Week 2 - Australian Open (Women's Qualifying)

goldfish · Futures qualifying

RE: Week 2 - Australian Open (Women's Qualifying)

steven · Tennis legend

0-15
15-15
15-30
30-30
30-40 bp come on!!

YES!

Julia Carrot · All-time great

Should be long gone to work. Will I jinx her by staying for the tie break

goldfish · Futures qualifying

OK, can't drag myself away now.

Anne in charge, double break and serving for match.

*AK 6-4 5-2 IO

steven · Tennis legend

Heather serving:

0-1*
0-2*
*0-3
*0-4

don't let it slip away after all that work

steven · Tennis legend

0-5*
0-6*

6 MPs, what an anti-climax

Tsurenko breaks the slam qualifying Brit-bashed streak 7-5 7-6(0)

goldfish · Futures qualifying

some you win, some you lose - bad luck Heather. I imagine her racket will be joining Katie's.

Anne wins 6-4 6-2 well done
Heather 5-7 6-7

steven · Tennis legend

Anne goes through 4 & 2

steven · Tennis legend

Another Romanian in the FQR:

FQR: (q2) Anne Keothavong WR 118 v Irina-Camelia Begu (ROU) WR 200 (CH 159 in 2009)

Begu beat Anna Smith and Lisa Whybourn very convincingly late last year but lost to Katie in 2009. Anne really has had a very decent draw, partly due to being good enough to be one of the top 12 seeds of course.

Smidster · Challenger level

Match 2nd on Court 8 as Qualifying enters day 5

indiana · Tennis legend

Well done to Anne and she would appear to have a very good chance of making the main draw,

Disappointing of course for Heather and I would have expected a win here. But sometimes it just doesnt go to plan and I imagine Slams even qualifiers can just bring different pressures and reactions. Tsurenko clearly a decent player who maybe on the day has played to her best and Heather not to her recent very good form

From the commentary here and statistics, it certainly looked as if she withheld more pressure on her serve and overall unfortunately maybe the better player on the day won.

Overall points were 88 - 75 in Tsurenko's favour ( though the tiebreak runaway obviously widened this ) and 89 points were played on Heather's serve as against 74 on Tsurenko's. ( though I guess again there were nearly as many games being won on return as on serve ).

I imagine Heather herself will be disappointed at not getting to the main draw and at the very least getting more real Grand Slam experience and indeed maybe some winning in the main draw Grand Slam experience. Pointswise she's got 40 points here, whereas she could have won her 3 qualifying matches and then played a stormer in losing to a top seed in the main draw round 1 and only got 20 points more. Stiil, I am sure she would have much preferred the chance of the latter.

-- Edited by indiana on Saturday 15th of January 2011 01:05:08 PM

indiana · Tennis legend

From Heather's twitter : " Lost today :( had so much support outside the court.. sorry to let you down. Was just dead physically but gave it a good old Watson fight "

I am rather surprised that she should have really felt it so much physically given her noted 3 set capabilities and how it has been commented on how much fitter she looks after the close season. She had a fair gap after last week's heroics.

Maybe she has felt some mental pressure which has transferred it into physical symptoms. Says he with no physical or mental expertise, but hey I have heard such things can happen !

Maza1987 · Challenger level

Disapointed of course. But that's just the way it goes sometimes. Especially with young players. Tsurenko, on paper, seemed easier but cleary was playing well after beating voegele.

Overall, still very pleased with the start to the season for Heather and looking forward to her playing the Fed cup for the first time.

Anne, well done. I really expect her to qualify. Seems like she is getting back her confidence.

DavidC · Tennis legend

Last week was a big effort at a level above her ranking in a part of the world and time of year where conditions are often claimed to be testing, with 6 matches being more than you normally play in a week to win the whole tournament. So I'm not surprised that Heather found it physically tough.

If you look at the 6 teenagers in the top 100 (Pavlyuchenkova, Oudin, Hercog, Jovanovski, Halep and Pervak - apologies if I've missed any) and you analyse their early efforts at Grand Slam qualifying, only 2 of these managed to qualify during their first couple of attempts (Oudin and Hercog). So I don't think it is anything to be too disappointed about. Heather has had a great start to the year, picked up welcome points and experience, and I look forward to her progress over the coming months.

Portsey · Intermediate Club Player

It's nearly 2am my time so i'll see how it's going with Anne's match but i'll do some scoring.....the game before has been stuck for 10 mins on match point so i can only assume Crugnola won and the umpire hasn't clicked the buton, meaning AK is probably on court warming up.