Week 1. Brisbane International.

Blessed and cursed at the same time.

At last 2010 arrived, as an Ana fan you're most definitely glad 2009 is over!! But, no time to look back as Ana headed to Brisbane for her first tournament in 3 months. Expectation: none whatsoever actually. Of course, you look at the draw and you see a possible clash in the semi's against Henin, but if there's one thing we learned in 2009 is that we shouldn't look ahead. And so we didn't cause Ana's first round match was tough enough as it was, against home favorite Jelena Dokic. Ana won though, 75 16 63.

Second round: vs. Bacsinszky, another 3 set victory, 62 26 64. In all honesty, it wasn't good at all, but 2 straight victories in a row was a long time ago, so at least that was something positive from this match. I think it gave Ana some confidence, to know that she can still win 2 matches in a row. Quarterfinal: vs. Pavlyuchenkova, seen as a big talent on the Tour, but finally (yes, FINALLY), we saw glimpses of the old Ana. She raced through the first set, 6-2, had a 4-0 lead in the 2nd, but Pavs was not ready to give up yet. She broke Ana at 5-3 and even lead 5-6, to serve it out for (yet again) a 3rd set. Once again, we saw glimpses of the old Ana, not when it comes to tennis, but more when it comes to guts. Trailing 1-4 in the tiebreaker, she played like a topplayer should play (with guts) and she showed us something we hadn't seen in a long time: mental strenght.

Her match we all looked forward to against Henin, turned out to be one-sided. Henin played her best tennis and thrashed Ana 36 26. Did we expect something more from Ana? Yes, of course, but there are definitely plenty of things that we should give her credit for. I think we saw glimpses of the old Ana, especially in her match against Pavs and Henin. Her forehand is clearly her easiest and best shot and IF she serves well, she can be very dangerous.

Unfortunately her serve isn't consistent yet, mostly cause of that... well... you know... that ball toss... And what clearly showed is that Ana's not the best tactician there is. Henin did everything right in her match against Ana. She served to her backhand, she sliced to her backhand and she attacked on her backhand. Ana, on the other hand, attacked whenever she could and whenever she was lured into attacking by Henin. Granted, Sven wasn't there to coach her, but we will never know how much it would have mattered.

What is the meaning of my title, you ask? Well, we are not only blessed and cursed to be Ana's fan, cause she can play unbelievably well and unbelievably bad, but we were kinda blessed and cursed this week as well. Finally she won some matches in a row again and we've gotten some hope from her matches that she can be the Ana of 2008. But then again, there's this little voice saying: she's not there yet. She's still got a long road ahead of her and it certainly will not come overnight.

All in all, it will be a matter of months instead of a matter of years as some critics are saying. For Ana and for us it's a good start of the year, a semi-final in her first tournament in 3 months is more than we might have expected... or isn't it...

Ow and Kim won in a great final against Justine, 7-6 (6) in the decisive set!!!