LordBrownof wrote:

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Would be great to see Jo play a few more international or 200K type events with slightly weaker fields.

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Maybe but there are quite a lot of initial commitments she has for a player with her ranking.

4 Slams, 4 Premier Mandatories and 5 Premier 5s give you 13 tournaments for starters. She is mandated to play all the Slams and Mandatories, and she would wish to anyway, and I think 4 of the Premier 5s but may well play all 5.

Let's say she plays these 13, she has also already played or is supposedly going to play 5 Premiers ( Brisbane, Sydney, Dubai, Birmingham and Eastbourne ) plus the Nottingham International. 

Counting the 5 Premier 5s that is 4 + 4 + 5 + 5 + 1 = 19 tournaments already in the pipeline plus had she had the Fed Cup week and no doubt the Japan tie to come.

The schedule is fairly relentless. The Premiers she has down are understandable in Aussie Open prep, Wimbledon prep and Dubai ( after Doha ). Fitting in Internationals too would have to I think be a matter of careful consideration and selection. 

Her form is not good. Quite how far it is away is debatable. I see that Kasatkina has made the Dubai final. Now different days, generally different performances, so not too much should be made of Jo still taking Daria to 3 sets, indeed having 2 MPs in the second set TB, but just adding it in there. She's still in the 30s in the early race. Comparatively of course quite a bit of a fall ( especially adding in such a poor second half of last year ) and anyone can see that she is well off her best, and I appreciate that some have seen rather more of her recently than I have.

But maybe maintain general similar ( already rather busy ) schedule, just somehow get better again. It is very frustrating but it is comparative, she has not become awful. And there are limited choices for a fairly elite player struggling a bit with form and keeping facing very good players. If there is a window ( maybe post Wimbledon? ) then depending on how things have been going maybe an International or two then ( but that kind of is if a poor grass season which of course we don't want to see  - last year she took a bit of a break at that time ). Again it was from that break on that her form has never really recovered. So maybe she is better relatively piling in tournaments ( well, within reason ). Oh, I'll stop rambling and adding bits ...