Week 28 - ITF ($25K) - Woking, Hard

indiana · Tennis legend

Week 28 - ITF ($25K) - Woking, Hard

steven · Tennis legend

johnnylad wrote:

Come on Katie! My favourite British girl after Wimbledon this year

One of my favs too now for the same reason. I no longer think she's flaky, she's just not big enough to have a reliable serve but she fights really really hard.

johnnylad · Tennis legend

exactly

Osomec · Junior player

Babos probably hasn't had many wildcards, but she has played in tournaments where she was able to pick up decent ranking points against modestly ranked players. She has only beaten one top 200 player in her senior career, and that was the world 188. Laura has beaten thirteen, not counting her win against a top 30 player at the Hopman Cup. No guarantees of course, but Laura has a far better record than her slightly older opponent, and she has to be winning matches like this one to show continuing progress.

-- Edited by Osomec on Wednesday 14th of July 2010 11:33:08 PM

indiana · Tennis legend

That's a great stat, Osomec.

What to me it particularly shows is how often Laura has risen to the occasion against highly ranked players, this is basically because her best is very good and much higher than her ranking, and clearly she has risen to the occasion much more often than Babos. As Phil said earlier, a class above Babos at her best.

The doubt would be that Babos may be able to compete with a Laura on a not so good day, though these come less often than they used to as she steadily gets more consistent.

Laura in decent form here, though Lisa had already played a 3 setter today, and I'd make her a pretty strong favourite.

-- Edited by indiana on Wednesday 14th of July 2010 10:08:54 PM

Josh · Challenger level

Don't know how that Mail man managed so many updates, I could never get any signal for most of the day. Lisa didn't play great and I lost count of how many breaks there were in the final set, definetly more than the number of holds. Fortunately she picked her game up in the t-b to lead 5-0 before they went off for rain and they had already finished by the time I realised the match had started again. Not surprised Laura beat her easily, the match lasted nearly 3 hours and both players where getting annoyed with themselves and the umpire.

Not too sure what happened with Naomi, was up a set and either 4-1 or 4-2 before completely losing it. I wasn't watching too closely at the beginning but followed it from when she was 3-1 down in the 3rd. After fighting hard to pull it back to 5-5 all Naomi played a really poor game to lose her serve and saved loads of match points but just couldn't quite earn a break point. She did have a coach there, not Rob Smith but someone was sitting with her going through gameplans during the rain breaks although he left the club when the match finished.

Surprised Katie won because her opponent was just taking her apart and seemed to be doing everything right. Whether it was defending and waiting for Katie to make the error or taking the point on it all seemed to be working and Katie was lucky to get a game to trail 5-1 at the rain break. I saw she had pulled it back a little before I left but certainly didn't expect her to win.

Didn't see much of Rae or Smith and almost every single point in Ren's match seemed to be a 10+ stroke battle. It was close but she just couldn't end the point when on top in the rally and eventually Ruutel would find a way to snatch the point.

I'm going again tomorrow, hopefully I won't have to leave before the singles matches finish as I start work an hour later.

RBBOT · Futures qualifying

A good win buried in the doubles scores there by Hope Johnson & Claire Ricketts, beating Anna Fitzpatrick & Jade Windley 6-2 6-2.

Laura/Sania won 7-6(2) 7-5, which isn't that convincing, given the huge ranking difference to their oponents, but a win is a win and they were both playing back to back matches against fresh opposition.

A tough day for Lisa with 5 sets already played going in to the doubles, but to be fair, Babos had also played 4 and a half sets today, Laine 2 and Tara none so not exactly an uneven situation.

As for my comments earlier on Laura, I just don't think she does so well against fellow rising stars as she does against older players plateaued in the 100-300 range. I still think she's more likely to win than not, just not that strong a favourite for the match. As for the tournament favourite, aren't we forgetting Katie is 70 places further up the rankings than the next highest remaining player - surely that still counts for something despite recent form?

wolf · Tennis legend

Rain delayed the start.

Katie *1-1 Anna
Laura warming up

wolf · Tennis legend

Katie *4-4
Laura *1-4

SMC1809 · All-time great

Katie has taken the first set tb 7-4.

Laura 2-0 up, second set.

Tennis36 · Masters Series Champion

4-0 laura now

wolf · Tennis legend

Katie 7-6(4) *3-0
Robson 3-6 5-0*

-- Edited by wolf on Thursday 15th of July 2010 01:37:55 PM

murray_2k9 · Challenger qualifying

Cmon Laura, what a fight back, keep it up!

Well done to Katie too, delighted to see her stringing the wins back together again.

SMC1809 · All-time great

Laura - wins 5 games in a row, then loses 3 in a row????

Tennis36 · Masters Series Champion

laura 5-3 now