Molik eases back into tour after illness
Bruce Emond, The Jakarta Post, Nusa Dua, Bali
As Mariana Diaz-Oliva served for the first set in Tuesday's night match at the Wismilak International, Alicia Molik could have been forgiven for having that here-we-go-again feeling.
Since her return to the WTA tour last month after a five-month hiatus due to illness, the Australian had yet to win a set in both of her first-round losses. Finally seeing the ball better under the lights, the third seed buckled down against the Argentinean and came through in a 7-6 (6), 6-3 victory.
It was a welcome confidence booster, although the 24 year old is not getting ahead of herself in setting a timeline for returning to the superb form she enjoyed in the latter part of 2004 and early 2005.
"That is what I project to other people, but I'm still hard on myself," Molik told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday of her magnanimous attitude to the long, hard road back to form. "But I need to cut myself some slack."
You can't expect yourself to be a machine."
Molik tasted the highs in 2004, winning in Stockholm, Zurich and Luxembourg, and chalking up wins over Maria Sharapova, Patty Schnyder and Anastasia Myskina, the latter in the bronze medal match at the Athens Olympics.
At the Australian Open in January, Molik beat Venus Williams and then ran Lindsay Davenport close in the quarterfinals before the American eked out a 9-7 third-set victory. Her world ranking rose to a career-high of 8 in February, with commentators saying that her powerful serve (she is 1.82 meters tall) and all-court game made her a Grand Slam title contender.
And then she got sick.
In Charleston at one of the traditional U.S. claycourt tournaments in March, Molik woke up feeling strange. She compares the symptoms -- blurred vision, a lack of focus, loss of balance -- of vestibular neuronitis, a viral infection of the inner ear, to feeling drunk all day.
"Last summer and the Australian Open were like a fairytale, but just when you think you're invincible, something brings you back down to earth. I started realizing that there are other things than winning, it's not all about sport, but your health too."
She spent the recovery time with her family and friends back in her hometown of Adelaide, where she grew up playing in the same club as Lleyton Hewitt.
"Having the time led me to lead a normal life. It was fun getting into a routine, cooking, going to football games, it's nice compared to living in a tennis bubble."
She comes from the long tradition of Australian tennis, but talent has been thin on the ground in the women's game since the heyday of the 1960s and 1970s, the era of Margaret Court and Evonne Goolagong Cawley.
After such a long wait for the new great hope, a leading Australian women's magazine profiled Molik earlier this year and gushed that she was poised to overtake the great Court.
She concedes that it's a bit premature to be comparing her to a woman who won the Grand Slam of the four majors in 1970 -- she wants to be acknowledged for her own achievements.
"I'm walking to my own beat, I can't be compared to them because I haven't done what they did. But I'm mixing it with the best of them, and I want to show what I can do."
She feels her best bet for a Grand Slam title is the Australian Open.
" I really enjoy playing there, the crowd gives me a lift, I like it being hot and it's in my own backyard. It couldn't be better for me."