The cut has dropped so much that Jade Curtis is just four places from a direct entry. Madelaine Brook, Lucy Fletcher and Nicola Mooney are also on the lists.
Wow... Not to insult Jade or anything (you all know how much I lover her) but that is a freaking LOW cut... How many MD withdrawls can we expect? Is it fair to say she should end up in the main draw without qualifying?
She's sure to be one of the top seeds in qualifying anyway so she should have a great chance of making the main draw. Qualifying for it would actually be better in many ways as she'd get extra points and have 3 matches under her belt before coming up against some of the big guns in the main draw.
Qualifying started in the small hours of Saturday morning but still no sign of the draw anywhere
The Tennis Australia site used to be really great, very up to date with draws and results for mens and womens Australian challengers and futures. They also often had reports, quotes and pics. Unfortunately they've now made a load of changes so it now sucks - harder to navigate and doesn't provide any of the useful info the old one did.
Rd1: M Brooks (q) v Cassandra Chan (Aus)(q)(wr:1130) J Curtis (q) v C Wheeler (Aus)(7)
Great draw for Madelaine, she faces a qualifier ranked 6 places lower ! Chan is 20 and didn't really achieve anything worth writing home about in 2006, making rd2 of a couple of 10Ks were her best results. This is her first tournament of 2007.
Jade hasn't been so fortunate, Christina Wheeler is ranked 618 places higher at 402. Not only that, back in 2003 she was in the top 150 with a career high of 147. 2006 highlights were two 25K quarters plus qualifying for WTA Hobart. She played 3 British players, Danielle Brown, Melissa Berry and Jessica Jackson and each only managed to win a handful of games.