Daniela snared in torture chamber

Claire Nash|Daily Mail13 April 2012

Troubled players have often said the tennis court was their refuge in times of turmoil. For Daniela Hantuchova it appears to have become a torture chamber.

Her tears as she crashed out of Wimbledon on Wednesday showed a young woman who is deeply unhappy and insecure. If you are talented, beautiful and rich, surely the day job should not be like this.

Sport is designed to enrich, not destroy. Yet the additional pressure on women tennis players to look good is taking an ugly turn. Whether Hantuchova is suffering from an eating disorder or some other emotional issue, it is clearly undermining one of the great talents in the game.

Only the hard-hearted would not have wanted to put a supportive arm around the painfully slim Slovakian as she crumbled under the weight of her own and everybody else's expectations against Japan's Shinobu Asagoe.

'Feel the force,' someone in the crowd shouted on Court Two as Hantuchova squandered three match points. By then she was running on empty.

What has turned the assured, impressive athlete who lit up Wimbledon last year into an uncertain, quivering waif? Those closest to Hantuchova will know, while her fans hope she will be left in peace to rediscover her zest and form - even if it means taking time out.

There is sympathy among her peers. For Mary Pierce, the last three years have been an injury-enforced agony, her efforts to follow up winning the 2000 French Open undermined by shoulder, back and ankle problems.

But she is marching back, under the wing of Greg Rusedski ' s former coach Sven Groeneveld, and hopes to add further scalps to that of 14th seed Eleni Daniilidou of Greece, who was blown off Court Two 6-4, 6-1 yesterday.

Earlier in her career the French-Canadian had to endure physical and verbal abuse from her father Jim. He was later forced by the law courts to keep away from his daughter. Yet Pierce, who is still in touch with her father, played through the mental pain to win the 1995 Australian Open.

Her perspective now is that of a woman far wiser than most at 28, as she says: 'Sometimes worries have affected the way I play but we're all human and emotional. I'm sensitive and have a passion for what I do.

'I can understand if someone gets upset on court. I know how that feels when I'm playing badly. But I always try to learn from situations in life and I believe everything happens for a reason.

' The last few years have been difficult but I just took it day by day. I never took things for granted, but I didn't realise how easy it was for me before.' Dubbed 'The Body', the statuesque Pierce attracted as much attention-for her physique as for her tennis when at the height of her powers. The former world No.3 also prompted controversy when she used the muscle-building supplement creatine to bulk up in order to counter the Williams sisters-induced power surge.

Pierce is self-conscious of her current increased weight, but she is confident of shedding the pounds as her form improves and says: 'I want to be in much better shape but that's something that will take time for me.

'I feel my game is there. I'm not in my best form but I'm using these matches to work towards that goal. It's a fact of tennis life that people are interested in what we look like. It's part of what we do because we're in the public eye. I want to look good and feel good in what I'm wearing.'

Martina Navratilova now looks back on her 1983 victory over Andrea Jaeger with sadness knowing that her opponent was suffering unspeakably at the hands of an abusive father.

The nine-times women's champion says: 'It was not an easy time for her to be on the court. For her, and for all of us, the court was a refuge in bad times. That all changed with Monica Seles's stabbing because all of a sudden you weren't safe there.

'But back then, it was a sort of safe haven. No matter what was going on in your life, that's where you could get away from it.'

Yet for Hantuchova, what happens if your game, the one thing you think you can depend on, lets you down?

Boris Becker once said, after a shock second-round defeat when he was defending champion: 'I lost a tennis match. No one died.'

No one can argue with that, but when your very physical and mental well-being has been stripped bare, the effects are bound to be felt for some time.

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