well, she’s eating baked goods at the hands of Lucie.

And yes, Dinara lost. She’s still getting the timing back, but if you’re a Dinara fan, you’ve gotta be pretty impressed with what you’ve seen so far, considering how long she’s been out. Pretty straight forward with the other matches on the day.

First thing is first. I didn’t get to do this yesterday, and it must be taken care of.

Ana won a match over a player ranked higher than her. A recognizable one. In straight sets. Without dropping serve. I’m scared.

Resident MTR… er, Earth Ana Expert Curtis filled me in. She never faced break point, was nailing her serve, and was playing consistently and confidently. And Vesnina played like crap but… yeah whatever. Vika is going to be a hell of showdown later.

Well what the hell girl?! Kiri’s gotten herself a solid season so far, and makes the third round of Rome after defeating Kuz in three. Keep the Kiri train rolling!

Really got to feel for Kuz though. She can have periods in matches where she’s inconsistent, but it just seems she’s permanently inconsistent and is having a hell of a time winning points on her own serve, which isn’t like her. She’s starting to look more and more like an outside shot to repeat at the French this year.

From Ana Land.

In mutual agreement with the Serbian Tennis Federation, Ana will not take part in the Serbia versus Slovakia Fed Cup tie next month.

“I spoke with the captain Dejan Vranes, and the President of the Federation Slobodan Zivojinovic, and together we decided that under these circumstances, and after all that has happened lately, it’s not the right time for me to be part of the team,” said Ana.

“Despite my non-presence, I believe that we have a good team, led by Jelena, and this is a great opportunity for one of the young, upcoming players to play on the biggest stage.

“I know that Serbia will put up a performance of great commitment and passion as always.

“I will continue to make all necessary steps to find my form, and the key to that is training with my team and playing tournaments.”

No shit, son. As if the pressure of a new coach and herself aren’t enough. It would be dumb to stack on the pressure of her country… and JJ. Not to mention, it’s against Slovakia… for pretty well nothing. Good move kid.

There’s been calls to “take a break”. To spend more time on the practice court. To get more match play in. To try crystal meth. Everything under the sun including taking a trip to the end of the rainbow has been suggested for poor Ana, and now perhaps the most crazy thing has happened, something no one figured would happen.

She’s out of the top 50. And she’s cool with it. In fact, she’s confident. Yeah, you read that all right. My main suggestion was getting a full time coach, and I think she got one just in time. Last year was a year of pain… minus Indian Wells, where she made the final, and got most of her ranking points from. A second round loss this time around means there isn’t a whole lot left lying around. Perhaps this pic best sums it up best. Ana, still being invited to players parties and big time events… yet is now somehow magically ranked lower than a struggling Sorana Banana. Oh dear.

Yet she remains confident and upbeat about her game. Good. Because now that you’re out of the top 50, you’ve seriously got shit to prove now. Here’s hoping she DOES take an Andre route, maybe not as low as the ITF stuff, but some International events, work on the ranking, and work on beating players that she can and should beat.

According to @donkeygrooming Sven (is the nicest guy ever, go figure) and was really sad about Ana. There, there Omniscient One. You have done all you can.

This also happened. The shit? A 3 sets loss to CSN, and 1-6 in the third none the less. Apparently Kuz tried to break her racquet at the end, and failed. How Marcos of you. Seriously, she never gets this angry. It must be the wind… that, or there’s something in the wind. There’s drama all around the grounds.

ATP – Davis Cup Round 1

The shitshow… er, battle for the Davis Cup starts this weekend. Or something like that. Dear lord. Those poor Argies. The overwhelmingly interesting match-up is USA/Serbia, who DO have Nole (the biggest player in the whole of this round) and stand a chance against the BryBros since it’s on clay and they have Nenad. Serbia shouldn’t have much of a problem, but with the Two American Towers of Tree and Sammy Q, hopefully some epic drama goes down.

Thanks to New Balls, Please for the Davis Cup teams. Of which I am about to blatantly plagiarise.

