[neospecialist]

I thought it was time to start this. According to her Twitter acct she has landed.

[young_gunner913]

Brisbane Draw:


Stosur VS Qualifer
Groth VS Parra Santonja
Dokic vs Qualifer
Petkovic vs Dulgheru
Bartoli VS Qaulifer
Hercog vs Benesova
Zahlavova Strycova vs Qualifer
Peers Vs Kleybanova
Pennetta VS Vinci
Errani vs Cibulkova
Hantuchova vs Chakvetadze
Kvitova VS Petrova
Pavlyuchenova VS Kudryavtseva
Jovanovski vs Rodionova
Safarova vs Amanmuradova
Ferguson Vs Peer

Pretty decent draw if you ask me.
Do some damage Shahar!!

[justine schnyder]

Rock them all!!

[shirgan]

Shahar def. Ferguson 6-4 6-2

Shahar was leading 4-0 in the first set.

Some details about the match from the aussies in the forum:

Originally Posted by tennisforadults

Good effort from Sophie. Evenly matched with Shahar during patches but misfiring backhand lets her down on important points.

Originally Posted by MightyMashaFan

Not a bad match at all for the first match of the season. There were some nice rallies and the quality overall was pretty good.

Originally Posted by TS

Very competitive match.
Shahar started off in a blaze, and was playing quite aggressively. Sophie picked her game up soon after, but was always on the back foot.

Originally Posted by Keadz

Shitty draw for Sophie, but a good performance.
Shahar was pretty good, aggresive and seems to be as fit as ever. Think she will have a suprisingly good season.

Originally Posted by KBlade

Pretty average quality match. Shahar started especially well pounding winners from the back of the court and moving forward. Ferguson began to fight a little more from the back of the court and started to push Shahar around a little bit as the match went on, but in the end Shahar was just too solid and Ferguson lost belief when she created openings. Another thing I noticed and liked was that Shahar was really positioning herself close to the baseline and stepping well inside the baseline to receive the serve and take it early.

Next she will play Safarova on center court again. Good luck

[justine schnyder]

Nice start to 2011
good luck next match!!

[shirgan]

Highlights from the match:

[young_gunner913]

Originally Posted by shirgan

Highlights from the match:

Great highlights!!

She looks to be hitting the ball much harder this year! She seems to be very fit and she'll be needing to hit good shots like that against Safarova.

[justine schnyder]

Thanks for the HL

Sadly Shahar lost tonight 6:3 1:6 5:7 to Safarova. She led 5:2 in the 3rd and had a match point which she couldn't convert.
Didn't see the match, ut on GM they say that once she got to 5:2 in the 3rd she started pushing. Shame

Anyone knows if she's going to play next week as well?

[shirgan]

Originally Posted by justine schnyder

Anyone knows if she's going to play next week as well?

According to the schedule on her site she will be in Sydney next week and then the AO

[neospecialist]

highlights from the Safarova-Peer match

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-3nq5BSbkU

[young_gunner913]

Hopefully she brings her best at Sydney. Wasn't impressed at all with her match against Lucie.

[Archer16]

I'm not at ease with her results from the last few months (post-Pablo). True there was the Beijing semi, but that was a cakewalk draw, not comparable in any way to the amazing run in Dubai.
The Israeli ch. final showing wasn't too encouraging either (well, it was - for Julia).
She'll have to do really well to defend all those points in the upcoming weeks, not to mention break into the top 10.

[shirgan]

The feeling I got from the highlights of the 1st match and all the talk about changing her game, is that she's working too hard to prove she's more aggressive and it doesn't really come natural to her yet.
She's aware of it, and she has to deliberately "work" for it.
And that's why when she's challenged a bit more and she reaches a fight-or-flight moment where her instincts kick in, she goes back to what she knows and feels more comfortable with, which apparently doesn't include this aggression factor that she's been working on.

I hope that with time it will become more natural to her and she will be able to utilize it in those tight situations, but right now it seems it isn't yet part of her gut reaction.

[young_gunner913]

Originally Posted by Archer16

I'm not at ease with her results from the last few months (post-Pablo). True there was the Beijing semi, but that was a cakewalk draw, not comparable in any way to the amazing run in Dubai.
The Israeli ch. final showing wasn't too encouraging either (well, it was - for Julia).
She'll have to do really well to defend all those points in the upcoming weeks, not to mention break into the top 10.

This next week she'll pass Henin in the rankings to reach 11th. She just needs to make QF/SF of Sydney then have a decent run in Melbourne. A QF at the AO isn't very out of the question if you ask me. That should definitely put her within striking distance of the top 10 or even in it.

[young_gunner913]

Shahar's Sydney Quarter:

(3)Kim Clijsters (BEL) v Alexandra Dulgheru (ROU)
Q/LL v Nadia Petrova (RUS)
Q/LL v Shahar Peer (ISR)
Q/LL v (7)Victoria Azarenka (BLR)