She was injured from last season until April, so it make sense that her performances were inconsistent for a while afterwards. Ranked in the 320s from 13 counting tournaments is equivalent in points-per-tournament to ranked around 275 from 16. Okay, so she got the opportunity of big points for one win at Wimbledon that most other players of her ranking wouldn't get, but then you can offset that against the fact those ranked around there are taking their best 16 scores whereas her points are her only 13 scores so the bad ones count too.

Unfortunately the nerves really got to Lisa today and she basically beat herself without Hlavackova having to do anything special.  On two separate occasions Lisa served 3 consecutive double faults to go down 0-40  and she never really gave herself a chance to win the match.  She managed to calm down a bit when she won her first game at 5-0 and was competitive at the start of the 2nd, however her serve let her down again and Hlav was solid enough to not give Lisa any opportunities to start a comeback.

Still a much better week than the last couple and she did well to reach the final round given how low her confidence must have been after 2 heavy defeats.  Straight after the  match with Lisa almost in tears about 5 or 6 jounralists surrounded her, asking her questions about the match, her family, where she trains etc.  Seemed a bit too soon for me, would have liked to see them give her a bit of time to recover from the disappointment.

Lisa has clearly shown in the past that she can suffer quite seriously from nerves and perhaps lack of confidence at times and I think has said so herself. 

She has done well to progress as far as she has in the last year and hopefully the more exposure she gets to bigger matches and just as she matures generally that will become less of a problem and enable her to develop her undoubted talent to the full.

-- Edited by indiana on Thursday 17th of June 2010 10:07:48 PM

Hello all,

I've been a long time lurker on here but thought I'd finally register and post my thoughts on Lisa's match yesterday as I was there.

I'd agree with everything Josh has said about nerves being a factor - when it came to the rallies, Lisa was giving as good as she got and hit some great winners and her movement, especially t reach a couple of decent drop shots, was excellent.

Lots to build on I think and the serve seems to be more a case of confidence and belief rather than a technical issue. As has already been said, this will come with time, experience and maturity so here's hoping over the next few months she can push on and build on an excellent week.

Finally (apologies for the long post), I was one of the journalists there yesterday and strange as it may sound, I do agree with Josh. Personally, I would have preferred to have waited for her to leave the court and gather her thoughts before speaking to her but with other reporters already making their way courtside I felt on balance it would be better for Lisa's sake to get all the interviews etc out of the way in one hit, rather than have her do one lot and then be approached again two minutes later to go through the same process.

Welcome embee. I guess the problem is, if one journo goes after a player early, everyone things they'd better do the same or they'll miss the chance.

That's a funny coincidence - I quoted you (or your paper, not sure if you wrote the article earlier this year) in a question for the guy doing the Wimbledon qualifying podcasts which he asked Lisa after her QR2 match. It's good to see her local paper giving her some coverage.

Sounds like she did crumble a bit against Hlavackova, but I reckon she'll learn and do better the next time she's in that kind of situation - she bounced back very well from the defeats at Nottingham and Birmingham, so I'm sure she'll bounce back from that match very quickly too. I'm sure if two weeks ago you'd offered her a run through the WC playoffs and then all the way to the FQR, she'd have snapped your hand off!