Latent heat: Marta Domachowska

The recent domination of women's tennis by russian players is encouraging girls from other eastern european countries to play tennis and so, along with Russia, Czech Republic and Slovakia, countries like Serbia (Ivanovic, Jankovic), Romania (Olaru, Cirstea, Gallovits), Hungary (Szavay), Bulgary (Pironkova, Karatantcheva), Belarus (Azarenka, Govortsova) and Ukraine (Bondarenko sisters, Vakulenko) are also developing a lot of young talents. With the Radwanska sisters and Marta Domachowska, Poland is not an exception.

1986-born Domachowska got a good junior career and reached the Top 100 in 2004. She was one of the most promising youngsters and started to climb the rankings slowly reaching a career-high of #37 at April 2006. But then she started a losing streak which took her down to #174 in June 2007. She even took a 2-month break to think and try to get her tennis back. She started to play smaller events in order to get some victories and some confidence.


And it seems it has worked, cause in Australian Open she has reached Last 16 as a qualifier, which means winning six matches in a row, including a win over 24th seed and Gold Coast winner Na Li. There she lost to Venus Williams, but with this result she will be back on Top 100. So we should count on her again.

Aside from tennis, Marta is also one of the hottest players on WTA Tour, you can check her gallery here