Weeks 25-26 - Wimbledon Singles Main Draw

baxi2 · Lower Club Player

RE: Weeks 25-26 - Wimbledon Singles Main Draw

alex03maccy · Grand Slam Champion

katie could quite easily have won her match, benesova's level did not go up at all at 3-1 down in the last set, katie's whole game just went to pot and she got very angry slamming several balls at the back wall. i was very impressed with stoop up until 4-4 where she kind of handed the game to vera. only saw the last few points of anne's match. glad bally managed to pull the in out.

seagull · Hall of fame

I think the really annoying aspect of the defeats was that we had 3 players who got to 4 all in the final set and they all lost 6-4. How do you teach someone to be mentally tougher??

indiana · Tennis legend

baxi2 wrote:

My mistake, Cavaday thrashed O'Brien then lost to Elena in 3 sets. She's a great fighter and I'm sure will be top 100 very soon !

Cav has real potential and has been so far held back a bit by fitness and seemingly some personal issues.

But I am sorry, I'd be amazed if she was in the top 100 any time soon and certainly not "very soon". It won't be this year or next year anyway.

If she doesn't get herself fully focussed on her tennis and works really hard on omproving her fitness and becoming as much of a proper athlete as she herself can become, then she may well never make the top 100. And that woiuld be a real pity.

jb288 · Satellite level

To be honest, I think only Mel has reason to feel 'ashamed' (if that's a fair word to use). Anne has had a great season, and did well on clay so you're always going to have ups and downs, and noone can doubt her commitment. I just worry about the pressure she's putting on herself, especially now the USO points are pretty important for her; however, another semifinal or two and it won't matter. Mel, on the other hand, has had a very poor season and was supposed to be on the way up - I don't think we're going to see much success for her above 25k level this year, would love to be proven wrong. Katie performed well against a better player - I'm confident that if she can work on her second serve she's a top 100 player; it seems odd that she doesn't use any slice on it. Her backhand obviously needs work too - may be too late for much progress on that though. But this can't be seen as a bad Wimbledon for her - or for Georgie, who performed admirably and, like Naomi C, was an exciting player to watch, not least for her fantastic attitude. I hate this media narrative of failure though - Jonathan Overend's soundbite for R5L's news yesterday was truly horrible - saying Murray was world class and the others just distinctly average, completely ignoring anything else they may have achieved - just nasty.

The Hoose · Satellite level

jb288 wrote:

To be honest, I think only Mel has reason to feel 'ashamed' (if that's a fair word to use).

If we're honest, of course it's not a fair word to use. These players put in a lot more effort - and have scaled much greater heights - than most of us have in our careers, or whatever it is we choose to dedicate ourselves to (if anything).

indiana · Tennis legend

jb288 wrote:

I hate this media narrative of failure though - Jonathan Overend's soundbite for R5L's news yesterday was truly horrible - saying Murray was world class and the others just distinctly average, completely ignoring anything else they may have achieved - just nasty.

I didn't hear it but Radio 5 Live and Jonathan Overend are generally not bad. What you report him as having said in world class terms is unfortunately absoluterly accurate.

It really depends on what criteria you are calling "average" but we have Andy, Anne just inside the top 50, and noone else in the top 100. We are not threeatening to take over world tennis any time sooin !!

I have on another thread agreed about how badly the tabloid press report things and spin to their own agenda. But a reporter telling it as it is is fine by me.

If he said it nastily though, that's bad.

Otherwise, jb, sorry to have picked on that. From what I have seen and heard, your other comments on the individual British players and how they performed, given where they are in the game, seemed fairly spot on.

-- Edited by indiana on Wednesday 24th of June 2009 11:15:42 AM

jb288 · Satellite level

Yeah, he just said it in a rather venomous way, with complete disdain. And obviously with no attempt to give context - like the unprecedented number of MD players at the AO etc. Sure, that shouldn't need repetition, but to the 2-week tennis fan all they get is the failure, and that's not fair on our players.

