She's that damn good!

You tell 'em, Martina! It has bothered me (and I'm sure many of you) for the longest time how people automatically assume that the competition on the women's tour today is weak just because a 48-year-old Martina can still give the youngsters a run for their money. She's talked about this before and will undoubtedly have to do so in the future but Martina had to call the media on this yet again today as can be seen from this AAP article.

More Gold Coast news

Martina arrived in Brisbane earlier today following a 32-hour flight from Florida. Yikes! Looks like she held a press conference on arrival; check out two nice articles from 'The (Brisbane) Courier-Mail' here and here. The 'Associated Press' is also finally catching up on the story here. More quotes from tournament director, Liz Smylie, can also be found in this article from 'The Australian.'

The local daily, the 'Gold Coast Bulletin' does a fantastic job of covering the event but unfortunately, they do not archive back issues on their website so all articles are only available for one day. I have copied & pasted the Martina-related articles to the "Articles" section of the message board so feel free to check it out for more. Nathalie Dechy, Martina's doubles partner next week, had some nice words for Martina and explained how their partnership came about.

Gold Coast confirmation

Martina's participation at the Uncle Toby's Hardcourts in Gold Coast with Nathalie Dechy was confirmed today by tournament director, Liz Smylie. Click here for a related AAP article.

Welcome to the Latest News blog!

A big welcome to all Martina fans! And Merry Christmas to everyone who celebrates it! Thank you for visiting the Latest News blog, your new source for all the latest on the Queen herself. After 5 years of the same latest news format on "Game, Set & Match, Martina", I thought it was time for something new perhaps and hopefully you will enjoy this new format a lot better. I'm still not exactly sure how the whole thing is going to work so it is going to be a continuous learning experience for me.

Back to Martina, make sure you check out her latest message on the message board in the "Happy Holidays" thread. I'm not sure if she is already in Australia or not. We're a week away from her first event of the new season - the Uncle Toby's Hardcourts in Gold Coast, Australia. Martina's regular doubles partner for 2005 is going to be Daniela Hantuchova of Slovakia but as Daniela is representing her country at the Hopman Cup in Perth that same week, Martina will instead be partnered by Nathalie Dechy of France in Gold Coast.

As far as her 2005 schedule goes, so far this is what we have confirmed. Gold Coast doubles with Dechy. Sydney the following week with Daniela. Next the Australian Open in Melbourne - doubles with Daniela & the mixed with Leander. Martina will also be doing TV commentary for Australia's Channel 7 that fortnight. And then 2 singles exhibition matches in New Zealand (Auckland & Christchurch) against Monica Seles in February.