Playmate Harkleroad Exposed On Court

By: Matthew Cronin, TennisReporters.net

Struggling Ashley Needs Time Off; On-Court Coaching Dying
 
On Sunday, Flintstone native Ashley Harkleroad was as happy as a Georgia peach conducting pre-tournament interviews celebrating her appearance on the cover of Playboy as well as her prospects in the East West Bank Classic draw.

On Tuesday, after being waxed by Stephanie Dubois in what she called the worst match she’s played in two years, she was nothing but glum and is considering taking some time off. The 23-year-old had to undergo emergency surgery to remove one of her ovaries back in April and it appears she came back too soon.

“Maybe I’m not as strong as I was,” she said. “They had to cut me in three different places. I’m trying to figure it out…I go see a doctor once a month. I’m going through this hypochondriac stage where I think there is something wrong with my other ovary. I’m sure I’ll get over it, but when you are healthy your whole life and something like that happens you don’t know how to handle it. If I would have went to sleep maybe I wouldn’t have woken up. I was bleeding internally.”

The handful of men who came out to hoot and holler at Harkleroad during her loss have no idea what’s going on with the object of their affection, and really, neither does she. She made the decision to do the Playboy shoot while on bed rest and while she admits that money played a role in her decision (she is said to have been paid $250,000) and is happy how the pictures came out in the magazine, some one should have advised her to take more time to recover physically and emotionally from the major surgery.
Maybe someone did, but she didn’t listen and now she’s in a big time, on-court funk.

“I don’t know what it’s supposed to be like after you lose an organ,” she said. “My stamina isn’t back even though I’ve been cycling a lot. I feel out of breath. Everything went so fast. Everything was going well, and then I’m in the hospital and then the next thing you know I’m in Europe playing Serena. It’s not going my way tennis wise.”

Harkleroad is a retriever who prior to her surgery had added some pop to her groundies and had been admirably rushing the net. But she needs her speed to win matches, as she’s not going overpower a lot of the bigger players. Now she’s lacking energy, as well as confidence.

“ I’m feeling super rusty and low in confidence and I need to win some matches.”

But she’s not going to when her body is telling her to slow down and heal. She wishes she took more time off post her April surgery, but she can’t turn back the clock back. Since she returned at Strasbourg the week before Roland Garros, she’s only managed to win one out of her last seven matches.

“I’m trying to find game again but my mind is racing a tad and I need to figure out a way to slow it all down,” she said. “It’s taking a little longer to move past it. I can’t find my range.”

Outside of tennis media circles, Harkleroad is in big demand due to her August Playmate status, but she’s not in jovial, extroverted mood, declining to do a major radio appearance on Tuesday morning because she felt that it would take her mind off her real career.

“I’m trying to focus on tennis,” she said. “It’s hard enough to win matches and try to stay focused and that’s not working either. [The attention] a little distracting, but I’m enjoying it. It’s more about my tennis and that’s all good and great but I want to play well again.”

It’s clear that Harkleroad and her boyfriend and coach, Chuck Adams, should stay at home in Beverly Hills (they moved from Malibu) during the next couple of weeks and figure out what is going on with her physically.

“He's having to deal with female hormones," Harkleroad said.

But it’s quite possible she’ll just play out the summer string because by October, the Playboy shoot will be almost forgotten and then it will be just the two of them again trying to figure out how to earn money on a demanding tour.

“I wish I could take a couple weeks off, but there’s no time otherwise I’ll slip out of top 100,” she said. “It’s a year round sport and sometimes you hope it just clicks.”
 
On Court Coaching About to Die

The Sony Ericsson WTA Tour has suspended its on-court coaching experiment indefinitely, as it failed to pass a board of directors vote at Wimbledon. It’s due for a final vote at the Tour Championships in Doha in November. The player reps have voted, but the players themselves haven’t. It still has a chance of survival, but the veterans who have weighed in on the subject during the past week seem to be of two minds.

“It’s a little distracting when you have coaches walking on court and most of them are parents, that’s what I didn’t like about it,” Nadia Petrova said. “On the other hand it worked perfectly for me. I just started working with my coach and he would come on court and give me advice and it was perfect for developing my relationship. But now that it’s over it's fine. You spend so much time in practice analyzing with your coach that a match is a time when you have to do it yourself. You have to try to find a way to change tactics yourself. I think I’m going to vote against it. Many players just use as a safeguard because they don’t know what to do so their coach tells them. You have to use their head in matches.”

Daniela Hantuchova, who fell to Belarus’ Olga Govortsova and just returned after a major foot injury, used an on-court coach a lot and said it helped her.
“The last two tournaments it would have helped. Coming back it helps to have someone there giving you advice with a better perspective. If I am to vote, I would say yes.”
 
With Serena Williams out of the draw with a knee injury, there are slew of players with a real shot at the title. Count in third seed Anna Chakvetadze after she wasted Marta Domachowska 6-1, 6-1. “I played very well,” she said. “I concentrated all match and overall, it was excellent.”
 
Also count in Petrova, who crunched Alina Jidkova 6-0, 6-4. “I feel like I’m back on track and I have my motivation again,” Petrova said. “I’m very happy being here competing. I want to bring my fitness to where it’s never been.”

Don’t count in 10th seed Flavia Pennetta yet, but do count out Bank of the West Classic champ Aleksandra Wozniak, who like so many young players, faded quickly in her next event, this time 6-1 6-0 to the Italian.

“It would have been great if I would have won ninth match in 11 days,” said Wozniak. “She played solid and was fresh and I didn’t have concentration and felt exhausted,” Wozniak said. “I was missing energy.”
 
Nicole Vaidisova survived the Japan’s Ayumi Morita, a young and talented player who hits with two hands off both sides 6-7, 6-3, 6-1. Vaidisova spent the last couple weeks playing points with her coach David Taylor and says it should help her in match situations.

American Vania King beat qualifier Angela Haynes 6-3, 6-3 and will face top seed Jelena Jankovic.