Week 48 - ITF ($75K) - Dubai, UAE - Hard

steven · Tennis legend

RE: Week 48 - ITF ($75K) - Dubai, UAE - Hard

Peter too · Tennis legend

R1: MOORE, Tara (GBR) Q 267 v BARROIS, Kristina (GER) Q 272

philwrig · Hall of fame

Wow hadn't realised that Barrois had dropped so much, hopefully Tara isn't playing a 272nd ranked player who is actually playing to a much higher standard.

Peter too · Tennis legend

Schedule for Tuesday, 10.30 local time start (6.30 UK)
Sam plays 1st on court 2
Tara plays 2nd on court 1.

Mervatron · Masters Series Champion

Good luck in the MD girls.

Tough draws all round

steven · Tennis legend

Barrois was top 60 just 18 months ago. I can't work out exactly what has gone wrong since - she seems to have been playing all year apart from September and October, which means she missed the US Open. She also lost in R1 at the other 3 slams, which has a particularly dire effect on a WTA ranking. She is 1-1 v Brits this year, losing to Hev in 3 sets in Hobart at the start of the year but beating Bally 7-5 in the 3rd in Cagnes-sur-Mer in May.

Peter too · Tennis legend

R1: MURRAY, Samantha (GBR) SE 255 lost to NARA, Kurumi (JPN) 158 3-6 4-6

Sam recovers from 0-40 down but then falls to a 4th match point.

-- Edited by Peter too on Tuesday 27th of November 2012 08:02:26 AM

Peter too · Tennis legend

Tara *15-0
15-15
30-15
30-30
30-40
Tara 2-3*

Score returns to 30-40

40-40

Tara 3-2*

-- Edited by Peter too on Tuesday 27th of November 2012 08:17:54 AM

indiana · Tennis legend

korriban wrote:
Much closer towards the end, but from the score tracker, this appeared to be the right result. Nara held her first 6 service games, and Sam was battling on serve all the way through the second set. Slightly disappointing, but only because of how well Sam appears to have been playing against higher ranked players in the last month or so. The number of victories against top 200 and even a top 100 player suggests that she has a good shot at a ranking inside 150 next year if she continues to make progress with her game, especially if she can perform like this in the first half of the year. Brilliant really!

I thnk it's worth saying that Sam has still beaten "only" 3 top 200 players yet. One was last year in Nottingham ( Georgatou WR 176 ), one was last month in Saguanay ( Pelletier WR 200 precisely ) and the third was that great win against Doi WR 92 last week in Toyota ( edit : as per IF's later post, make that 4 top 200 players, since another one last month, Mitu WR 199 in Glasgow )

What has been impressive is the number of players between WR 200 and WR 300 that she has been beating lately, and I could see her getting into the top 200 next year, currently equivalent to 303 ranking points. I would not have foreseen that a little while ago.

WR 150 is a tough ask and really does need further progression and show that she can at the very least fairly regularly beat top 200 players. Sam achieved 140 points in 5 tournaments in that run from Glasgow through to Toyota ( average 28 points ). WR 150 is currently equivalent to 456 points ( an average of 28.5 from 16 counting tournaments ). So it appears to be basically what she has been doing of late but over a whole year, regularly beating top 300 players, moving on to top 200 players and even beating the odd top 100 player.

So as you say, it needs at least what she has been doing, continued through the first half of the year and indeed beyond. Hopefully it will be a good journey to follow.

-- Edited by indiana on Tuesday 27th of November 2012 05:07:14 PM

Peter too · Tennis legend

Sam 3-6 *4-4

Peter too · Tennis legend

Sam 3-6 4-5*
Tara *0-0

Peter too · Tennis legend

Tara 1-0*

Peter too · Tennis legend

Tara 1-0 0-15*
0-30
0-40
15-30
30-40

Tara *1-1

korriban · Challenger level

Much closer towards the end, but from the score tracker, this appeared to be the right result. Nara held her first 6 service games, and Sam was battling on serve all the way through the second set. Slightly disappointing, but only because of how well Sam appears to have been playing against higher ranked players in the last month or so. The number of victories against top 200 and even a top 100 player suggests that she has a good shot at a ranking inside 150 next year if she continues to make progress with her game, especially if she can perform like this in the first half of the year. Brilliant really!

korriban · Challenger level

Indiana. Very fair point about her not yet having sustained success against top 200 opponents. I assumed that her tournament profile earlier in the year would have been skewed to lower tier events (true to some extent), thus she may not have played too many higher ranked opponents, but in fact she has lost 8 times this year to top 200 players before today - so you are spot on - it's a big leap of faith that her recent batting average can be kept up or improved.

On the other hand, whilst it's true she has amassed those 140 points in her previous 5 events played in a row (just under 28 points per tournament), to get over 450 points for the 12 months is slightly easier than having to keep up that points average. She will probably play around 25 tournaments acoss the year from which to choose her best 16 scoring tournaments (9 or 10 tournament discards), and for these scoring tournaments she would need to average about 30 points, not for all tournaments - a big ask, but certainly her current performance levels would achieve this and a little more. Not much point bothering with $10ks for Sam next year.

Overall I think we agree with each other though in terms of cautioned excitement.

-- Edited by korriban on Tuesday 27th of November 2012 04:10:40 PM