With many of the players in the Osaka Grade A (both events there incidentally were won by Kristina Mladenovic, who thus virtually guarantees the number 1 world ranking at the end of the year) coming here the field is strong for a Grade 2 and 5 of our 6 girls were forced to qualify. Daneika Borthwick and Lucy Brown qualified comfortably (Laura Deigman, Amy Askew and Fran Stephenson failing to do so), but Daneika is again unlucky in drawing a seed. Elisha also has a tough match against someone who slaughtered Alex Walker in Darwin. Non-Thai umpires will probably be hoping that Lucy wins her first round match
R1 (L32)
Elisha Gabb (GBR) v (5) Viktoria Rajicic (AUS) (Q) Lucy Brown (GBR) v (WC) Pattaraporn Salirathavibhaga (THA) (Q) Daneika Borthwick (GBR) v (4) Emi Mutaguchi (JPN)
Good win for Elisha - only her second against someone ranked in the top 100. Along with the respectable 6 games against the world no.8 last week, it suggests that she is improving after an indifferent first half of the year.
Excellent tournament for all three with Lucy getting the best win of her career, over someone who has beaten top tenners Njiric (last week) and Gavrilova.
Elisha and Daneika have major obstacles to further progress. Inoue is another top tenner, having reached the Wimbledon semis, whilst Haochen has an extraordinary record. She has played 33 matches this year, and won all of them. Only three players have even managed a set, and she just double bagelled her second round opponent (ranked higher than Daneika)
Good to see Lucy building on her fine win over Omae and getting big points. Lucy and Daneika will both move into the top 200 for the first time next week.