Week 25 - Wimbledon Singles Round 2

jb288 · Satellite level

RE: Week 25 - Wimbledon Singles Round 2

Alexei · Lower Club Player

Also worth noting how Peng in ripping through Czink. Bally must be gutted she couldn't close that out yesterday. What a chance she would have had to reach the second week. Sam Smith the last to manage that?

-- Edited by Alexei on Saturday 25th of June 2011 12:02:17 PM

indiana · Tennis legend

Shuai Peng beats Czink 6 - 2 7 - 6 (5) . Such a pity for Bally, if she had just kept at the same level longer and kept moving Peng from side to side.

Also, Sharpova beat Zakapalova 6 - 2 6 - 3. Such a pity Laura didn't finish her off yesterday wink Still, was good performance in my view, and Shriek seems to have had it simpler today.

-- Edited by indiana on Saturday 25th of June 2011 12:57:03 PM

Alexei · Lower Club Player

Not forgetting how close Emily came to beating her.

Portsey · Intermediate Club Player

Oooooh all these "nearlys" once again, read someone say that "hope at the end of the day connects us all", never have truer words been spoken about british tennis fans!....

Mervatron · Masters Series Champion

Such a shame that Bally lost, a good chance at the 4th round gone

Maza1987 · Challenger level

Portsey wrote:
Oooooh all these "nearlys" once again, read someone say that "hope at the end of the day connects us all", never have truer words been spoken about british tennis fans!....

I know, I always try to stay away from the "look what she went on to achieve" posts. But it's just so hard to do.lol

Ratty · County player

kundalini wrote:
There was plenty of evidence from those previous matches that Laura has got enough weapons to pull off a win against a top 10 player at Wimbledon with her current game and current mobility if she can perform right at the top of her level. Obviously if she produces an average display then she has no chance.

Here's a simplified format for that:

Level 1: Top 5 player "in the zone"

Level 2: Top 5 player base level

Level 3: 6-30 ranked player base level

Level 4: 30-100 ranked player base level

Level 5: 101-250 ranked player base level

(This is sort of based on the ATP Tour, where the top 4 plus Del Potro do seem to be a cut above the pack. WTA is probably just Top 1, for Serena Williams.)

Playing in the zone gives you a temporary lift of one level, and playing badly drops you one.

So, Laura in the zone is Level 4, and Sharapova playing badly is also Level 4. Therefore it was a close first set - and then Sharapova played a bit better and Laura a bit worse, as one might expect, so the second set was not so close.

But the only way to a sustained rise in the rankings is (obviously!) to improve one's base level. It's maybe not surprising that the adrenaline rush of the grass court season causes a temporary hike in the odd British player's level, but tennis is a game where overnight significant improvements in base level are probably unlikely.

Hence the concepts of "building on success" and "kicking on from here", and the rose-tinted optimism of some British tennis fans, seem far-fetched - in my opinion. It seems a reasonable assumption that Laura (17) and Heather (19) will raise their base levels, but it is a long way from certain that they will - and how big that raise will be is completely impossible to predict.

Of course it's fun to make predictions. But unscientific.

smile

Ratty · County player

I sometimes remember the sad career of Iroda Tulyaganova, who I must have seen playing in a slam or such-like on the TV a few years back, with the usual hype from the commentator about sure-fire top 10, bla, bla. Having reached a CH of 16 in 2002 at the age of 21 with a blast up the rankings over the previous couple of years, she became plagued by serious injury problems, never got back into the top 100, and pretty much retired at the age of 27.

Similarly Sessil Karatantcheva was ranked 38 at the age of only 16 (she's still only 21), and has never recovered her previous ability after her lengthy ban.

There are many more like these two.

Party-pooper, me? Surely not ...

-- Edited by Ratty on Sunday 26th of June 2011 12:06:26 PM

scottie1 · Futures level

agree with you ratty we get carried away especially at this time of year with the expectation from wimbledon. people forget tennis is 52 week sport not just wimbledon eastbourne then nothing! I remember Sue barker on BBC asking tennis pundits how good Laura Robson could be even before she won the juniors no pressure on Laura eh at the age of 14! heather and Lauaa are both prospects but we need to let them develop. Can remember Felgate bumming South 'O'Brien Curtis and Claire Pedersen as the greatest hopes for british tennis and where are they now either struggling on the tour or have given up all together.
Even years ago Baltacha and Keothavong bioth coached by Durie/Jones were touted as good prospects but it has taken 10 years and to break away from those coaches to crack the top 100.
My tip for the future is Eleanor Dean but thankfully she is not getting the exposure at the moment. Oh and as I am Scottish hopefully Joanna Henderson(lol)

Peter too · Tennis legend

So far none of the players has won as many games against Sharapova as Laura Robson.

Laura 9
Peng 6
Zakopolova 5
Chakvetaze 3
Cibulkova 2

-- Edited by Peter too on Tuesday 28th of June 2011 04:22:34 PM

steven · Tennis legend

... or even got close! 9 for Laura, then:

Peng - 6
Zakopalova - 5
Chakvetadze - 3
Cibulková - 2

Edit: when I first tried to post that, it wasn't already there. LOL Intermittent but frequent problems with DNS this afternoon making it difficult to get web pages to load, even while tweetdeck is working.

Btw someone said on twitter that Anne is the only player so far to have kept Kvitova on court for more than an hour!

-- Edited by steven on Tuesday 28th of June 2011 04:46:36 PM

indiana · Tennis legend

steven wrote:
... or even got close! 9 for Laura, then:

Peng - 6
Zakopalova - 5
Chakvetadze - 3
Cibulková - 2
Edit: when I first tried to post that, it wasn't already there. LOL Intermittent but frequent problems with DNS this afternoon making it difficult to get web pages to load, even while tweetdeck is working.
Btw someone said on twitter that Anne is the only player so far to have kept Kvitova on court for more than an hour!

-- Edited by steven on Tuesday 28th of June 2011 04:46:36 PM

True about Anne and Kvitova, although Kvitova now heading for over 2 hours today.

Re Laura and Sharapova, it's a fun statistic and Laura played well, but I'd say Sharapova has most certainly upped her game since then.

-- Edited by indiana on Thursday 30th of June 2011 04:14:56 PM

tony_orient · ATP qualifying

Sabine Lisicki can now be added to the list of players who have won less games than Laura against Sharapova

Jajon · Club Coach

The previous times Anne K got through to the second round she has lost to eventual champion. This year she lost to Kvitova...