Week 8 - Womens ITF (50k) - Clearwater, USA Hard

Peter too · Tennis legend

Week 8 - Womens ITF (50k) - Clearwater, USA Hard

Shhh · Challenger level

Why so many potentialy travelling over for this event?

jamatthews · Strong Club Player

Shhh wrote:

Why so many potentialy travelling over for this event?

It's before the withdrawal deadline. There probably won't be too many of them left after tomorrow.

steven · Tennis legend

Elena has withdrawn from this event but Mel South is still a DA and should be one of the top four seeds. It looks like Georgie Stoop has got into the main draw at the last moment too (she was 3rd Alt) and Wobbly, who was 6th Alt for qualifying, has turned up in the Q draw:

QR1: Emily Webley-Smith WR 352 v (WC) Alexandra Cercone (USA) UNR

The seeds in this section are (q4) Begu (ROU) WR 211 and, unfortunately, (q7) Daniilidou (GRE) WR 235.

From http://www.usta.com/USTA/Global/Pro_Tennis/USTA_Pro_Circuit/Information/~/media/USTA/Document%20Assets/Pro_Circuit/2009/02/Feb23/Clearwater/alternates_lucky_losers.ashx, it looks like Naomi B, Jade C & Tara all turned up and signed in for qualifying but didn't get in.

-- Edited by steven at 01:23, 2009-02-22

DavidC · Tennis legend

There is an article in a Guernsey paper about Heather's failure to make the cut which I reproduce below. While their frustrations are understandable, someone should have advised them better about the likelihood of acceptance without a WC. The number of tournaments on offer has reduced slightly compared with last year (especially this week) because of the financial situation, so it should have been obvious that she would not get in to a 50K without a WC, and would have been better advised to select qualifying for 10Ks in weeks with more tournaments.
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HEATHER WATSONS professional debut has been delayed a month.

And with more than a touch of irony, her first tournament among the senior women, will now take place in Jersey.

She had hoped to compete in the $50,000 Clearwater Open in Florida starting this weekend and the $25,000 Fort Walton Beach Open early in March. But an incredible and unexpected surge of interest in the Clearwater event from other players has left the Commonwealth Youth champion frustrated on the sidelines.

Her predicament emphasises the cut-throat business of breaking through into the senior rankings of world tennis.

The problem is quite simply a Catch 22-one, said her father, Ian, yesterday.

You need ranking points to get into the senior tournaments but you need to be in those senior tournaments to get the ranking points. In her first year as a senior she will be dependent on wild cards in home [country] tournaments and the first of those is Jersey.

The Watsons were shocked by the scramble for Clearwater places.

We didnt anticipate so many entrants, said Ian.

steven · Tennis legend

How ridiculous - you only had to take a quick glance at the calendar to know that the two 50Ks in week 8 were going to be a nightmare to get into because of the complete lack of other women's ITFs on this week. (*)

It amazes me how utterly clueless most players and their advisors seem to be about what influences how strong a tournament is likely to be and how easy it is likely to be to get into qualifying or a main draw. It's not an exact science, for sure, but it is, as they say, not rocket science either.

Hopefully, for their own sakes, they will have learnt something from this and won't just blame it on bad luck.

(*) There's only one WTA event on too - Acapulco - hence the 50Ks were obviously going to attract more top 100 players than usual, as well as all the players who usually play at the 100K, 25K (etc) levels. Maybe some people thought that Acapulco was close enough to Florida that a lot of the players who could have played Clearwater would be trying to qualify there instead, that's the only reason I can think of for concluding that Clearwater might be weak.

wolf · Tennis legend

To be fair to Naomi, Jade and Tara they are here to play a series of $25k's starting from next week so they might as well have came here on the off chance (Jade and Tara are in the States anyway, having played qualies for the Surprise 25k) of getting in.

There are $25k's in USA until mid-April so I wonder if they will come back to play Jersey, which will be weaker.

steven · Tennis legend

That's fair enough ... and they weren't far out anyway. I was referring to the Heather Watson article.

wolf · Tennis legend

I took 'their' to mean the others as well but on hindsight I think you meant Heather, her Dad and her team.

Peter too · Tennis legend

Q1: WEBLEY-SMITH, Emily (GBR) 352 beat CERCONE, Alexandra (USA) WC UNR 6-1 2-6 7-6(1)

Q2: WEBLEY-SMITH, Emily (GBR) 352 v EL TABAKH, Heidi (CAN) 321

steven · Tennis legend

wolf wrote:

I took 'their' to mean the others as well but on hindsight I think you meant Heather, her Dad and her team.

Yes, that's right. Having said that, tournament selection by lots of players (many of them much more experienced than Heather) often seems very strange and counter-productive. In some cases there may be factors affecting the decision that we don't know about, but a number of players who seem to blunder from one tournament to the next with very little thought. There are also players who seem to nearly always get it right, but they are few and far between.

Portsey · Intermediate Club Player

I hate being the bearer of bad news but:

Emily Webley Smith lost 4-6 4-6

Grrr!

DavidC · Tennis legend

Main Draw bottom half

(5)Melanie South (GBR) v Aiko Nakamura (JPN)
Kimiko Date-Krumm (JPN) v (wc)Lauren Embree (USA)
Tomoko Yonemura (JPN) v Jorgelina Cravero (ARG)
(3)Jarmila Groth (SVK) v Q

(8)Maria-Elena Camerin (ITA) v Elena Bovina (RUS)
Alexandra Panova (RUS) v (wc)Beatrice Capra (USA)
Ekaterina Ivanova (RUS) v Georgie Stoop (GBR)
(2)Yanina Wickmayer (BEL) v Yuliana Fedak (UKR)

Mel beat Aiko at Birmingham last year, when she was top 100. Her match is on second tomorrow, but Georgie must be playing on Wednesday.

Portsey · Intermediate Club Player

I know this is a bit of a long shot but i've been searching the net for scores, live or not, from this event, and nothing.......

Peter too · Tennis legend

R1: SOUTH Melanie (GBR) 5 101 lost to NAKAMURA, Aiko (JPN) 140 0-6 2-6