At a guess, the last Brit to win back to back main draw matches on clay at WTA level was Jo Durie when she reached R3 at Roland Garros in 1992 and Jo was probably also the last Brit to reach a WTA Tour QF (edit: on clay! ), when she won three matches in a 64-draw at the 1986 German Open before going out to Martina Navratilova.

Any advance on that?

-- Edited by steven on Wednesday 20th of May 2009 12:17:04 PM

what the hell am I talking about? You obviously meant a clay event.

And obviously Anne has reached several QF's sop no idea why I am bringing up Mel.

Shhh Paul...

jb288 wrote:

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Though to be fair Mel did that before Anne had ever reached a WTA QF didn't she? I do worry that she won't manage to defend those points - it's so draw-dependent - and will really suffer for it; though I suppose a round at Wimbledon would compensate.

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Anne reached the semis of a tour event in '07. In fact she is actually has a 3-0 winning record in tour QFs which bodes well.

Have faith.

Remember Sharapova is not match fit ( first tournament since Wimbledon) and is on her worst surface.

Anne definitely has a chance here.

Not saying facing Maria is easy but this is the best time to do it.

The Hoose wrote:

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jb288 wrote:

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Though to be fair Mel did that before Anne had ever reached a WTA QF didn't she? I do worry that she won't manage to defend those points - it's so draw-dependent - and will really suffer for it; though I suppose a round at Wimbledon would compensate.

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I too worry about Anne's points and that she's not living up to her ranking - she's been relatively lucky with draws recently and until this week hasn't really capitalised.  I note from Steven's Top 25 tables that (excluding the Fed Cup) this is the first week in 2009 where Anne has not had a "straight face" or worse pictured alongside her name...

 

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Errrm. Semi Final, Auckland, January? Semi Final Memphis February?

 

I was referring to Mel's Birmingham points actually, not Anne. Given her lack of activity this year, her 70pts there is something of a handicap, as it's very important to defend these, and quite unlikely she'll exceed last year's performance - so even a good showing won't help her progress. Which suggests that unless Mel can do well at both Surbiton and Wimbledon, the grass season mightn't be as fruitful for her as we might hope. Of course, the majority of her remaining points are from $25k's, which she can equal with a win or two in $220k's (which presumably she will pursue instead this time if she can), so there's huge scope for progress there; she still has 3x10pts scores in her top 16.

Anne's had some great results in the 220ks, but despite good draws hasn't quite cut it at the million-dollar tournaments. Her biggest points to defend are the Krakow 100k (150) and the US (180); presumably she won't contest the former again, but so long as we can see some consistent L16 and better in 660s, I don't think she'll have any trouble defending her points from last year, such is the tapering of the points in favour of big events. Just compare 1 win at Madrid (80 pts) with 4 at Surbiton (50). Her 3 failures at Mandatories (5pts) will be a slight handicap, but when you consider that three 30pts and a 20 are still within her top 16, there's considerable leeway for improvement.