Come on Katie! Actually I'm impressed that her two tournament wins have come off and she's still going to be top 110 - I'd expected her to slide a lot more after that, I must say.

Not sure Jade's ready for this yet, but being seeded might help? Really hope Lisa can push on again here, love her style of play.

jb288 wrote:

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Come on Katie! Actually I'm impressed that her two tournament wins have come off and she's still going to be top 110 - I'd expected her to slide a lot more after that, I must say. 

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I think "thankful" may be a slightly more appropriate word than "impressed" 

The second 25K title win comes off on Monday and she should certainly still be in the top 110.  It very much helps that her 2 ranking wins all season have been in 1st round of the Aussie Open and 1st round qualifying of Miami, racking up in total 120 points, which is more than she won in total ( 100 points ) from these two titles. Not getting any more wins to back these up at all has caused what slide she has had.

Katie has though got 180 further points to defend in total by early June so I really do hope that she can very soon get out of this current phase and back to her best.

-- Edited by indiana on Thursday 1st of April 2010 10:04:10 PM

Qualies

Quarter 2:
Mona BARTHEL (GER) 2 v.  WC Steffi DISTELMANS (BEL)
WC Elke LEMMENS (BEL) v.  WC Lesley KERKHOVE (NED)
Claudine SCHAUL (LUX) v.  Irina RAMIALISON (FRA)
Karla MRAZ (FRA) v.  Jade CURTIS (GBR) 5

Quarter 3:
Ana VRLJIC (CRO) 3 v.  Bibiane SCHOOFS (NED)
WC Jenka MERGAERT (BEL) v.  Lisa WHYBOURN (GBR)
Tara MOORE (GBR) v.  Sandra SOLER-SOLA (ESP)
WC Bernice VAN DE VELDE (NED) v.  Anna SMITH (GBR) 7

Ah, not so good, especially as the top seed in that quarter is Vrljic who already boasts victories over Tara and Anna this season and has been in generally good form :

Beat Tara  6 - 4  3 - 6  6 - 2  in L32 in 25K in Sutton in February and beat Anna  4 - 6  6 - 1  6 - 0  in FQR in 25K in Minsk in March.

That was in the end a big win over Anna who had been in good form going into that match although at the time I pointed out that Vrljic had even better recent form.  Since then Anna has gone on and seems to have improved further, culminating in her 25K final appearance in Jersey, although Vrljic did made the QFs there before losing to Oprandi.

It's certainly likely to be tough for Lisa and Tara and I would anticipate an Anna vs Vrljic FQR which is actually I think a pretty tough draw for both. Unfortunately that scenario leaves a maximum of one ranking point for Lisa and Tara if they get through their Q1.

Barthel the top seed in Jade's quarter seems to have been in reasonable form and she took Camerin of Italy WR 105 to a fairly tight 7 - 5  6 - 4  loss in a 50K in Germany in late February.  Camerin has just beaten Anne Keothavong  6 - 2  6 - 4 in the 75K QFs in Spain although then lost in the semis.

I am afraid, especially given her lack of recent form, I would not be optimistic about Jade making it out of that quarter and in particular beating Barthel if they were to meet in a FQR.

Anyway, good wishes to all the GB girls.

-- Edited by indiana on Saturday 3rd of April 2010 07:53:38 PM

steven wrote:

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This tournament has undergone quite a downgrade - now a 50K, my records say it was a 100K+H last year!

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And 75K the year before, whatever that signifies.

Random unfounded speculation to try to make a Saturday morning pass. Weren't there rumours that Clijsters was going to make her comeback here last year? Perhaps they bumped up the prize money a bit in anticipation...

There's a website for this one with liveish scores. Vrljic made short work of poor Bibi. First Brit up is Anna n.b. noon local. First (hopefully) competitive Brit match is Jade at 13:30, the other two play in the evening.

As for this, I don't believe Antoniychuk has really come over to the light side of the force, nor Hofmanova to the dark side--just confusion with similar flag names.

SMC1809 wrote:

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Live scores are now appearing (for me now anyway, previously the live-score button just gave an 'error on page' message). However, I read on TF that it will only provide scores for Centre Court and any matches involving Belgians. Therefore, we may have to wait a while for Anna's and Jade's scores.

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Whoops. Just noticed that.