2011 French Open preview

DavidC · Tennis legend

2011 French Open preview

Julia Carrot · All-time great

That is quite surprising, but very good news about Laura. Obviously an idea concocted with her new French coach?

indiana · Tennis legend

Thinking about it, it does seem a pretty good idea for Laura to compete in Juniors here.

She will one should hope be competing in the senior tournament for many years to come in the future, starting next year ( I presume she is still some way of getting in qualifying at the moment for this year ? ). So given that, and that clay is basically her least favourite surface, it will be no bad thing to come here and maybe put a bit of pressure on herself to really step it up on clay against top juniors maybe more happy on the surface.

Maza1987 · Challenger level

Shame no Liam.
Thought he could have done some damage.

Although, maybe he's not fussed about juniors (sans wimby), which is a good thing when you are doing quite well in seniors.

-- Edited by Maza1987 on Thursday 5th of May 2011 06:54:11 PM

The Knight · Challenger qualifying

Maza1987 wrote:
Shame no Liam.
Thought he could have done some damage.

Although, maybe he's not fused about juniors (sans wimby), which is a good thing when you are doing quite well in seniors.

Probably looking to be a WC in nottingham, especially as george and olly aren't there!

Although those guys would probably look to play at Nottingham-2 the week after...which would probably be the preferred option for many of our boys considering the pitiful MD points on offer at Queens

DavidC · Tennis legend

My guess along the same lines as The Knight is that Liam has been promised a main draw WC in Nottingham Wk1. His absence wouldn't have seemed strange earlier in the year, when he was only playing Futures, but he has just played a couple of French junior events and is down for the Italian Grade A. Choosing the Trofeo Bonfiglio but not Roland Garros would not make much sense unless he has been guaranteed to play Nottingham.

The arguments advanced above for Laura's participation are probably relevant to her decision to at least enter (she may still withdraw for plan B). However if she sticks with plan A it does mean missing out on Nottingham wk 1, which is arguably the best opportunity to pick up significant points during the grass court season, given the likely strength of field at the Tour events. That could be important to achieve a ranking which enables her to play US Open qualies. I guess that if she doesn't get close to 230 after Indian Harbour Beach and sticks to plan A then she will go for Nottingham Wk 2 rather than Birmingham because of the easier points on offer.

philwrig · Hall of fame

Is it conceivable that Laura is going to be offered a WC for qualies at the French because of her ties to the MTA. Just a thought.
Otherwise playing one sole event on red clay just before the all important grass season doesn't make alot of sense. The last time Laura played juniors it was a bit of a waste of time to say the least.
As David says the intermediate target you would have thought would be to garner sufficient ranking points to qualify for the US open qualies, and thus not use up one of her 16 tournaments. Playing 1st week of Nottingham does make more sense.

philwrig · Hall of fame

Robbo withdrew yesterday.

Maza1987 · Challenger level

good decision.
she should be playing on the grass anyway.
no point in playing in one clay court tourny before moving to grass anyway

Maza1987 · Challenger level

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/tennis/article-1390874/FRENCH-OPEN-2011-Liam-Broady-denied-chance-Paris-Dad-forgot-enter-him.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

Liam's dad's fault.lol

steven · Tennis legend

I'm not a big fan of WCs for forgotten entries (though I can see how it might have happened in this case and I have a lot of sympathy), but denying Liam even a QWC seems very harsh. I hope Queen's remember that the next time they consider giving a French has-been like Grosjean (not that I dislike Seba, but that's not the point) a main draw wild card ...

steven · Tennis legend

Judy Murray put me right (there are worse people to be put right by LOL) by pointing out that you have to enter in order to be considered for a WC. Still not sure if that's a "we'll bend it when necessary but use it as an excuse to say no when we want to" rule as seems to apply in some senior events or if they're actually stricter about it in junior slams. If they are, then we can't really complain.

steven · Tennis legend

Guy McCrea suggests the rules can be bent if they really want to after all, citing: http://tenniskalamazoo.blogspot.com/2010/01/explanation-on-berta-and-minas-ao-wild.html (though it could be argued that situation was slightly different)

DavidC · Tennis legend

The LTA has a rule that all British players must enter in order to be considered for a wildcard for Roehampton/Wimbledon (and incidentally Eleanor Dean is a notable absentee from the Roehampton list). However I cannot see anything in the ITF circuit regulations to stop wildcards being awarded to non-entrants.

In the case of Gianni Mina the FFT reciprocated and gave one of the Roland Garros main draw wildcards to an Aussie, so there is precedent to arrange a swap, but the circumstances may not have encouraged either the FFT or AELTC to countenance it for Liam.