Aahhh, that's too bad. Saw Arvidsson briefly on tv during the Oz open and she looked in better shape than I've seen her in the past and seemed to be playing very well, so considering Anne's lack of matches, it's disappointing for her but not entirely unexpected.

Great to see AK back and looking forward to a successful season.

Yes, maybe is a blessing in that respect. I've no doubt Anne passed her own expectations this week so all in all very positive.

Must say that I agree with wolf.

What "stage" is good for Anne playing a match with Sharapova ?  I would think that if anything this is a decent stage, still quite early in he comeback when such progress is really welcome after all that time out and she does seem to be playing well. 

Anne was a top 50 player, seems to be getting back towards that sort of level quicker than expected.  She has to expect to play matches against the very top players, and a chance to a Sharapova still not back to her absolute best was what I am sure she wanted.  Bally gave Sharapova a decent match, it is far from impossible Anee could do too.

I can't believe after one very bad experience she herself would want to avoid another chance. If she wants to get even higher she must play these matches and if defeats comes learn from them.

I can only believe that David feels Anne at this "stage" in her comeback needs to win matches and feared a defeat here would again cause the sort of bad run she had before, this time at a particular bad time when she is wants to move back up the rankings.

But she has her PR which even if her ranking drops further in the short-term will still help her into tournaments and anyway hopefully she would not again be so affected.  Anyway she has to go there to find out, not to avoid it !!  Even with a short bad run, if she performs over a whole year generally as she is capable, she will be back well inside the top 100 again.

I am sure Anne herself is not thinking, "well at least I avoided playing Shazza !"  She more surely worked for those many months to have these chances again.

Anne has had a good comeback and a very good week here, thst's the positives.  I don't look for or seek blessings in defeat, well particularly in clearly winnable matches, and in this case to me a win against Arvidsson and a meeting with Sharapova would have made it an even better week.

-- Edited by indiana on Saturday 20th of February 2010 06:14:12 PM

A win for Anne would of course have been a better outcome, breaking her habit of losing semis (as I mentioned) and I do plead guilty to looking for positives out of defeats.

Anne wants to establish herself as a top 50 player, and test herself regularly against the best.
However it is uncommon for players breaking into the top 100 in their mid 20s to stay inside 50 for any length of time. One of the factors causing this is heavy defeats against top players, destroying confidence and belief that they belong in the higher echelon. This has happened once already to Anne, so a severe beating by Maria would not be helpful. On the other hand a strong performance against someone of her quality would do wonders for her - and we will never know which scenario would have happened.

My judgment on the two players' performances this week was that with Anne struggling to hold serve against Arvidsson (a must to be competitive against the best) and Shazza in imperious form there was a risk of another bad experience in a big match which would be a setback to her long term ambitions of having this type of match on a regular basis.