Dokic cruises to first grass title

Jelena Dokic captured the first grass-court championship of her career when she won the DFS Classic yesterday, making a complete set of titles on all four surfaces of the game at the age of 19.

The top-seeded Yugoslav did that with a 6-2, 6-3 victory over a surprise finalist from Russia, Anastasia Myskina, the significance of which she described as "huge".

As well as being a timely morale booster just a week before Wimbledon starts, it also showed the dimensions Dokic has added to her grass-court game since last year - such as drop-shots and a more frequent use of mid-court drive volleys.

But the contest was decided most of all by her opponent's inability to contain her nerves. Three successive double faults put Myskina 1-5 down, and she even delivered one attempted drop-shot which landed beyond the service court and outside the tramlines. Once she whacked herself so hard on the foot in anger that it made her wince.

It was difficult to believe that last month Myskina had ended Dokic's attempt to defend her biggest title so far, the Italian Open. But that was on clay, and for all its comparison with this it might have been on the moon.

It was that sort of a day. As the barometer fell, so did the standard of play and with it the crowd's mood, which was lifted from its torpor only by the cheers from the hospitality boxes at Ireland's World Cup equaliser.

Dokic's best performance had come the day before when she recovered from 3-5 down in the second set during a 6-1, 7-5 win over the former title holder Lisa Raymond. The teenager laughingly attributed this to having witnessed Spiderman's escapes at the cinema the night before but in reality it was a reward for the rediscovery of her most forcing forehands and for her innate tenacity.

Dokic now goes to Eastbourne, where she will again be the top seed after the withdrawal of the title-holder Lindsay Davenport. But she may for a little while be upstaged by Martina Navratilova, who at the age of 45 will take on Tatiana Panova, the world No21 from Russia, in her first competitive singles match for eight years.

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