Eleanor Dean plays her first tournament for nearly 2 months as top seed. Anna Brogan has come through qualifying, but for the third week in a row has had the misfortune to draw one of the top two seeds.
R1 (L32)
(1) Eleanor Dean (GBR) v Maria Fernanda Herazo Gonzalez (COL)
(Q) Anna Brogan (GBR) v (2) Domenica Gonzalez (ECU)
Playing predominantly on clay was the strategy started last year to improve Eleanor's all-round game, so this is a logical continuation. If she does well here and/or in Grade 1 events in Berlin & Linz during the next 2 weeks she could gain direct entry into slams, so it will be interesting to see whether Eleanor then takes part, having not been in qualifying for the Australian or French
R1 (L32)
(1) Eleanor Dean (GBR) d. Maria Fernanda Herazo Gonzalez (COL) 7-6(5) 6-0 (2) Domenica Gonzalez (ECU) d. (Q) Anna Brogan (GBR) 6-1 6-4
R2
(1) Eleanor Dean (GBR) v Camila Giangreco Campiz (PAR)
Playing predominantly on clay was the strategy started last year to improve Eleanor's all-round game, so this is a logical continuation. If she does well here and/or in Grade 1 events in Berlin & Linz during the next 2 weeks she could gain direct entry into slams, so it will be interesting to see whether Eleanor then takes part, having not been in qualifying for the Australian or French
R1 (L32)
(1) Eleanor Dean (GBR) d. Maria Fernanda Herazo Gonzalez (COL) 7-6(5) 6-0 (2) Domenica Gonzalez (ECU) d. (Q) Anna Brogan (GBR) 6-1 6-4
R2
(1) Eleanor Dean (GBR) v Camila Giangreco Campiz (PAR)
I understand about developing your game on clay, but you don't get many opportunities to play junior Wimby as a Brit so it still seems bizarre to me, especially as her first experience was such a good one. Playing on different surfaces as a junior surely provides good experience.
There are enough clay tournaments during the year to pursue this strategy. And this is Wimbledon, and it's one tournament. Still doesn't make sense to me.
Consider our two Junior Grand Slam winners. Laura made her Grand Slam debut at Wimbledon 2008 as a 14 year old, with spectacular success. There is a school of thought, expressed in other forums, that Laura's early success has hindered her progress, giving her a lot of media attention to deal with at a very early age, before she and her game had fully matured.
Heather also made her grand slam debut at Wimbledon 2008 (same stage of the junior cycle as Eleanor is now), having developed a more solid base to her game at Bollettieri's. Later in the year she moved into the top 50, and thus into Grand Slams on ranking. That still gave her plenty of time to make an impression at Grand Slams.
Eleanor's results this year have suggested that there is plenty of work to do in establishing a solid base. She plays her second round tomorrow
Hmm... I guess we shall hopefully see the benefits. To be fair it does seem like a strong strategy in the long run as what I remember of Eleanor from 2 years ago was that she was a great ball striker but when things went against her all she had was more of plan A. The most annoying thing about her absence from junior Wimbledon (and a purely selfish one) is that we have missed an opportunity of seeing how she has developed. Ah well, maybe next year...
Smooth progress so far for Eleanor, defending her points from last year. A considerable step up in quality of opponent tomorrow. The Swiss girl has a high win-loss ratio including a 20 + match winning streak last year (several British victims in South-East Asia included)
QF
(1) Eleanor Dean (GBR) d. Isabelle Wallace (AUS) 6-1 6-3
Eleanor lost her doubles as well, but interestingly there is a brief report of the semifinal on the Biesterbos website (essentially Kennel mentally stronger at key times and Eleanor making too many unforced errors), which says that Eleanor is still coached by Martijn Bok, along with Leander van der Vaart