Week 26 - Wimbledon Womens Singles Round 2

DavidC · Tennis legend

Week 26 - Wimbledon Womens Singles Round 2

wolf · Tennis legend

Bally is 4-1* down, having just broken back. Zheng playing well apart from that last game.

wolf · Tennis legend

First set lost 6-2, and 1-0* down in second.

wolf · Tennis legend

Bally breaks for *3-2, Bally playing much better this set.

wolf · Tennis legend

Broken back despite being 40-15 up. 3-3.

wolf · Tennis legend

She was *5-4 30-0 but blew it and is now *5-6 30-40..mp..and taken GSM Zheng 6-2, 7-5.

goldfish · Futures qualifying

Disappointing - she definitely choked when serving for the second set, giving away 2 DFs. Showed how well she can play though. Zheng was a tough competitor, showing the kind of resilience many of the Brits just don't have.

indiana · Tennis legend

I didn't see any of the match, but the BBC website headlines : "Below par Baltacha sent crashing" and desribes it as a disappointing display.

However, I rarely unfortunately take the BBC website and Ceefax at face value these days, especially when talking about tennis.

On the surface, the score doesn't look too bad against a player with real talent. who has been number 27 in the world in the past, and as has been said is onnly really currently ranked where she is due to injury.

Anyone who saw the match like to commet on how she played generally, and in comparison to her opening match ?

-- Edited by indiana at 14:38, 2008-06-25

-- Edited by indiana at 14:40, 2008-06-25

wolf · Tennis legend

Firstly Zheng was a lot better player than Kerber, so you have to take that into consideration.

I thought Bally played better in her opening match, today I don't think she hit too many winners and seemed content at times to just play a foot behind the baseline. She needed to get up the court more as that is her strength and her defensive game is not that great. She definately choked at the end of the second set, was 30-0 up at *5-4, and *5-6.

DUSTY DICK · Club Coach

Bally really should have won that second set. You never know what might have happened in the third. Zheng may have got tight. Nice try from Bally but she should be kicking herself now about the end of that second set. Too late now and chance gone.

imoen · Admin: Moderator+Tennis Legend

Bally should have won the second set, i won't dispute that. However Zheng was very good. Bally kept trying new game plans, mixing it up and generally threw the kitchen sink at Zheng. Sure she could've hit fewer ues (it's hard to find anyone you can't say that about) but it certainly wasn't the dire display the bbc painted it as. Zheng was clearly ranked way too low (apparently she had an injury that took her out for most of the last year) but she's obviously on the way up and whilst doubles is different to singles it needs to be remembered that she won here in the womens dubs a couple of years ago so she can clearly play on grass. These aren't excuses for Bally, merely the mention of a few facts most of the reports have left/will leave out. In my opinion, barring the choke on serve at *5-4 in the second, Bally played well. I was impressed by her ability to change game plan when it wasn't working and she by no means handed the match to her opponent, Zheng had to win it. Just a shame she did!

As for comparison with her first match, I can't comment. I didn't see that match (expect for hte last game on a replay sometime) so maybe Bally did play better then. I just don't know!

-- Edited by imoen at 17:44, 2008-06-25

DavidC · Tennis legend

I just saw an interview with Bally on the Beeb where she admitted that she hadn't played as well as against Kerber, and said her serve had let her down and that she had to take all her chances to move to the next level.

Anne is first on Centre tomorrow followed by Andy. Chris is third on court 1.

ForeverDelayed · Grand Slam Champion

She played well in patches, but at times looked awful again, and definately choked away the second set, with 2 double and faults 2 very poor forehands in the game at 5-4, and the game she played at 5-6 wasn't too much better as well.

And the start of the match was terrible as well, as she was 4-0 in about 10 minutes as she couldn't find the court, and when she did she just set up Zheng.

But for most of the second set she did match Zheng and didn't look to be outclassed on the court against someone who has been a top 30 player (Zheng though does appear to be a bit of a pusher who relies on other's making errors to win the match)

Creditable effort, but the same old problems with her game that she makes too many errors, and with the problems with her movement, it didn't make any sense that she tried to rally with Zheng and rarely tried to take the ball early from inside the baseline which the commentators were imploring her to do.

Given how nervous Anne has been in the past on a show court, and the fact I don't see how she has anything to hurt Venus, I'm not expecting a pretty scoreline tomorrow

DavidC · Tennis legend

Here's some relevant extracts from the interview on the Wimbledon site

Q. You always talk about if you get the spell of injury-free tennis that you want and almost everything goes right you feel you could get to the top 100. Do you feel you could get there by next year?

ELENA BALTACHA: Yeah, I really do believe that. That's definitely my main goal now. I've got the weapons, I just need to improve this consistency. Because my results, you know, it still is a little bit all over the place, the way that I'm playing. So I really just need to knuckle down and just get that level, to maintain that level.

But I think I've got the big shots and I think my serving needs to get better. My serve has been letting me down, as well. So that definitely needs to be worked on.

But I think it's exciting. I'm looking at it as a very positive experience, and I've still got a lot of things that can get better. And if I can improve it, then I think, yeah, I can break top 100.

Q. Do you feel you'd be at the standard you want to be at if you hadn't had the problems you have had, which have been well documented? Do you feel you'd be there already?

ELENA BALTACHA: It's difficult to say, but I would have -- I think so. I think so. I think if I would have had a clear run, you know, then I think, yeah, I would have been definitely.

But it's just one of those things, you know. It's one of those things that it did happen, and I've just got to accept it and just keep going.

I do believe that I can be top 100, whether it's the end of this year or whether it's next year.

Q. What do you have to change to actually do that now? You say next year you hope you can improve your consistency. Is this going to take a change in training regime?

ELENA BALTACHA: As long as I make sure my body gives me a chance, because my body does still break down from time to time with the back. So as long as I just keep conditioning myself, make sure that my back is getting strong, all the other areas that I'll need to improve on to make sure the back keeps holding up.

And then it's a matter of whether it's going to allow me to play the number of tournaments that I want to play, because all the other girls are playing 30 tournaments a year and I'm on about 23, 24, so I'll need to up the tournaments, as well.

Hopefully my body will let me do that.

Q. It must be quite frustrating, as well, to not play as much as you want to play.

ELENA BALTACHA: Yeah, of course, and obviously practice-wise, as well. But hopefully we are addressing now the different kind of exercises and stuff that I will need to do to keep the back going. As long as I can do that and I can get a clearer run, then I think top 100, here I come, hopefully. Hopefully soon.

......

Q. So how many people will you expect to be watching you the next time that you're out there in comparison?

ELENA BALTACHA: Well, my next tournament will be probably Stamford in America for a month, and I don't know, probably not very many. I don't know whether -- it's nice in some ways, really, because it's not being viewed under a microscope as much. So, yeah, it'll be quite nice.

Q. What are your plans after that? Are you going to try to qualify for the US Open?

ELENA BALTACHA: Yeah, I'm going to be going to the States for around two months. I'm going to play the tournaments leading up to the US Open.

wolf · Tennis legend

Anne just to start against Venus, Venus to serve first. On BBC2.