Spain v Switzerland
Plaza de Toros de la Ribera, Logrono, Spain
H2H: Spain leads 4-1

Spain: David Ferrer, Nicolas Almagro, Tommy Robredo, Marcel Granollers
Captain: Albert Costa

Switzerland: Stanislas Wawrinka, Marco Chiudinelli, Michael Lammer, Yves Allego
Captain: Severin Luthi

France v Germany
Palais des Sports – Toulon, France
H2H: France leads 5-2

France: Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, Gael Monfils, Michael Llodra, Julien Benneteau
Captain: Guy Forget

Germany: Philipp Kohlschreiber, Benjamin Becker, Simon Greul, Christopher Kas
Captain: Patrick Kuhnen

Russia v India
Small Sports Arena “Luzhniki” – Moscow, Russia
H2H: India leads 2-1

Russia: Nikolay Davydenko, Mikhail Youzhny, Teimuraz Gabashvili, Igor Kunitsyn
Captain: Shamil Tarpischev

India: Somdev Devvarman, Rohan Bopanna, Leander Paes, Mahesh Bhupathi
Captain: Shiv-Prakash Misra

Sweden v Argentina
Kungliga Tennishallen – Stockholm, Sweden
H2H: 2-2

Sweden: Robin Soderling, Andreas Vinciguerra, Simon Aspelin, Robert Lindstedt
Captain: Mats Wilander

Argentina: Leonardo Mayer, Horacio Zeballos, Eduardo Schwank, Federico Del Bonis
Captain: Tito Vazquez

Croatia v Ecuador
Gradska Sportska Dvorana Varazdin – Varazdin, Croatia
H2H: 0-0

Croatia: Marin Cilic, Ivo Karlovic, Ivan Dodig, Antonio Veic
Captain: Goran Prpic

Ecuador: Nicolas Lapentti, Giovanni Lapentti, Ivan Endara, Julio-Cesar Campozano
Captain: Raul Viver

Serbia v United States
Belgrade Arena, Belgrade, Serbia
H2H: 0-0

Serbia: Novak Djokovic, Viktor Troicki, Janko Tipsarevic, Nenad Zimonjic
Captain: Bogdan Obradovic

United States: John Isner, Sam Querrey, Mike Bryan, Bob Bryan
Captain: Patrick McEnroe

Chile v Israel
Enjoy Tennis Center – Coquimbo, Chile
H2H: 1-1

Chile: Fernando Gonzalez, Nicolas Massu, Paul Capdeville, Jorge Aguilar
Captain: Hans Gildermeister

Israel: Dudi Sela, Harel Levy, Jonathan Erlich, Andy Ram
Captain: Eyal Ran

Belgium v Czech Republic
Expodroom Bree – Bree, Belgium
H2H: Czech Republic leads 7-3

Belgium: Olivier Rochus, Xavier Malisse, Steve Darcis, Christophe Rochus
Captain: Reginald Willems

Czech Republic: Tomas Berdych, Radek Stepanek, Jan Hajek, Lukas Dlouhy
Captain: Jaroslav Navratil

WTA – Monterrey (International)

Official Site: Here
Draw: Here
Top Seeds: JJ, Dani, Pavs, Domi

Do. Not. Care. Literally picked my WTA tennis pool team to set it up for picking going into IW. I didn’t even look to see who is playing in this tournament. Though I lucked out with Pavs and Lucie. Meh. Might watch the semis or something. (And yeah, epic weaksauce if JJ can’t win this friggin’ thing.)

Random Exo – Billie Jean King Cup

This all seemed so fun and new last year. And now it’s just blah. Sorry BJK. I’m curious to see how Ana performs having spent some time with the new coach (if she can toss a ball or hit a solid forehand I’ll be happy) and it will be fun to see Kim play. You know, for an entire two sets of no ad tennis. I’ll watch but… yeeeeaaaah.

Hard to not just re-blog the Forty Deuce post here but PRAISE BE TO SVEN (in a sort of awkward “we’ll give you a break now” way I guess…) but Ana has FINALLY hired a full time coach, something that I’ve been harping on for months now. Not that it necessarily takes half a brain to see that Ana’s brain is basically worse than scrambled eggs and someone needs to spend some serious time doing some hard work to just hammer away at a few simple ideas. Like “toss the ball in the air, and then catch it again. K, do it again. K now hit it. There you go!”

