Darija Jurak is a 24 y.o. Croatian tennis player, winner of 8 ITF singles titles and 27 ITF doubles titles, one of which she won this year. Her favorite surface is clay and current year win/loss singles record is 15-10. Her career high ranking is 188 for singles and 108 for doubles, while her current singles ranking is 413, which is the highest she's been in almost 18 months. She reached two QF's on 25k this year.
This week she's playing in Bad Saulgau 25k, where she qualified for MD (just like last year) and drew 2nd seed and world's number 208 Tereza Hladikova (CZE) as her first opponent. Since she's defending QF from last year, a loss here could push her down some 30 places in the rankings, but let's hope for the best. She applied for doubles also, not defending anything, she and her partner play against top seeds in the first round. She's playing in Germany next week as well, on another 25k where she lost in R1 last year after going through qualies, but is defending finals of doubles.
A lot of trouble against a wildcarded Aussie team of Myers/Sanders, but Jurak/Marosi made it into the QF of Sydney where they'll face the winner of Erakovic/Makarova vs (3) Kirilenko/Raymond. Well, no one can blame us for not being optimistic about the next round, but still - good luck girls
They won against Kirilenko/Raymond (3rd seeds) 6:4, 6:2 Whatever happens next this is already a great week and let's hope they'll transfer this form into Melbourne.
They won against Kirilenko/Raymond (3rd seeds) 6:4, 6:2 Whatever happens next this is already a great week and let's hope they'll transfer this form into Melbourne.
Great stuff from Darija so far, and the two of them will join forces in Melbourne again. Btw, Darija could go as high as #42 on Monday.
Last year she made a total of 77 points until mid February, while this year she is already at 201 and AO hasn't even started, so a really great start to the year. She'll have decent points to defend from Monterrey/Acapulco/Nassau where last year she made 330 in total, but just one win in Melbourne would be enough to clear that out as well, almost entirely (since she's already in the green by more than 100 pts). There are also several large events in which she flopped last year, namely AO, RG, Canadian Open and Beijing, so there's definately room to build on that (or make up for unexpected losses), but all in all it's a tough job ahead if she is to maintain her place in the top 50.
second round is a great result already nothing to lose in the next round, but i'd like to see them fight well. over the next few months, they'll be hunting an RG seeding
They expectedly lost, but only after a 10-5 super tie-break. They lost the first set 6:4 and won the second by the same score. A good effort considering the opponents, but a shame they lost regardless of it. Better luck next time