14s -

Second round:

Jessica Ren beat Liora Krasnopolski of Israel by 60 60
Joanna Henderson lost to Annika Beck of Germany by 26 26

Third round:

Jessica Ren vs. Vicki Saxegaard of Norway



16s-

Second round:

Heather Watson beat Sarah Moundir of Switzerland by 75 46 75
Tara Moore beat Greta Veinberga of Latvia by 62 63

Third round:

Heather Watson vs. Maria Teresa Torro of Spain
Tara Moore vs. Aleksandra Krunic of Serbia or Iva Jancevski of Croatia



18s -

First round:

Amanda Carreras beat Linda Berlinecke of Germany by 75 36 75
Lereesa Easterbrook lost to Afroditi Latinopoulou of Greece by 63 36 57

Second round:

Amanda Carreras vs. Martina Di Giuseppe of Italy

Heather lost by 5 and 1. She should have done 18s, so it doesn't mean anything.

Tara plays Krunic.

Not necessarily. It could be a stupid thing to believe in, but I think stepping down a level is often far harder than it should be on paper. Heather beat Hogenkamp last week, who's  very talented plus came close to beating Sandra Roma who's tearing down  Junior fields these days.


Too many examples of players struggling to step down - Pavlyuchenkova was rubbish in Juniors last year after being better than the rest of the top 10 put together in 2006, Murray couldn't win Roland Garros in 2005, Jonny Marray or Bellucci would bagel most guys to whom Cox loses in Juniors etc. etc.

I can't explain it, nor can anyone else, but there are countless cases of people not doing well when they are too good for a level.



And if you don't like my theory of stepping down affecting a player's psyche, there's always something more closer to earth. Heather played 13 matches in nine days in Wels and then had to take a flight to Moscow from some bigger city in Austria. If she had to play 18s, she would have to make a trip of only 81 or so miles to Bad Hofgastein.

-- Edited by Kung Fu Panda at 17:05, 2008-07-23

Tara lost by 2 and 3.

 

What a waste of time, money and energy this trip was for the girls. Not their money, thankfully.

Uberalova will be tough. She's probably the best 1995 born girl in the world right now - December born but she won the BNP Paribas Cup without dropping a set!

Not much margin for error, maybe, but there's no one there whom Jessica can't beat so we shall see.