The lucky winner? Heinz Gunthardt, former coach of some Steffi Graf girl, as well as Dokic for a bit. Not bad company. As an obviously huge Ana fan, I’ve become completely numb to her sucking and disappointing results. So naturally, this will start getting my expectations high again and… well, make or break new coach man. And Svenspeed.

Oh, and again, sorry for the blogging fail. You can blame the Olympics on this one. This will likely continue for a week, though don’t worry, for as little tennis (did watch lots of Doha) as I’m watching, I’m keeping up. God knows I’ll be on such a sports high after these two weeks that I’ll be beyond giddy for IW and Miami. “The Week Ahead” post and re-capping the finals and other stuff will come tonight.

If you don’t know James LaRosa, well… get on it. The link to his blog is on the right. He’s basically the shining beacon of becoming a professional tennis blogger. Reporter, yes, but blogger at heart, which I say with the most respect. Cause he’s both smart, in love with the sport, and just plain damn funny. He’s written a piece about Ana and well, I can’t help but have a lot to say.

I once had a conversation with my roommate. “Man, Anna Kournikova sucked though.” “Not really, she was in the top 10, was number 1 in singles and won two slams in doubles.” “Well yeah… I guess she was more of a doubles specialist.” Right.

James’ article is great in many ways. It recognizes, first, a generalization of people to think Ana’s career to be dead. Not true. I also love how he points out that people get so worked up over women posing for shoots, yet barely bat a lash at someone like Nando or Feli stripping down. Hell, Steffi Graf posed for SI Swimsuit too, ya know. Her career turned out pretty ok, I think. (I’ll get off my feminist soapbox before I start raging.)

Here’s the thing. Are there people ripping on Ana? Sure. Are there a lot of them? I’m not sure, not in my direct circles. To be honest, I felt a whole lot of sympathy coming from ESPN in Melbourne, as if they were shaking their heads to say “I’m still not sure what’s up with that.”

There is definitely a sense of uncertainty when it comes to the whole modelling thing, for sure. Ana’s stock sure as hell rose after her first slam win. And of course it’s incredibly unfortunate that both her Adidas signing and SI photoshoot pics (below) came out the same weekend where she failed to win a set in three matches. Can you blame the shoots? In my opinion, no. The girl wanted to get away from tennis, it was driving her mad (maybe still is.) Toronto was heartbreaking, the USO was heartbreaking. SI was in between there. Kiri said that she was spending too much time doing shoots and focusing on other stuff, and wanted to get back to focusing on tennis, the results have shown so far. I don’t think it’s the case with Ana. So what is it?

It is mental, yes, but I think it’s an almost stubborn and wild sense of planning. Her serve has gone from commodity to liability, yes, and the toss doesn’t even work, let alone the serve. And I really think it boils down to getting a full time coach, and it’s as simple as that. Kardon started to work with Ana, she had her attacking and coming to the net. Questionable? Sure. But it’s a plan and it’s a mindset, and Ana has neither of those right now and she’s in desperately in need of one. The ball toss is a blaring microcosm of that.

Don’t get me wrong, the Adidas player program has done wonders for Ana, specifically guiding a young, confident talent. Ana is still young and talented, but confidence is where she’s lacking, and a part time coach is not going to be able to nurture and help a fragile mind at this stage, let alone two or three of them. For God sakes, someone just needs to take her on a run, and spend an hour with her having a drink, tossing some balls, and letting loose.

There have been rumblings over at Tennis Forum about a possible full time coach signing, though nothing is official yet. I’ll of course have any news if something comes up. (And yes, she’s officially out of Dubai with shoulder problems, more luck.) I hope for her sake that she gets one soon.

So Ana has posed for the new SI Swimsuit, as you can see. She apparently did it in between her heartbreaking loss in Toronto and her even more heartbreaking loss at the USO.

Due to the fact that Curtis is a regular reader of this blog, comments may not be suitable for those under the age of 18.

I have no further comment at this time.