Week 38 - ITF ($75K) - Shrewsbury, UK Hard

SMC1809 · All-time great

RE: Week 38 - ITF ($75K) - Shrewsbury, UK Hard

Julia Carrot · All-time great

What a shame. So close. Really thought she was going to do it. cry

4- 6 6-1 4-6

-- Edited by Julia Carrot on Thursday 23rd of September 2010 01:01:05 PM

SMC1809 · All-time great

Lost it, 4-6 in the third. cry

indiana · Tennis legend

Ah pity, I really did think Heather would win this one, before, and then when it went to a 3rd set.

But Birnerova is no mug. CH 59 in January 2007, then out for 10 months from September 2007 to July 2008. Seemed to take a while to get going again and ended the 2008 season WR 699. Has since steadily risen up rankings again ( ended 2009 WR 274 and currently WR 188 ) She is just off 2 decent tournaments on clay, a 25K final and 50K semi final where she beat WRs 132 and 187.

Heather may still feel this was a real missed chance, and I am sure would have backed herself from a break up in the third set. Be interesting to see what she says as I feel she always gives an honest account of what's happened.

She may or may not make the top 200 come Monday, since Steven had her hanging on to WR 200 at the last count. But she is still certainly moving in the right direction.

-- Edited by indiana on Thursday 23rd of September 2010 01:24:28 PM

steven · Tennis legend

Vrljic is a set up against Kremer, who is the closest threat just 4 points behind.

Even if she goes out, there will still be some distant threats and, for example, it's very unlikely that el Tabakh will lose to a WC in R2 in Saguenay today, which would mean the earliest we could know for sure would be tomorrow night.

Maza1987 · Challenger level

dont worry, heather.
on to the commonwealth's. if she's going.

steven · Tennis legend

Vrljic seems to have choked Heather's potential top 200 place away

I'm sure it won't take long for her to get there though.

DavidC · Tennis legend

Wolf has tweeted:

Doubles

SF: BROADY (GBR) / WEBLEY-SMITH (GBR) lost to FEUERSTEIN (FRA) / MANASIEVA (RUS) (2) 3-6 0-6

indiana · Tennis legend

Nice tabloid headline from the BBC : "Watson crashes out in last eight in Shrewsbury" They have basically that headline on BBC text as well. Here was me thinking she was playing rather well these days

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/tennis/9027980.stm

Of course they also manage to muck up their rankings info. Birnerova is indeed ranked 23 places above Heather, but it is Heather that is ranked 211 not Birnerova.

They mention that she had beaten second seed Lisicki so I guess on a superficial level it was then surprising to some to lose to the eighth seed.

Sorry, I've not had a BBC rant for a while ! Ah...

-- Edited by indiana on Friday 24th of September 2010 02:33:34 PM

philwrig · Hall of fame

The words ' crashing out' are those used by all british media outlets, shocking I know, but something that nots going to change anytime soon. The press in this country can be a bit of a nightmare, but if anyone should be leading a better example it is the BBC.

philwrig · Hall of fame

Birnerova went onto win the final, with Heather providing by far her toughest assignment in the process.

Julia Carrot · All-time great

philwrig wrote:

Birnerova went onto win the final, with Heather providing by far her toughest assignment in the process.

Yes, I noticed that. I wonder if Heather, or any players for that matter, follow the progress of tournaments they have left.

philwrig · Hall of fame

I've wondered in the past whether I should tweet a player and tell them these important facts, but then thought surely they know anyway.

steven · Tennis legend

Given that players usually leave as soon as they've gone out of a tournament (unless they are still playing doubles), there must be times when they never find out who wins it, but it probably does sound a bit silly @-telling players things they might well already know.

I do tend to 'report' things like this on the GBtennis twitter though, especially if the loss was a close one against someone we didn't realise was good enough to win the tournament at the time. That's not aimed at the players, but if they're on twitter I do put their @-name rather than their actual name, so if they didn't know, they might find out that way. I wouldn't be surprised if players with a lot of followers who tweet to them never check their 'mentions' though and only ever read mentions if they're from people they follow, when they'll appear on their normal timelines.

Btw Sacha Jones, who beat Mel in 3 sets in Alice Springs, has just won the title there too, though admittedly in that case she was the top seed.

-- Edited by steven on Sunday 26th of September 2010 06:15:38 AM

philwrig · Hall of fame

I'm pretty sure all the players on twitter click on the @... link and so you have to be a little bit careful what you say if you include their twitter alias whilst making comments. Even Serena who must get hundreds of replies seems to do so.