End of 2011 season thoughts

Scouseandy · Social player

End of 2011 season thoughts

Peter too · Tennis legend

The really big climber of the rankings this year though is Sam Murray, unranked last year she is going to be close to top 400 by year end.

Jajon · Strong Club Player

i think a good question is: who would everyone pick in their fed cup team ?

SMC1809 · All-time great

I'm really hoping Georgie Gent and Anna Smith make a return in 2012.

indiana · Tennis legend

I'd say that it has been a fairly fluctuating year for the women generally, but at the end of the year I do see things pretty positively.

Our current top 6 have all improved their rankings over the year and these rankings overall compare favourably to last year's year end top 6 ( Naomi Broady and Emily Webley-Smith have replaced the retired Kate O'Brien and Naomi Cavaday ). As of today, only Anne of the top 6 is mire than 5 places off her career high.

1. ELENA - CH WR 49 ( up from WR 55 to WR 50 in the year ) - another very good year for Bally, and I think it is safe to say in general she exceeded expectations by having an even better overall year than last year. Tough to repeat that again, and it would surprise me if she quite did, but both the upcoming Olympics and perhaps Heather and Laura's continued rise seem to have motivated her.

2. ANNE K - CH 48 ( up from WR 121 to WR 73 ) - after seeming to struggle rather for much of the year, managing to hold her ranking by getting significant points when it mattered eg. at Slams, it was great to see such a string end to the year from Anne. Still has much to offer if she can go into 2012 well motivated and with confidence in herself.

3. HEATHER - CH 87 ( up from WR 176 to WR 92 ) - a really very impressive year, even if pointswise the second half was much less rewarding than the first and she will do well to initially hold onto her top 100 ranking in the early part of next year. Do expect further real improvement overall, and the US Open performance vs Sharapova. opened many eyes. She is young, yes, but historically not that young and will want herself to push on again next year. She to me now looks a potential top 30 player, and I would see her aiming for at least top 60 next year.

4. LAURA - CH 131 ( up from WR 217 to WR 131 ) - has ended the year pretty much in line with forum predictions for her ranking, which is not bad, given we generally are a pretty optimistic lot ( though predictions maybe a bit closer this year ). What is extremely positive is what a strong second half to the year she had after a first half so generally interrupted by significant and niggling injuries. Still very much on the right path, beginning to add more consistency and seeming better movement with all that there is to admire in the natural power in her game. Hopefully her apparently fairly minor stress farcture injury ( there seems confidence that they have caught it early ) will not significantly impact on an important start to next year. She remains to me potential top 10 eventually, and I would be looking for at least top 75 next year.

5. NAOMI B - CH 194 ( up from WR 287 to WR 194 ) - clearly best season so far, and has become so much more consistent, in particular in the last couple of months, seemingly continually slogging it out with top 200 players, sometimes winning, sometimes losing, but certainly up for the fight and as I say much more consistent. Looking at her results, her top 200 place is vey well earned and deserved. Her serve and power stands out. If she could find real improvements in movement and particularly other technical areas, whilst maintaining a consistently strong serve ( sometimes goes a bit awry ) she might really surprise as to how quickly she might rise. Difficult to predict, but I'd like to see her getting up into the top 150.

6/ EMILY - CH 240 ( up from WR 487 to WR 242 ) - probably the surprise of the first half of the year. Maybe was seen as having become a bit of a journey woman, and I remember real questions being asked on thsi forum re her schedule and motivations near the end of last year. Well, she came out the first half with so many very good performances and surged up the rankings past her CH of a number of years ago. Her late summer appendectomony and seemingly some other injury issues really stalled her second half of the year and her trip down under was really pretty disappointing resultswise. A real pity because she was marching towards the top 200. Can she soon get back to last year's first half resuts ? Would be great to see and for her to get near that top 200. I have doubts myself, but would love them to be proved wrong.

As mentioned, from last year's top 6, Katie and Naomi C retired. There have also been long term injuries to Georgie Gent and Anna Smith, and such as Mel South, Lisa Whybourn and Aussie Brit Johanna Konta have not really had the seasons they would have aimed for. Those combined issues mean we end the season with less depth than we would really like after the top 6 and less top 300 players.

Tara Moore though has improved further with a very similar record to last year in that she had a slow first half of the year followed by a much stronger and more consistent second half. Currently at a CH WR 315 she could even get into the top 300 this week with qualification and a R1 win at the Dubai 75K. She's certainly not been without troubles and difficulties to overcome over the years and is still young. I just wish her all the best next year with moving ahead further towards what is at least top 200 potential. Great to see Samantha Murray's progress too. Now will be into the top 400, having done so well since coming back after a few years at college.

Among the younger girls Eleanor Dean excites, being brought carefully along, seemingly to a pretty fixed programme to steadily improve her overall game, under the tutelage of Martin Bok, Laura's former coach. A little like Laura, she seems to have real strenghs in her game that excite, it will be really interesting to see how she develops. Other than Eleanor, the next few years after Laura don't seem to be awash with talent among the girls, but some can always develop more later.

