Week 17 - ITF ($50K) - Gifu, JPN - HArd

PockyTastic · Futures level

Week 17 - ITF ($50K) - Gifu, JPN - HArd

PockyTastic · Futures level

Adachi is an unranked 1991 girl. Her last ITF match was in Gifu last year in which she went down 1&0 in the 1st round to a Korean girl.

Hamamura is ranked 302, and has been as high as 203 so looks like a tough opponent on paper for Em. This year she has reach 3 2nd rounds at 25K level - her win in Ipswich Australia in March was her first since August, so she might still be short on confidence.

-- Edited by PockyTastic on Monday 25th of April 2011 11:20:13 AM

steven · Tennis legend

Adachi is on a 9-match losing streak in ITFs stretching back to 2007, but that year she won a main draw match in Gifu, beating a player who had been in the top 400 a year earlier.

Emily has played Hamamura before, in Darwin 2 years ago, and the good news is she beat her there 3 & 4.

-- Edited by steven on Monday 25th of April 2011 11:48:55 AM

PaulM · Tennis legend

Surely Katie can win this one...

Tough second round against Fuda or Nakamura, but she beat top seed Namigata in Auckland if she can sneak through to the quarters.

Second round would be a nice start to this tour for Em.

indiana · Tennis legend

steven wrote:
Adachi is on a 9-match losing streak in ITFs stretching back to 2007, but that year she won a main draw match in Gifu, beating a player who had been in the top 400 a year earlier.
Emily has played Hamamura before, in Darwin 2 years ago, and the good news is she beat her there 3 & 4.

Surely, Katie !

I must say even the "but..." is hardly the most frightening piece of information I have ever heard smile

Adachi seems to have an annual outing in Gifu, winning fewer games with each passing year. Last year she lost 6 - 1 6 - 0 to the WR 244.

-- Edited by indiana on Monday 25th of April 2011 12:24:27 PM

philwrig · Hall of fame

Katie will win.

wolf · Tennis legend

R1: (3)Chan/Chan (TPE/TPE) d. (Q)Letcher/O'Brien (AUS/GBR) 63 76(4)

R1: (4)Basuki/Iijima (INA/JPN) v (SR)Adamczak/Webley-Smith (AUS/GBR)

LordBrownof · Futures level

According to her Twitter, Emily won 6-3 in the third.

alex03maccy · Grand Slam Champion

Nice stuff from Emily, good positive start smile

philwrig · Hall of fame

Katie won as well very easily.
Emily is probably the only British female player(inside the top500) who will be happy with her current form, good on her.

indiana · Tennis legend

philwrig wrote:
Emily is probably the only British female player(inside the top500) who will be happy with her current form, good on her.

Poor Heather confuse Obviously "current" means very current and even at that on clay and if yes finally beaten decisively, it was by a top 100 player. She better watch, another week and she'll be in a "slump" wink No doubt Heather herself would always want to do better, but still....

Re generally, a few of us had the discussion about British women just a couple of weeks ago, and I did gather that you certainly saw things generally worse than I did.

Have to say, this week generally hasn't been good at all, particularly yesterday as Steven pointed out.

I guess the main downer is we ended last year with quite a number of players well inside the top 300 with things looking ready for a possible real assualt on the top 200 all being well.

Cav's injury and possible retirement and Laura's injury issues have been a downer there. Laura hasn't done a lot wrong, just hardly played. Others have shown at best inconsistent form ( Naomi B ) or worse.

At the top, we do actually have 3 players in the "race" top 80. Heather, Elena ( playing better than she is earning in points ) and Anne K ( somehow getting quite a lot of points whille seemingly not really in form ).

But, yes, overall it hasn't gone as well as one would have hoped for a year some of us had great optimism for. Hopefully it will pick up.

philwrig · Hall of fame

Indy I did say happy with current form.
Obviously Heather has had a great season but her current form is marginally down on what she showed at the very beginning of the year. Losing a coach from my standpoint hasn't helped and it will be interesting to see how she goes on the grass.
Laura can't be happy either because of the injuries she has had and obviously her resulting rankings slip.
Yes Anne has had a good year ranking points wise without playing well and Bally has had a bad year ranking points wise having played Ok.
So yes if I had three lists, the first one being happy with current form, I would only have Emily on it. Heather would come at the top of the next list, and would include Bally and Naomi B and Laura. The third list would have Katie, Mel , Anne ,Amanda in it.
I have followed British Tennis closely since the summer of 2008, and this is the first time I have been genuinely concerned as to the form, and their susceptability to injury of so many of our top players. We had a major surge forwards during the beginning of that period driven in the most part by Nigel Sears but now it seems to be petering out. I never thought I'd say it but the men are looking marginally stronger at the moment.

steven · Tennis legend

L32: (7) Katie O'Brien WR 221 beat (WC) Yuko Adachi (JPN) UNR by 1 & 0
L32: Emily Webley-Smith WR 316 beat Natsumi Hamamura (JPN) WR 297 by 6-4 4-6 6-3 biggrin

L16: (7) Katie O'Brien WR 221 v Ryoko Fuda (JPN) WR 287 (CH 143 in 2006)
L16: Emily Webley-Smith WR 316 v Akiko Yonemura (JPN) WR 338 (CH 208 in 2008)

You get 10 points for reaching R2 of a 50K and they both have a chance of adding another 8 against lower-ranked opponents. Their R2 opponents might have better career highs than them, but Fuda's R1 win (v Nakamura, CH 47 but now 483) was her first since last October, ending a 7-match losing streak (if she beat Katie, it would be her first back to back win since reaching the Final of El Paso 25K last June), while Emily beat Yonemura 2 & 3 in Gimhae last year.

PockyTastic · Futures level

According to TennisForum:

L16: Emily Webley-Smith WR 316 defeated Akiko Yonemura (JPN) WR 338 2-6 6-1 6-3

philwrig · Hall of fame

Em great stuff.