Hoose - yes, probably unwise word choice, though I have to question the commitment of a professional sportsperson who is clearly not in the best possible physical shape - though I applaud her attempts to change things and hope she continues to do so.

Peter too · Tennis legend

The problem with the aggressively negative British media is that it will discourage our players from including Wimbledon in their timetables for the year. Why for example would a clay court specialist like Amanda Carreras play pre-qualifiers for Wimbledon when they can earn more money and more points winning a $10K somewhere where they wouldn't have to face the hostile media? Sure the occasion and the support of the crowds would be exciting but is it worth the psychological risk of being destroyed by the media when you lose a match?

DavidC · Tennis legend

seagull wrote:

I think the really annoying aspect of the defeats was that we had 3 players who got to 4 all in the final set and they all lost 6-4. How do you teach someone to be mentally tougher??

Not quite as bad as that - there were four in total (Josh, Georgie, Bally and Katie) with one winner. Mental strength at the sharp end is helped considerably by having experienced this sort of situation successfully before or having supreme innate belief in your ability (as the most precocious teenagers have). For someone like Georgie she has nothing much to draw on - her best wins have been against players ranked around 100 in Challenger events, whereas Vera could draw on a wealth of positive results in big matches, and know how to make a player who has never won matches against players of her calibre feel even more nervous. Georgie's chances in these situations will increase if she can improve her standard of play on all surfaces so that she is getting in to big tournaments regularly, and get wins over better players than she has done so far (the gap from beating players ranked 100 and top 10 is far too big). Bally's chances at 4-4 in the decider were always higher than the other 3 because she can draw on previous wins in grand slams against players of similar ability.

Tutu · Club Coach

thegingerlightbulb wrote:

If Cavaday was our best player on grass, then there is no reason for why she couldn't have qualified. She was in Qualifiers but failed to get through so we cant complain. In a way had she qualified then she would have been at an advantage because it would have increased her confidence, so i'm not sure the LTA deserves too much critisism for that. I still feel that the women's side of the game is very healthy. I think we can hope for a few years of Baltacha, keovathong and possible South or O'Brian being around the 50 to 100 mark with hopefully Robson to get inside the top thirty.

She is, but shes still slowly coming back from this virus. From what i've seen from her, she's almost unplayable to anyone outside the top 20 probably when shes on, but she always seems to lose concentration or something and then makes too many errors. I think shes gonna have to work on implimenting a plan B because she never seems to change her game when this happens, but then you look at her past performances at wimbly - vs Venus she simply went blow for blow with Venus, hitting the ball SO. FREAKING. HARD. But vs Martina she was hitting with much more margin but hitting a more heavy topspin ball, moving the ball around and playing almost as a more powerful version of schnyder in a way. She could be SO good. Better than Laura IMO. I think she has more talent than Laura for sure, and her finess has improved a lot, she still has some work to do, but shes on the right path.

steven · Tennis legend

DavidC wrote:

seagull wrote:

I think the really annoying aspect of the defeats was that we had 3 players who got to 4 all in the final set and they all lost 6-4. How do you teach someone to be mentally tougher??

Not quite as bad as that - there were four in total (Josh, Georgie, Bally and Katie) with one winner. Mental strength at the sharp end is helped considerably by having experienced this sort of situation successfully before or having supreme innate belief in your ability (as the most precocious teenagers have). For someone like Georgie she has nothing much to draw on - her best wins have been against players ranked around 100 in Challenger events, whereas Vera could draw on a wealth of positive results in big matches, and know how to make a player who has never won matches against players of her calibre feel even more nervous. Georgie's chances in these situations will increase if she can improve her standard of play on all surfaces so that she is getting in to big tournaments regularly, and get wins over better players than she has done so far (the gap from beating players ranked 100 and top 10 is far too big). Bally's chances at 4-4 in the decider were always higher than the other 3 because she can draw on previous wins in grand slams against players of similar ability.

I agree with seagull that it was very frustrating to see some of the Brits get so close and then lose out right at the end, but what DavidC says makes a heck of a lot of sense.