Girls: Orange Bowl, USA - Grade A (Week 49)

DavidC · Tennis legend

Girls: Orange Bowl, USA - Grade A (Week 49)

RBBOT · Futures qualifying

QR1: (11)Olga Fridman (UKR) d. Dominique Covington (GBR) 62 61

tony_orient · ATP qualifying

Good to see Eleanor back in action and Jazzi testing herself at the highest level of junior competition.

RBBOT · Futures qualifying

It's GBR vs USA:

WR31 GBR DUNNE, Katy [13] vs WR162 USA IVANOVA, Dasha WC
WR64 GBR DEAN, Eleanor vs vs WR97 USA ANDREWS, G
WR115 GBR PLEWS, Jazzi vs WR341 USA AUSTIN, Brooke WC

Of course US wild cards are often better than their ranking suggests due to playing a lot of domestic tournaments rather than ITF, but it doesn't look a bad draw.

DavidC · Tennis legend

RBBOT wrote:
It's GBR vs USA:

WR31 GBR DUNNE, Katy [13] vs WR162 USA IVANOVA, Dasha WC
WR64 GBR DEAN, Eleanor vs vs WR97 USA ANDREWS, G
WR115 GBR PLEWS, Jazzi vs WR341 USA AUSTIN, Brooke WC

Of course US wild cards are often better than their ranking suggests due to playing a lot of domestic tournaments rather than ITF, but it doesn't look a bad draw.

Only the top draw is correct - unfortunately you have been looking at the line above wink

Eleanor has the toughest task, both because she is playing competitively for the first time in 5 months, and as her opponent is ranked just outside 600 WTA (albeit thanks mainly to winning one match in a 100K). Eleanor and Jazzi play today.

R1 (L64)

(WC) Dasha Ivanova (USA) v (13) Katy Dunne (GBR)

Eleanor Dean (GBR) v (WC) Anne-Liz Jeukeng (USA)

Jazzi Plews (GBR) v (WC) Mia Horvit (USA)

Spectator · All-time great

Interesting. I tend to think of Gabby Andrews (who would be Ms Dean's second round opponent) as a massive threat -- hadn't realised how relatively few points she has from singles. Has any other player you can think of had more than 75% of their points from doubles as a junior? Horvit doesn't look like much of a threat ... but Ms Plews' round 2 opponent is a bit dire.

DavidC · Tennis legend

Spectator wrote:
Interesting. I tend to think of Gabby Andrews (who would be Ms Dean's second round opponent) as a massive threat -- hadn't realised how relatively few points she has from singles. Has any other player you can think of had more than 75% of their points from doubles as a junior? Horvit doesn't look like much of a threat ... but Ms Plews' round 2 opponent is a bit dire.

I've never seen such a skewed percentage from a top 200 player. Have you discovered that Ms Andrews actually won her round 1 match. Pretty remarkable if she did, as her seeded Mexican opponent wins singles matches for fun (including a couple of 10K events recently)

Spectator · All-time great

No, I haven't discovered that. Should have said "could" rather than "would" ... apologies.

Spectator · All-time great

Ironically, given above comments, Ms Plews now plays Ms Andrews (and her customary partner, Ms Townsend) in the first round of the doubles. Ouch. Dunne/Makarova have two fairly decent rounds, then start to hit a run of quite difficult pairings.

korriban · Challenger level

Jazzi lost in straight sets. Eleanor retired after just 4 games. Both hugely disappointing, but for Eli this is now starting to look very seriouus in terms of her career. She has missed half of 2012, but also had issues last year and in 2010, albeit with less time out. She often trains with Rafa style knee supports - if its her knees again, this might be something that is hard to fix. Hope it is not.

philwrig · Hall of fame

I might be wrong but Eleanor I think had a problem with an ankle at around the time of the Maureen Connolly Trophy comp in the summer, but its pure speculation as to what her current problem is. I mean I used to think that Laura was very unlucky with injury issues but sadly Eleanor appears to have taken it to another level. When she was 14 she was already over 6ft tall which can't help assuming she may have grown further since then.

As for Ms Plews the step up from grade 4 straight to grade 1 appears to be too much but shes not even 15 yet so plenty of time.

-- Edited by philwrig on Tuesday 4th of December 2012 02:30:20 PM

indiana · Tennis legend

Real shame about Eleanor, we can only wish her the very best and that she can find a way through her various ( almost hope they are very various rather than always say knee related ) problems. Worrying though.

Very surprise defeat for Jazzi, and I don't really see it as being much related to the jump in grades / class, because looking at her record this was an oppenent who she could have met and been expected to beat in much lower graded events ( and Jazzi did perform encouragingly well against decent opponents in the Eddie Herr Grade 1 event last week ). Maybe in some way though this particular event did get to her or something with her opponent's style of play. Misses out on a potential second round meeting with Katerina Siniaikova (CZE) the 16 yo number 2 seed and JWR 3.

I would say for Jazzi, move on from this ( and learn whatever there is to to be learnt ), but testing herself against quite a bit higher ranked opposition than she has had for most of this year should still be her aim from the off in 2013.

-- Edited by indiana on Tuesday 4th of December 2012 03:35:13 PM

korriban · Challenger level

Phil.

I just hope you are right about Eleanor as she seems to have some star quality about her (with respect to some of the other hopefuls). She IS very tall, and some tall people do suffer very badly from repeated injuries when training aggressively during their mid teens, then completely recover in late teens. Hopefully Laura is (touch wood) going to prove this. My concern is the fact that she is not actually playing much competitively, and then after long periods of enforced recuperation and recovery, suffers injuries again either just before (Maureen Connolly Trophy) or immediately upon (Orange Bowl) her planned comeback. With "knees" (if this is the issue), as with Rafa, they often have to be "managed" continually with the problem never trully going away. She needs a good run of luck!

Jazzi actually won back to back Grade 3 events before this US trip, so I think the step up to Grade 1 or A level, even this early, probably did make a lot of sense - if only to test herself properly. Perhaps, on reflection, she should now ignore Aussie juniors qualifying and start 2013 with some grade 2s and build from there - with 2014 or even 2015 as her target year to break through fully. I suspect her contemporary, Tornado Black (a few months younger) will suffer a similar fate later today against Ana Konjuh. The Croat is only 2 months older than Jazzi, but at this stage appears to be in a different class to all her peers - not quite at Laura levels, perhaps, but not far off.

philwrig · Hall of fame

I agree it will probably be 2014 before Jazzi truly breaks through at World junior level i.e plays all the junior slams with hopefully some decent success. She has made big jumps this year so you would have to expect the odd setback.

As for Eleanor hopefully yes as she finally stops growing all her injuries will fade into the background a bit like with Laura in the 2nd half of this year.

DavidC · Tennis legend

Summary so far (Katy should be on court or have finished by now)

R1 (L64)

(WC) Dasha Ivanova (USA) v (13) Katy Dunne (GBR)
(WC) Anne-Liz Jeukeng (USA) d. Eleanor Dean (GBR) 3-1 rtd
(WC) Mia Horvit (USA) d. Jazzi Plews (GBR) 6-4 6-1