jamatthews wrote:

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Or not...Ula's gone.

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  How did that happen?

-- Edited by Arka at 16:46, 2007-02-07

Not a bad set of results really, disappointing that Natasha, Amanda, Anna and Sarah couldn't win but I believe I'm right in saying they were all trying to overcome large ranking differences so can't complain too much.

Good luck to our four remaining players in the second round.

Speaking afterwards about the day's matches, head of womens tennis Nigel Sears, said "Georgie versus Mel was a lot closer than last week, as I thought. Georgie's playing great at the moment, she's still riding off the confidence of that 25K win in Australia at the end of last season. In the first set, Mel had set point at 5-4 but Georgie hit a second serve ace. She held her nerve well to take it on a tiebreak. In the 2nd set tiebreak, Mel fought hard and saved 5 match points before eventually succombing. Naomi was very impressive today in beating Sassi so it'll be an interesting round 2 match between them."     

"Natasha played superbly in the first set, definately the best set of tennis I've ever seen her play but unfortunately she wasn't able to maintain it. From the second set onwards she seemed to lose confidence in her backhand and didn't have the conviction to come through and win the match. However, Salerni is a very experienced player, I've watched her for a long time."

"Anne played very well today, a lot better than in Sutton. However, Amanda Keen was disappointing, it was a  fairly routine 6-3, 6-4 win for Ruutel.  Jane  looked very fit and was moving very well in her match against Katie but Jane is a little rusty and Katie was just too consistent today."

"Anna Fitzpatrick played a great second set against Hlavackova. Anna's still only 17 and she, Naomi, Jade Windley and Jocelyn Rae are our 3 best upcoming teenage prospects. I have high hopes for all of them."

ultimateshedman wrote:

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imoen wrote:

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Not a bad set of results really, disappointing that Natasha, Amanda, Anna and Sarah couldn't win but I believe I'm right in saying they were all trying to overcome large ranking differences so can't complain too much.

Good luck to our four remaining players in the second round.

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Natasha and Anna both did extremely well to take their opponents to 3 sets as they were outranked by 300+ and 500+ places respectively.

Amanda and Sarah's results were the really disappointing ones as they have similar rankings to their opponents, Amanda in particular didn't play very well. Sarah played a good match, Ozga just held her nerve better in the tiebreak

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so i was not right in saying... Oh well. But still both opponents were ranked higher and whilst I agree we should hope that our players beat higher ranked guys (how else will they rise up the rankings?) I don't think we should expect them to do so. I mean we expect them to beat anyone ranked lower so why are foreign players expected to always lose to lower ranked Brits? I'm not trying to rant at anyone in particular and I myself am guilty of the same thing, just trying to put the results in perspective and say that whilst we can be disappointed we shouldn't think it the end of the world.

ultimateshedman wrote:

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"Anna Fitzpatrick played a great second set against Hlavackova. Anna's still only 17 and she, Naomi, Jade Windley and Jocelyn Rae are our 3 best upcoming teenage prospects. I have high hopes for all of them."

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I have to ask, is it Nigel Sears who can't count or Ultimateshedman, the guy taking A level further maths?

DUBS news!

Last weeks winners Keothavong/Curran saw ULA coming and ran away handing Ula and friend a w/o into QF. (Now in SF due to toehr w/o's)

Stoop + De Gubernatis bt Fitzpatrick + Suarez-Navarro 6-3 6-4

Paterson/South bt Cavaday/Coles 6-3 6-3

Katie OB + Ruutel (4) bt Georges + Poltoratskaya 3-6 6-3 6-1

Georgina Bastick + Abi Claydon (who are they) lost to Panova/Bratchikova 6-0 6-1

QF's

Karen and Mel face Katoe and Margit!

Georgie and partner face 3rd seeds

The last time Georgie and Naomi met was in the autumn, when Georgie won 5-7, 6-2, 6-4 on the way to reaching a 25K semi.

However, it was a different story today and Naomi got her revenge winning 6-3, 7-6(2)

Katie also cruised through to the quarters beating Croatia's Ana Vrlic 6-3, 6-2 

couple of good results there, hope AnneK can pull through as well, she really should....