Australian Open Entry List & Qualifying Draw - Women

DavidC · Tennis legend

RE: Australian Open Entry List & Qualifying Draw - Women

steven · Tennis legend

freerider wrote:

ceefax had a suspect stat that you dug up this mornign steven... i think you should put some ffake stats in and see if they take the bate... a beebc trap

Suspect stat? What was that?

It's tempting to put a fake stat in and see what happens wink

(though to be honest I don't really think the BBC get them from here!) but if people are using them, that's good, and I wouldn't want to make people think they can't trust them, so I won't, at least not deliberately.

What's far more fun (or sad, depending on your point of view wink

) is to produce a series of stats that nobody else could possibly have thought of and then have correct stats used in a way that makes it obvious they came from here, like that time Petch read out my 21st birthday Muzza/Fed coincidences on Sky (I hasten to add that he said "someone has come up with ..." instead of claiming he'd done it, and I think he probably saw my post on AM.com rather than here) or when OEM quoted some of the people here in his Rob Dee story.

steven · Tennis legend

Blink and you'll miss it but ... http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/606/default.stm

freerider · Futures level

it was the one about when tehre were last 4 british, non wcs in a Grand slam Main draws

steven · Tennis legend

Did you mean 606 rather than Ceefax? Because if so, that's what I'm referring to above. When I went in there this morning to see why we'd already got 6 pick 'em entries from there without me or the Count having posted (someone on there had posted about it, which is cool), I noticed a thread about the qualifiers and someone was asking the "when was the last time" questions, so I pasted in what I'd written here ... and now the best performance in qualifying for 19 years comment has appeared at the top of the 606 homepage. Not a bad return from the approx 2 posts I make there each year LOL

-- Edited by steven at 12:16, 2009-01-17

freerider · Futures level

no it was on ceefax

freerider · Futures level

ceefax page 485

Happycynic · Pro player

I'm up very late to join in the celebrations, but yay. A really great performance by both.

Here's hoping one (or both) manage the big R1 100 point win that would send their ranking further upwards.

steven · Tennis legend

Now the Guardian has picked up the stats, and as you'd expect from the Gruaniad, mixed them up:

"19 years since four GB women featured in overseas grand slam"

Not true - 17 years since four GB women featured in an overseas slam, 19 years since two GB women qualified for the same slam.

They then mention 1992 twice, making it look like they don't know what 2009-1992 equals. disbelief

-- Edited by steven at 14:16, 2009-01-17

wolf · Tennis legend

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/tennis/7835105.stm - Bally interview.

Reports of the final round from a poster on WTA world.

Elena Baltacha(GBR)[19] def. Jelena Kostanic Tosic(CRO)[1] 6-1 6-3

I saw the last few games of this match. Kostanic looked to be playing very poorly and making way too many UEs. She couldn't handle Elena's balls which were staying low, and most of the time hit them out. Elena was really pumped up when she won, screaming out and pumping her fists.

Katie O'Brien(GBR) def. Betina Jozami(ARG)[21] 6-0 7-6(2)

Watched most of the first set and Jozami was playing very poorly, making way too many UEs. Katie was so consistent as usual, and hardly made any errors. I left and came back to watch the end of the 2nd set, Jozami looked to have improved a little as she was hitting more balls into the court but it wasn't enough to overcome Katie who was just too good. Katie was so happy to win, she screamed with delight and after she shook hands she kept looking at her team with a look that said she could hardly believe it had happened. There were a few middle aged to old British men in the audience with passes, I think they were media, and after the match they were going on about how this would be a great year for British tennis lol.

Pictures from Day 2 https://s142.photobucket.com/albums/r88/Experimentee/Australian%20Open%202009/?start=0 Day 3 https://s142.photobucket.com/albums/r88/Experimentee/Australian%20Open%202009/Australian%20Open%202009%20qualifying%20day%203/ Day 4 https://s142.photobucket.com/albums/r88/Experimentee/Australian%20Open%202009/Australian%20Open%202009%20qualifying%20day%203/Australian%20Open%202009%20qualifying%20day%204/

steven · Tennis legend

wolf wrote:
There were a few middle aged to old British men in the audience with passes, I think they were media

Poor OEM, that's not very complimentary! wink

DUSTY DICK · Club Coach

Well done to both girls. Surely we must have a half decent chance of 1 out of the 4 making round 2. Come on girls, keep it going.

Stircrazy · Tennis legend

DavidC wrote:

If you are going to suffer an agonising defeat in Grand Slam qualies like Georgie then QR2 is the best round to do so because:

a) of the points structure mentioned above
b) it means she breaks her grand slam duck, but shouldn't feel like she missed out on qualifying. After that epic she would have had little chance of beating Lapuschenkova tonight.

[...]

Hopefully Georgie will eventually get over her disappointment and be proud of her efforts (and entertainment value!).

I thought that was being unduly negative & I sincerely hope Georgie & her advisers aren't thinking along those lines as they analyse her performance in what must have felt at the time like a soul-destroying defeat, especially in view of the fact that Wörle had a far easier time of it in subduing the q9, Lapushchenkova, in the FQR (6-3 7-6(3)). I feel desperately sorry for her, losing a match in which she so obviously gave of her best, displaying a postively "Hewitt-esque", never-say-die attitude, but in which her best, ultimately, wasn't quite good enough - this time! cry

I appreciate your reasons for trying to soften the blow of the defeat, David, but, like you, hope she will take heart from the battling spirit she so clearly showed & use & build on that, rather than telling herself that she could've chosen a worse time to go out of the qualies, the next time she's involved in a close "big one"!