Or more appropriately, she's not going away!

Martina Navratilova has announced she will be playing in Australia this year....playing double with Hantuchova (which will hopefully do Daniela some good) and mixed with Paes...she is also playing Gold Coast with Dechy, I believe...

I have to say, I'm pretty excited about this...Lisa and Martina made a solid team, but never really gelled (two titles is not bad, but...) Hantuchova doesn't have the raw prowess of Kuznetsova but she is powerful and, hopefully, in good shape now (and a more natural grass-courter than Sveta...) and will be, I hope, a better partner for Martina than Lisa...either way, seeing that news made my day!

Hantuchova was very successful with Sanchez Vicario as a partner, and she's also played a bit with Rubin, I believe. A little with Capriati, too. I wanted to think she had also played with Navratilova, but Martina has been pretty solid with Raymond, in preparation for the Olympics, and then Kuznetsova before that...

I'm happy that Martina is playing with Dani this year. I never felt that Raymond was a great fit for Martina because main success, with her comeback, was with Kuznetsova, a player who had an overpowering serve and very potent groundies. Lisa has neither or those. They were surely a competant team, but not one that could cause any consistent problems for the upper echelon doubles teams. They beat Stubbs and Black twice (losing 2 other matches), Shaugnessy and Petrova once (losing 1 other match), but they never beat the Russians (Likhovtseva & Kuznetsova) or Ruano-Pascual/Suarez. Their loss in Athens to the Japanese (Asagoe & Sugiyama) was particularly frustrating because I was following the match on-line and they had quite a few break points, but they were never able to convert. ARGH!

IMO, Dani has a more power on her serve, she has more pop off of the ground than Lisa, and she's a solid doubles player in her own right. Granted, her singles play really slumped after the US Open (where she really should have beaten Petty Patty, she had 2 match points at 6-4 in the 3rd set breaker), but I think that they can do some damage this year.

Nick

With Martina up to no. 12 in the dubs rankings and Daniela ranked at no. 63, they should definitely be ranked for the Australian Open, yes?

Any word on who Raymond will play with?