Week 2 - Australian Open Qualifying (Hard)

blob · All-time great

Week 2 - Australian Open Qualifying (Hard)

PaulM · Tennis legend

Fairly comfortable for Schoofs, who wasn't really under much pressure at any point.

Shame, had high hopes Naomi would come through this section, was very capable of it and of course she beat Bibiane a couple of months ago. Never mind, been a difficult couple of days.

Big points to defend in Midland.

Peter too · Tennis legend

Q2: BROADY, Naomi (GBR) 7 119 lost to SCHOOFS, Bibiane (NED) 202 6-7(5) 2-6

Peter too · Tennis legend

Naomi's service collapsed in the 2nd set, only 38% 1st serves in and only winning 50% of first serves.

brendan · Strong Club Player

blob wrote:
Must be infuriating for Naomi after all that hanging around and false starts, after 22:00 local, finally shoved on, and your Slam dreams are done.
You gotta roll with those punches, but it's still an aggravating Slam experience.
6-7(5) 2-6

It's no less fair on Schoofs so that can't be an excuse that only Naomi played so badly

brendan · Strong Club Player

Babfive wrote:
It looks like qualifying has been moved indoors. Naomi is third up on indoor court 6, with the first match just about to go into a third set.

-- Edited by Babfive on Saturday 13th of January 2018 04:25:56 AM

so they sat on their arses for 2 whole days before they realised they had indoor courts they could play on?

blob · All-time great

brendan wrote:
blob wrote:
Must be infuriating for Naomi after all that hanging around and false starts, after 22:00 local, finally shoved on, and your Slam dreams are done.
You gotta roll with those punches, but it's still an aggravating Slam experience.
6-7(5) 2-6
It's no less fair on Schoofs so that can't be an excuse that only Naomi played so badly

True. And that is why I didn't offer it as an excuse. "Infuriating", "aggravating", but "you gotta roll with those punches".
Even divorced from your performance based outcome, this is not a good experience, and givien the magnitude of the occasion for a player at Naomi's level, that's not going to help you be sanguine about things, as the chance slips by for another year. Trick then is to somehow not let that frustration with yourself fester and affect your ongoing plans.

indiana · Tennis legend

brendan wrote:
Babfive wrote:
It looks like qualifying has been moved indoors. Naomi is third up on indoor court 6, with the first match just about to go into a third set.

-- Edited by Babfive on Saturday 13th of January 2018 04:25:56 AM
so they sat on their arses for 2 whole days before they realised they had indoor courts they could play on?

They would surely want to avoid going indoors until it became a last resort, I think rightly for an outdoor Slam. Though I guess might be an argument as to whether they did leave it too long and the two women here have had a fairly awful couple of days.

What I don't understand is such a late start to qualifying and thus tight schedule. Is this normal for the Aus Open and they've just got away with it in the past even with relatively unpredictable Melbourne weather ?

Anyway, like PaulM I would have hoped indoors would quite suit Naomi. But she just hasn't dealt with all the coming and going as well as Schoofs and / or it was more simply her serve just choosing today as another example of how infuriatingly unpredictable that great weapon can be.

Sim · County player

Coup Droit wrote:
There was a big article in the New York Times, I think it was, about sexual discrimination in terms of the different sized draws for men and women and the effect that has on funding, with women needing to be about 80 places higher in the world rankings in order to break even.

As well as the Grand Slam qualifying most tour events at ATP 250/500 and WTA international, Premier give less prize money to women.

For example Auckland ATP 250 Winner gets $89K, compared to Auckland WTA International winner gets $43k so twice as much for the men.

Mervatron2 · Futures level

Annoying for Naomi. Should have won that.