sadly its been raining all day at west worthing. the qualifying for he tour holds laura white, farly sisters, laura fisher main draw is up on lta website but full of gaps as the qualifying has not finished yet
biggest shock was lydia hammond beating emily crack lydia just a 5.2
lucy warburton very athletic and very quick around court uses forhand well. she beat natasha starling and lydia hammond. yasmin clarke is seriously bulked up, her legs are huge! she has big serve and great volleys her run was rather easy beating emily farley and another.
claire and beki won didnt get to see claire play and beki was just very consistant from what i saw
going up tomorrow will give report on both matches
i live near worthing but i travel all over country for business and sometimes i am jammy enough to go to same place there is a comp on. but this is my week off so been up there watching
beki LL won 76 in the 3rd set. beki gets everything back and it was all about claire really aslong as claire played her game in the points she won them but as soon as she sat back bei took control,the third set was the better tennis from both but beki proved far too consistant and strong for claire even though i felt she was unlcuky.
yasmin clarke v lucy warburton was a 3 setter 63 36 60 to yasmin. lucy warburton is very athletic looking and is quick around the court she has a big forehand and a pretty handy serve, back hand not too shabby either. the 60 set was over 30 mins and was very close not sure how it was 60 there were alot of long deuces. yasmin grunts loudly but it seemed to me her biggest weapon was her volleys. apart from a few great passes she drop volleyed alot and it was pretty good play. she seemed fairly solid off both wings and made few errors, some very long rallies. i think she could work on her speed though.
i think yasmin will win the final against beki purely for her tactics she is very profesional and seems to plan each point before it begins. but who knows, i will be there to watch once again
thanks for the info tennisbrain, a great read ! Could you do a brief report of the final for the britishtennis.net homepage ?
Great week for Becki Fong, that must be nice and confidence boosting after the tough time she had in the States with few wins. Must be a nice boost for the bank balance too after overshopping in New York
I'm surprised that Yasmin didn't win the title, I thought her all-court game and the way she constructs the points would be too much....maybe too many unforced errors ? Good to have some info on her game style, a lot of the upcoming British juniors are real all-court players which is very promising. The likes of Anna Fitzpatrick, Amanda Elliott, Laura Slater etc have great net games aswell as the power from the back.
When I saw Lucy Warburton in Sutton, I was amazed she wasn't ranked higher...as you say, she's got a good serve and can hit big off both wings...she played this girl Dranets who was ranked 400ish and tbh Lucy looked much the better player even though she lost. I felt that although she constructs things well from the back, she needs to learn how to finish the points off properly...lost so many pts through errors off mid-court or short balls, going to the wrong corner or fluffed volleys.
i must say sheddie i have to agree with you about lucy w.
unfortunately it was beki llewellyn that won the title on the double with tunbridge wells beki fong did not play it, sorry if i confused you sheddie!
well to be honest the final was a bit hot and cold. yasmin is a great player but sometimes goes off the boil for a game or two which can lose her a set or gives her opponent a lead then she gets back into it. in the final i saw flourishes of great play form her, if only she could have played well throughout! i did think llewelyn would struggle on the suspect grass courts of west worthing. mainly because she grinds from the back and gets everything back into court which is hard to do on grass. i would of like to see her attack more rather than waiting for opponent to attack, but it works well for her. the final was a bit wayward with each player playing well when the other wasnt producing much however it provided good entertainment. yasmin clarke has great potential, i think working on her speed would improve her game immensly. as for llewelyn attacking more for her at the big points may help her ranking but i think grinding it out and playing safer is her game(only on big points) its just frustrating too see such good attacking play only every so often.
i cant remember the score as i was keeping an eye on another final but it was in 3 sets.
thanks for the info....my mistake, when I read Beki I just assumed it was the Fonglet
Yeah Nigel Sears was saying that it's bizarre how Becky's best results tend to come on grass when her game is ideally suited to clay ! I watched her in Sutton and as you say, she's just very consistent, moves well and gets everything back....however often she is too passive in the rallies and I'd just like to see her take the ball on rather than waiting for her opponent to attack and make an error. If she wants to move up into top 250 and beyond, she needs to do that and develop some big shots as with her current game style, whenever she comes up against a big hitter on a fast surface, she can get blown away too often. In Sutton she played Liana Ungur who was hitting the cover off the ball on both wings and Becky had no answer
At Wimbledon this yr she said she turned down the opportunity of playing doubles and mixed to work on her game and she's been making some big changes to her game to try and get higher...did you notice any changes to before tennisbrain ?
Hopefully Yasmin can work on her fitness as it sounds like she's got potential to be an exciting player. At 17, consistency is a problem for most players, it'll improve over the next few yrs
