Excellent win for Jade We know she's a lot better than her current ranking of 1200ish, her current playing strength is probably in the 800s.
It's a shame about Madelaine and Lucy. Madelaine has been totally outclassed by two lower ranked opponents for the last two weeks which is a little worrying. Having said that Ashlee Brown did qualify last week. Lucy's conqueror also beat Madelaine 2 and 1 last week in the final qualies round.
I don't know whether Lucy is based down under, I would think that's unlikely, haven't heard of that happening before
(q) (1289) Jade Curtis (GBR) vs (q) (834) Cassandra Chan (Aus) fellow qualifier. Could be a lot worse!
Anna Smith is 8th seed!
(8) (531) Anna Smith (GBR) vs Shao-Yuan Kao (taipei) (686)
(there is an unfilled LL spot in Main Draw. Lets hope Lucy gets it!)
-- Edited by johnnylad at 10:33, 2007-03-05
That's a winnable match for Jade, 20 year old Chan lost in Wellington qualies last week. She qualified for the Melbourne 25K and beat Madelaine Brooks 4-6, 6-4, 6-4 in rd1 before getting outplayed in rd2. She didn't do much in 2006 apart from qualifying for several 10Ks in Asia. Lost 6-2, 6-4 to Karen Paterson at the end of the year.
Hopefully Anna can take full advantage of her seeding this time, next up for her are some tough 25K qualies in Australia so she could do with getting some points here and taking advantage of the weakish draw. Her 18 year old opponent is a clay-court specialist and has played just 1 match in 2007, losing in rd1 of Wellington last week. She didn't play many tournaments in 2007 but had a fair bit of success, reaching a final, a semi and two quarters in Asian 10Ks. Natasha Khan beat her 6-4, 6-3 last April.