Week 38 - WTA International ($500K) - Seoul, Korea - Hard

steven · Tennis legend

Week 38 - WTA International ($500K) - Seoul, Korea - Hard

BeefyDeedz · Pro player

Watson is certainly in the right half of the draw. Even if Pliskova wins HK she is still a better proposition than Radwanska.

AliBlahBlah · All-time great

R1: Heather Watson/Alexandra Panova (GBR/RUS) 180 vs. Danka Kovinic/Anna Schmiedlova (MNE/SVK) 689

Mervatron · Masters Series Champion

Come on Hev

Peter too · Tennis legend

R1: WATSON, Heather (GBR) 8 46 v GIBBS, Nicole (USA) Q 101 =CH

-- Edited by Peter too on Monday 15th of September 2014 10:19:28 AM

AliBlahBlah · All-time great

Top Q seed, coming off a great run at USO; draw could've been kinder to Hev. Many of the players in MD as of right pose less of a threat.

philwrig · Hall of fame

That is very tough, Gibbs impressed me at the US open and Hev will have to raise her current level, to win this one.

PaulM · Tennis legend

Hev should be winning these matches regardless (and should really be going very deep in draws like this). A loss here would be a very poor result, irrespective of Gibbs having a half decent showing at her home slam.

-- Edited by PaulM on Monday 15th of September 2014 01:36:27 PM

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

Not disputing that Heather 'should' be winning but I think it was way more than a 'half decent' showing for Nicole Gibbs to make the third round of the US Open !!!
And beating the 23rd seed.
And the fact that it was her home slam makes it even more impressive because most players (and certainly practically all the Brits) seem to perform far worse in their home slams (due to pressure or whatever).

indiana · Tennis legend

When you've made the last seeding spot and drawn a qualifier ranked just outside the top 100, there's not a lot to complain about, no matter that she may be the best of the qualifiers and in good recent form.

Sounds as of it might be fairly tough, but certainly seems a decent outcome.

AliBlahBlah · All-time great

My original point was that of the qualifiers, this is by some distance the toughest assignment.

It is also the additional consideration I gave though: given the qualifier that Heather actually drew, it turns out that - by my reckoning - at least 11 of the players in MD as of right would also actually have been definitely a better draw than Gibbs at this moment (with a few more about equal).
To say nothing of 2/3 WCs - it's hard to predict much for the third WC, Kirilenko, at the moment.

So by my reckoning, Heathers draw, with her being seeded and so avoiding 7 other dangerous players, is actually in to the lower quartile of all those she might have had.

None of which suggested that Heather couldn't win this match, or even quite reasonably have fans expecting her to win it, and I'd be astonished if Heather herself didn't believe absolutely that she will win it.

Stick to very occasionally reporting the scores Ali...

indiana · Tennis legend

Ha, Ha, no enter the fray, it's all good fun.

It being this internetty thing folk may sometimes take different meanings, be at cross purposes or indeed totally misinterpret things. I think the trick is don't really bother and elaborate as you see fit.

It's enough that one of our number seems to think speculation and prediction is pretty much a waste of time :)

philwrig · Hall of fame

The best part about the Asian swing is the early hour live score watching, tomorrow we are scheduled for 2nd after 4am, great stuff.

AliBlahBlah · All-time great

Heather live on streams now 3-2*

AliBlahBlah · All-time great

Looking very confident, hitting good and deep and stepping in to finish points off quickly. Good pressure on the Gibbs serve, but no breakthrough yet 4-3*