The British sextet (Melanie South, Naomi Broady, Elizabeth Thomas, Emily Webley-Smith, Jocelyn Rae and Sophie Proctor) head to Port Pirie for the final leg of the Australian 25Ks. This time Liz, Jos, Emily and Sophie are in different qualifying sections, with most players having byes in QR1. The other seed in Liz's section took out Emily last week:
QR2:
(4) Brittany Sheed (AUS) v Elizabeth Pelikan (AUS) Brooke Whitten (AUS) v (9) Jocelyn Rae (GBR)
(5) Olivia Rogowska (AUS) v Alison Shemon (AUS) Sophie Proctor (GBR) v (13) Xin Wen (CHN)
(6) Elizabeth Thomas (GBR) v Bianca Tepper (AUS) or Kate Antosik (AUS) v Kimberley Buxton (AUS) v (11) Li Ting (CHN)
(7) Emily Webley-Smith (GBR) v Alexandra Walters (AUS) or Brie Whitehead (USA) Valeriya Maksimchenko (RUS) v (12) Stephanie Wiltshire (AUS)
BROADY (GBR) / RAE (GBR) Vs CALDERWOOD (AUS) / MORIARTY (AUS)
LEE (NZL) / THOMAS (GBR) Vs PEJKOVIC (AUS) / SHEMON (AUS)
JONES (NZL) / WISHINK (AUS) Vs PROUSIS (USA) / WEBLEY-SMITH (GBR)
All 3 doubles matches are scheduled tomorrow, but none of the singles matches involving Brits. Naomi has reported via her website that she has been in hospital with a mystery illness (hence the doubles w/o last week) but hopes to be well enough to play here.
Good win for Naomi. I hope she can pull off an upset against No3 seed Sacha Jones. Naomi has lost a couple of tight matches and her performances have probably merited more points than she has actually won on this Aus tour.
I guess that is the end of Naomi's tour down under. She's had a good two months-as one of the lower DAs she's had a QF, 2x R2 and 2x R1 all at 25K level, but most importantly has always gone out to seeds, never to players ranked lower or about where she currently is.
The step from 10K->25K is clearly being made, and she has put herself into the top 450 for the first time. Solid work.