Marina Erakovic

News report:

Marina Erakovic put aside months of hip and ankle problems to win the national residential tennis title in Auckland.

She downed Canterbury's Ellen Barry 7-5 6-2 on the indoor courts at Albany in a powerful display.

Barry took the game to Erakovic in the first set - both broke serve twice - until Erakovic won a long deuce game at 5-5, and that seemed to turn the match.

Barry has been given a wildcard entry into the qualifying rounds for the ASB Classic in Auckland early next month, along with Kairangi Vano. Erakovic, 21, also has a wildcard entry to the event.

Erakovic, whose world ranking peaked at 49 last year, struggled with injury for much of this year and is currently ranked 227.

She said afterwards that it was particularly satisfying to get back out on the court and play injury-free.

"When you go through a period like this, it's just such a nice feeling when you're on the court and you don't have any pain," she told the New Zealand Herald.

News report:

Marina Erakovic has no doubts she can put an injury-blighted year behind her and stage a climb back up the tennis rankings.
Now ranked 234th in the world, Erakovic will again begin the new season at the ASB Classic in Auckland in the first week of January, having been granted a wildcard this week to the WTA Tour event along with fellow New Zealander Sacha Jones.

It was her performance as a 19-year-old at the 2008 Classic, when she reached the semi-finals, upsetting top seeded Russian Vera Zvonareva along the way, that started a big move up the rankings, peaking at a career-best 49th six months later after she made the third round at Wimbledon.

However, this year, a hip problem and then a sprained ankle sidelined Erakovic for seven months.

She played three ITF events after her return to competition in late October, twice getting into the main draw, where she lost in the first round.
Erakovic said the long layoff had been a new experience for her and, while she had got over her injuries, she was lacking match play.

"It's the matches that I'm needing - playing a lot of tournaments and getting used to those situations again," she said.

"And while I've not been playing, everyone else has been working hard and improving, so you have to catch up again, but it's made me a lot stronger as well."

The toughest part about being out of action was watching tennis on the television and wishing she was out there, Erakovic said.

She was at home for the first few months and wasn't able to do much.

"I was a couch potato and that was really hard," she said.

"But once I was back training again I was really hungry."

Because of her enforced inactivity, Erakovic has a protected ranking which she can use to get her into up to eight WTA Tour events next year.

"I would love to do well in those, get a good ranking again in the top 100, and still play the WTA," she said.

The first of the eight events she was targeting were the Australian Open, Indian Wells and Miami.

Erakovic's injury woes have seen her overtaken by Jones as New Zealand's top female player.

Their careers have been heading in opposite directions in recent times, but New Zealand's top two tennis players, Sacha Jones and Marina Erakovic, could cross paths in Japan this week.
The draw for the US$75,000 ($103,500) ITF event in Tokyo had not been made at the time of writing, but the pair's names were nestled next to each other on the acceptance list, thanks to the closeness of their rankings.
And the chances of their meeting in the 32-player event seem strong, with Erakovic's pedigree and Jones' spectacular recent form suggesting both could go deep into the tournament.
For Erakovic, whose ranking has fallen to 233 from 60 at the start of the year, the event is a step down in class as she looks to gain some match play at the end of a season wrecked by injury.
For Jones, it is a step up from the four consecutive US$25,000 events she won in Australia and a recent US$50,000 event in Phoenix where she lost in the final.


The 19-year-old Jones also missed a significant part of the season with a shoulder injury but her career has been in the ascendancy of late, thanks to a run of 24 wins from 25 matches that has seen her ranking surge from 306 to its current career-high 168.
She overtook Erakovic as the country's top-ranked player this month, adding an extra level of intrigue to a possible head-to-head meeting between the two.
Erakovic has comfortably won both previous encounters but Jones was aged just 15 and 16 for those matches.
She would have form - Erakovic has posted just a 6-10 singles mark in comparison to Jones' 37-10 - and a couple of years' development on her side but Jones was reluctant to discuss how she might now match up against her fellow Kiwi.
"I've go no idea." She was also keen to avoid any talk of a potential rivalry developing between the pair.
"There are so many people who are ranked ahead of me that to focus on one person would be pretty stupid, I think," she said. "[Being] New Zealand No 1 is really cool. I'm really happy for Marina that she is healthy [now] and it was not particularly nice circumstances to become No 1.
"Hopefully both Marina and I will be healthy for a decent amount of time and do New Zealand proud."
Jones raised a few eyebrows when she turned down a wildcard for this year's ASB Classic to focus on training, but her recent results showed that was "100 per cent without doubt the right decision", she said.
"I wouldn't be talking to you about having won 24 [straight] matches if I hadn't have made that decision last year," she said.
"Everything that I worked on then is starting to pay off now. I had a lot of things that needed improving last year and they weren't just going to fix themselves."
Jones is expected to accept a wildcard into January's Classic. She should be much better prepared for the challenge than she was for her last appearance last year when as a 17-year-old she drew top seed Vera Zvonareva and was blown off centre court 6-0 6-1.
Although that match seemed like "a lifetime ago" it had helped Jones absorb some tough lessons.
"I was ranked around 300 and it was not fun to sit there with a lot of potential left untapped. It got to a point where it became unenjoyable for me.
"That was the time when I realised I needed to make some changes."

ERAKOVIC RETURNS FROM INJURY -

New Zealand's Marina Erakovic made a successful return to competitive tennis in Italy on Monday. Erakovic saw off Italian Alice Moroni 76 67 62 in the first round of qualifying at the ITF indoor event at Ortisei, Italy.

The 21 year old has been sidelined since March after originally suffering a stress related hip injury, her comeback was delayed when she was troubled by an ankle complaint.

Erakovic reached a career high ranking of 49 in July last year however her ranking has plummeted to 238 since the injury. Erakovic is eligible for a "special ranking" under WTA rules, which is based on a player's ranking following their last tournament played. Erakovic was ranked 83rd when forced off the circuit in March.