2005

2005 SEASON

The new year had a difficult beginning.

After beating Danilidou once again in the opening match at Auckland, she lost in the first round at Hobart and in the Australian Open, unfortunately causing her world ranking to plunge well below the 150th position.

At Pattaya City she beat Brandi, before losing against Linetskaya, at Hyderabad she beat Dokic but lost to Kirilenko and yielded to Haynes at Indian Wells.

In the 50-thousand-dollar tournament of Orange she lost at the eighth finals against Voskoboeva (the final score was 6/4 7/6), but immediately afterwards she won the 25-thousand-dollar tournament of Poza Rica in Mexico , beating the Japanese Fuda in the final; she lost at the quarter finals in Coatzacoalcos, also in Mexico, against Meusburger and won the 25-thousand-dollar tournament of Taranto, beating the Hungarian Nagy in the final.

At the Internazionali d'Italia in Rome she passed the two qualifying rounds (with victories over Sfar and Li) and beat Zuluaga (double 6/2) before losing on the central court against Petrova.

At Roland Garros she repeated the attempt but lost in the first round to Kloesel (the final score was 7/6 6/1) then, after losing in the first round against Vaskova at Prostejov in the Czech Republic, she passed the three qualifying rounds at Wimbledon and beat Poutchek of Byelorussia before yielding in three sets (2/6 6/3 6/2) to Serena Williams on the mythical central court of the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club.

In the first week of July she returned among the first hundred of the world in the singles.

Before that, on 6th June, she had achieved her best ranking in doubles, rising to number 52.

After the London adventure, and after a brief stop on account of an accident to her right ankle, Mara prepared for the US Open on the hard cement of the Bronx, reaching the quarter-finals and losing against the Austrian player Bammer.

Unfortunately the lots at Flushing Meadow were unfavourable to her and she head to give way before the no. 12 of the series, and eventual finalist, Mary Pierce.

In September she won in the French Series A team championship against the Taverny Club and in the same period obtained two excellent results at Joue Les Tours, where she reached the semi-finals, losing there to the Croatian Kostanic, and at St. Raphael where she was defeated in the finale by the Estonian Maret Ani.

Mara also took part in the Italian Series A team championship with the Veneto Banca Fincos Palladio but in spite of some excellent personal performances the team, which started out with great ambitions, was sadly relegated to A2.

The player from Trento closed her exceptional 2005 with the singles ranking of number 88.

For continually updated and detailed results consult the link below:

http://home17.inet.tele.dk/wta/sp/sant2572.htm

To see the statistics of my matches:

http://home17.inet.tele.dk/wta/sp/sant2572.htm