Australian Open, Melbourne
Venue: Melbourne Park Dates: 17-30 January
Coverage: Watch on BBC TV, Red Button, BBC Sport website (UK only) & Eurosport; listen on BBC 5 live sports extra and online; text commentary online; full details

Henin breezes past Baltacha

By Elena Baltacha World number 55 and British number one

So another Australian Open is done and that makes me a little bit sad, even though I came off court feeling very positive about the way I played against Justine Henin.

I said before the match that I wanted to take care of the things that I could control, like how I handled the occasion and whether or not I played well, and I did that.

I knew that if she played really, really well, whatever I did it probably was not going to be enough because of the quality of player Justine is. Sometimes you have to just say "too good".

She might well go on to win the tournament and I hope she does because she's just a ridiculously good player and a great competitor. For me it's about taking what I can from the experience.

The good thing is that I felt so much more comfortable out there than I did a year ago, when I played another former world number one Dinara Safina on the Rod Laver Arena. I allowed the size of the court to get the better of me then, whereas even when I practiced on it before my match I felt like it was smaller than I remembered it.

I think I am just much better at dealing with those situations because I am a much, much more confident player than I was a year ago.

The Australian Open can set the tone for your season. It did for me last year, when I made the third round and performed really well, and I feel like I have performed well enough here to use it to build on. My ranking is still going to be just inside the top 60 and that's a good platform to build on from here on in.

I am going to stay in Melbourne and train until Saturday before heading back to Europe to spend two weeks as part of the Great Britain Fed Cup team. We have a training week in Cyprus before travelling to Israel, where the event is being held this year.

It's always one of the most interesting weeks of the year. In the group we're in - which is kind of like the second division - we have to compete with 14 other teams to get into a play-off to gain promotion to the World Group.

There's always a lot of drama on the court at Fed Cup because it's really tense and very competitive and everyone is fighting their heart out. It doesn't suit everyone but I love it because I really like a good old ding-dong battle on court.

Anne Keothavong, Heather Watson and I will be joined by another, as yet unknown, team-mate because it looks like Laura Robson isn't going to be fit, which is a real shame as I think it would have been a wonderful experience for her.

Anne is playing well and she and I go back a long way, plus it will also be great to have Heather along because she's had some fantastic results lately and I've been really impressed with the way she's improved steadily. She's such a lovely girl, too, and I think she'll really love playing for her team and her country.

After Fed Cup I will be heading to Pattaya in Thailand and from there on in it's going to be a bit of a merry-go-around of tournaments, flights, and hotels. I'm so ready to get out there and build on what I've done here.

If playing one of the greatest players of all time, on one of the biggest courts in the world, doesn't inspire you then nothing will.

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