In summary, overall I see it as more positive than negative, in particular because of the peformaces of our top women, with in particular Heather and Laura's continued progress but good too to see Bally and Anne continuing to show up so strongly. The disappointing area would be the next group after the top 6, which is not as strong as one might hope with injuries and loss of form on top of Katie and Naomi C's retirements.

Ultimately, I want to see notable performances from the very top Brits. They've had a good year, so I'd say 2011 has on balance been a good year.

-- Edited by indiana on Thursday 1st of December 2011 10:33:00 PM

indiana · Tennis legend

Jajon wrote:
i think a good question is: who would everyone pick in their fed cup team ?

If all are fit and well, I think it's an easy choice this time : Elena, Anne K, Heather and Laura.

The top singles players with enough doubles ability in there too.

-- Edited by indiana on Sunday 27th of November 2011 03:28:31 AM

tony_orient · ATP qualifying

I would certainly say it has been a good year for British Women's tennis in 2011.

9 Grand Slam 1st round victories spread across all four tournaments and all four of our top players shows a level of consistency on the major stage that we haven't had before. Slightly disappointing that there were no 2nd round wins, but the fact we now have four girls competing and winning matches in the slams makes them a lot more exciting.

To make further progress next year it would be good to see both Laura and Heather establish themselves both in the top 100 and as regular tour event players which I think they have a good chance of achieving. It would also be nice to break the 20+ year run of no British player in the final of a WTA event (it would be especially nice to see Bally have a run in one of these events as her best perofrmances seem to either be winning one or two matches at top events or winning the top ITF events without doing much at the $220k tournaments).

Outside the top 4 players, Naomi and Tara are the ones whose progress will be most interesting next year as they have both improved their rankings and performance levels recently and have the ability to sustain that improvement.

Helen40 · Grand Slam Champion

I think it's great all in all that there's healthy competition amongst our top 4 women which seems to be spurring on the rest. Here's to another great year!

Mervatron · Masters Series Champion

As always with the british girls there are highs and lows. Some girls keep gettign better and better whilst some slip back.

Have to say it was very sad to see Naomi and Katie give up. Naomi was only just getting started and Katie had a good 5+ years left in her but its their choice. I think we will feel the void left by them for 2-3 years as i can;t see many on the way to take their place.

On the flip side its been great to see Heather, Laura and Naomi B make great strides and the furture is very exciting for these 3. Hopefully as Jo Ko becomes british 'any day soon' the four of them can poush each other on to bigger and begtter things.

Its been great to see Em get her career high after some great results. The second half of the year has been a dissapointment but injuries have played their card once again. It was such a shame she couldn't win that match at wimbledon which would have given her some breathing space for a while.

I have to say I have no idea whats happened with Mel. She is much better than her past two years. I hope in 2012 she can start climbing again or I fear we may loose another greta player in 2012.

As somebody else mentioned what a find in Sam Murray. I saw her play in wrexham 5 or so years ago so its great to see someone go off to uni for 4 years and then come back and smash it i think she's going to keep on climbing in 2012.

Tara has had some good and some bad in 2012 but lots of little niggles and not much to defend early in the year shows me she is in line for a big jump soon.

My one worry is our junior girls. Other than Eleanor I just can't see much going on there. I really hope all the girls proove me wrong but we might have to wait for the 1998's and 1999#s before we see the next heather or laura.

Peter too · Tennis legend

Mervatron wrote:

My one worry is our junior girls. Other than Eleanor I just can't see much going on there. I really hope all the girls proove me wrong but we might have to wait for the 1998's and 1999#s before we see the next heather or laura.

I was quite impressed by Katie Dunne playing in Bournemouth where she took a set off the 6th seed Bianca Koch. She is our top junior at present but she is a year older than Eleanor. She only seems to have played two senior tournaments in the last year.

Mervatron · Masters Series Champion

I watched Katy playing junior Wimbledon. She has a nice game but nothing that screamed WOW at me.

I know players develop at various ages and in particular british players have a knack of developing later BUT if Katy was going to make a big splash i'd expect a top 50 junior ranking at least by now and a WTA ranking in the 700's and higher.

Scouseandy · Social player

As for the Fed Cup, it has to be the top 4 iin the team with naomi coming in if one of the others gets injured. I hope they can make the breakthrough next year... Does anyone know when the team will be announced? And who is the the fed cup version of leon smith?

philwrig · Hall of fame

Scouseandy wrote:
As for the Fed Cup, it has to be the top 4 iin the team with naomi coming in if one of the others gets injured. I hope they can make the breakthrough next year... Does anyone know when the team will be announced? And who is the the fed cup version of leon smith?

I suppose JoKo would be your sixth choice if fit and GB by then. In the past couple of years the team has been announced during the middle of December, but we still don't know who will be captain.

tony_orient · ATP qualifying

With no Fed Cup captain in place it's quite convenient that the team pretty much picks itself at the moment.

LordBrownof · Futures level

If everyone was fit and playing you'd have to give Joss Rae a shout at making the team for the doubles.