I dont have the same reaction to Katies performances as some who have posted in this thread. Bally and Anne were both players who made a sufficient impact as teenagers to convince me that they might become top 100 players at some point. Both reached the Wimbledon junior semis in 2001, and at the same point were ranked inside 300 WTA, which meant they were close to or just inside the top 10 of their year. Both had attributes (Anne technique and movement, Bally power and serve) to back a judgment of potential future top 100 success.

At the same point in her career Katie, besides modest success as a junior, was only ranked outside 500, had clear problems with her technique and service action (which has been remodelled several times) , not helped by her lack of height, and so I have never seen her as a likely top 100 player. The fact that she has made it for a few months at least is testament to the hard work she puts in to try to overcome her weaknesses and the fact that she is prepared to play mainly strong events to tackle Tour and top challenger players on a regular basis. (the latter is I think a relevant point regarding Mels plight. Her preference for picking up points in weak tournaments helped her to reach the top 100, but like many who have adopted that route left her ill-equipped to play the bigger tournaments and also cut short her winter preparation, so the subsequent loss of confidence and downward spiral is no surprise to me - though I hope she can turn things round)

Katies 2010 record is only marginally worse than that in early 2008, when again starting from a ranking close to 100 (but outside) she struggled to make an impact, but eventually recovered. She lost at that time to at least one player ranked in the 300s (Tanja Ostertag). I wouldnt read much anyway into an individual match not watched and not knowing about mitigating circumstances, but in the case of Ksenia Milevskaya it would perhaps be more pertinent to ask why the Belorussian is taking so long to progress having been ranked in the 300s as a 16 year old, and having reached 3 junior grand slam semis.

Nigel Sears doesn't have a bottomless budget to spend on coaches, and it is quite common for players with Katie's track record to have to share. I'm sure they are trying to help her sort out her problems, but he has quite reasonably said in the past that it is much easier to rectify technical problems at a younger age.

DavidC wrote:

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I dont have the same reaction to Katies performances as some who have posted in this thread. Bally and Anne were both players who made a sufficient impact as teenagers to convince me that they might become top 100 players at some point. Both reached the Wimbledon junior semis in 2001, and at the same point were ranked inside 300 WTA, which meant they were close to or just inside the top 10 of their year. Both had attributes (Anne technique and movement, Bally power and serve) to back a judgment of potential future top 100 success.

At the same point in her career Katie, besides modest success as a junior, was only ranked outside 500, had clear problems with her technique and service action (which has been remodelled several times) , not helped by her lack of height, and so I have never seen her as a likely top 100 player. The fact that she has made it for a few months at least is testament to the hard work she puts in to try to overcome her weaknesses and the fact that she is prepared to play mainly strong events to tackle Tour and top challenger players on a regular basis. (the latter is I think a relevant point regarding Mels plight. Her preference for picking up points in weak tournaments helped her to reach the top 100, but like many who have adopted that route left her ill-equipped to play the bigger tournaments and also cut short her winter preparation, so the subsequent loss of confidence and downward spiral is no surprise to me - though I hope she can turn things round)

Katies 2010 record is only marginally worse than that in early 2008, when again starting from a ranking close to 100 (but outside) she struggled to make an impact, but eventually recovered. She lost at that time to at least one player ranked in the 300s (Tanja Ostertag). I wouldnt read much anyway into an individual match not watched and not knowing about mitigating circumstances, but in the case of Ksenia Milevskaya it would perhaps be more pertinent to ask why the Belorussian is taking so long to progress having been ranked in the 300s as a 16 year old, and having reached 3 junior grand slam semis.

Nigel Sears doesn't have a bottomless budget to spend on coaches, and it is quite common for players with Katie's track record to have to share. I'm sure they are trying to help her sort out her problems, but he has quite reasonably said in the past that it is much easier to rectify technical problems at a younger age.

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Spot on David. In Katie's case she has maximised her talent through sheer hard work and dedication to her sport. Her serve isn't good enough to get to a higher ranking and in fact overall her performances have improved as the season has progressed this year. Katie IMO is always going to be a player who moves in the ranking range 100 to150 and for her that is a great achievement. Anything better would be quite remarkable.

When Sears chose to play Anne ahead of Katie at the Fed cup earlier this year he knew that fundamentally Anne is the better player and playing her gave us our best chance of moving into the world group. It proved to be a week too early for Anne but still a risk he probably had to take.