Week 38 - ITF ($75K) - Shrewsbury, Hard

DavidC · Tennis legend

RE: Week 38 - ITF ($75K) - Shrewsbury, Hard

DavidC · Tennis legend

From the LTA:

The women fought out a two-hour, 16-minute thriller, delighting spectators and living up to the new top-100 status the pair should claim when Monday's rankings are released by the WTA Tour.

No.5 seed Baltacha was first out of the blocks in the epic decider. The British No.2 raced to a 6-3, 4-1 lead and looked like racing away with the title.

Taking confidence from her good performances of this week at the Welti Tennis Centre this week, O'Brien fought back. The British No.3 won five games in a row to take the second set 6-4.

But Baltacha dug deep, regaining control of the match in the third set to take the match 6-3 4-6 6-3.

"Katie played a very good match and pushed me all the way," said Baltacha after receiving her trophy, "I'm delighted I managed to come through and win it.

"I've loved playing in Shrewsbury and had a great time here this week. I've got such a great opportunity now I'm in the top 100 for the first time and I couldn't have asked for a better week.

"I'm very grateful to the LTA and to Nigel Sears and Simon Walsh for backing and believing in me and to my coach Nino Severino for finding all the pieces to fit the jigsaw."

philwrig · Hall of fame

Why can't Katie add points next week with a maximum haul of 50 points DavidC ? Do you mean it will take an extra week to be added on ?

DUSTY DICK · Club Coach

Well done to both girls on a superb week. When was the last time we had 3 girls in the top 100 in singles. Must be quite a while. It's great to see though after all the women in general have been steadily improving this year. This is another all important step forward and great to hear Bally say she already feels different having made the top 100 at last. That mental battle again has hopefully been unlocked. After last weeks DC disappointment what a great pick me up.

wolf · Tennis legend

Well done, Bally, a closer match than I would have thought it would be so credit to Katie as well.

I can't see Katie playing Helsinki now (then again this is Katie) but next week will hopefully be the start of the rest of their careers, and I really think Bally can in particular can push on from this and start to make inroads into the top 100.

DavidC · Tennis legend

philwrig wrote:

Why can't Katie add points next week with a maximum haul of 50 points DavidC ? Do you mean it will take an extra week to be added on ?

Yes, if Katie does play in Finland points gained will be useful for 2 weeks time, when her Barnstaple semi comes off, but will not help her defend against potential overtakers in the bigger tournaments this coming week. She is unlucky in that from my perusal of the points coming off in a week's time, none of the players immediately above lose enough to drop below her, so she will only have a cushion of two players.

alex03maccy · Grand Slam Champion

i don't think bally had any intention of losing this week. great tourny from the pair of them, let's hope they can push on.

DavidC · Tennis legend

DUSTY DICK wrote:

Well done to both girls on a superb week. When was the last time we had 3 girls in the top 100 in singles. Must be quite a while. It's great to see though after all the women in general have been steadily improving this year. This is another all important step forward and great to hear Bally say she already feels different having made the top 100 at last. That mental battle again has hopefully been unlocked. After last weeks DC disappointment what a great pick me up.

The last time we had 3 girls in the top 100 at the end of the year was 1990 per Steven's stats. However I think the last time we had 3 girls in the top 100 during the course of a year was in the summer of 1992. This is based on an article I read soon after I started following British tennis in the mid 90s, which bemoaned the fall of British women's tennis since that period. Certainly there were 3 direct entrants at both the 1992 French and US Opens (Durie, Gomer and Javer) who were probably, but not necessarily, in the top 100 at the cut-off points

steven · Tennis legend

jb288 wrote:

Shame Katie didn't win it, but I bet a lot of people didn't expect her to get that close - hopefully another confidence boost for her. And well done to Bally, who could be top 90 before we know it!

What a great week :)

She might have been top 90 on Monday had Amanmuradova not beaten the top seed in Tashkent today to reach the Final! Parra Santonja can overtake too if she beats Dulgheru in the St Malo Final. It's quite amazing how many of these girls who started the week just outside the top 100 have kept on winning and winning!

-- Edited by steven on Saturday 26th of September 2009 06:04:34 PM

djlovesyou · Strong Club Player

I'm not sure Katie will pull out of Helsinki as I would imagine she already has her travel plans sorted already.

She's heading to Tokyo right after Finland so it seems logical that she's already planned to go from there.

But great week girls, glad the final was competitive and long may it continue.

jb288 · Satellite level

Anything less than a win in Helsinki isn't going to add to Katie's points at all is it, given the 32 coming off for Barnstaple? Whilst I'm sure she'd be able to make a final or win, she'd surely be scuppering her chances in Tokyo the week after in the process. I think Katie can leave the 25ks behind now - hopefully the confidence will give her a huge boost and she can just think about 50ks and up from now on. She's highly seeded at Tokyo, and dipping back under 100 for a week or two is no shame at all - she'll be secure before long.

djlovesyou · Strong Club Player

Yep, she's more likely to have an 'easy' week in Helsinki to be honest.

indiana · Tennis legend

jb288 wrote:

Anything less than a win in Helsinki isn't going to add to Katie's points at all is it, given the 32 coming off for Barnstaple?

The 32 cominhg off from Barnstaple is really relatively irrelevant to the significance of Helsinki.

A win or final is still a reasionably significant gain. She still adds overall to where she would have been if she didn't play Helsinki, so I don't really follow your point.

Barnstaple comes off whatever, Helsinki adds if she plays it and achieves a good result.

Anyway, I do agree though that what she shouldn't do is base her schedule on any desperate attempt to retain top 100 in the short term. She made it and that's a great achievemement for her. Now she should want to be in the top 100 in the long term and if she falls out and comes back in. so be it.

-- Edited by indiana on Saturday 26th of September 2009 07:44:31 PM

helki · Futures qualifying

helki wrote:

What a good day it's been down Shropshire way. Well done girls. Don't really mind who wins the final - just hope it's a good 'un for those who can make it!

Appears to have been just that. smile

Congrats to Bally and commiserations to Katie. cry

Hope these two, plus any others who have a mind to, progress further up the rankings. Things are looking good for the women's game.

indiana · Tennis legend

In a way the 2 girls ended up having to do quite a bit more than we might have thought to get into the top 100.

With last week's 98, 99 & 100 having 629, 623 and 622 points respectively they ended up having to smash well past those levels to be sure.

I am sure it is Steven's help in this that they looked each night and saw all these threats and players keeping winning in Steven's great posts and thought "gawd, just have to win another one I guess !" smile