Week 1 - WTA International ($500K) - Shenzhen, China - Hard

Mervatron · Masters Series Champion

RE: Week 1 - WTA International ($500K) - Shenzhen, China - Hard

steven · Tennis legend

Reeltime wrote:
Does Anne really only get the same points for qualifying for a 500k as reaching the fqr of a 235?

Yes, because International (i.e. not Premier) events get treated the same way as each other as far as points are concerned, whatever the prize fund, and you you only get 10 points for qualifying if there are 16 players or less in the qualifying draw, whereas Auckland has 32 in the qualifying draw.

In fact, despite the higher prize fund in Shenzhen, Auckland seems to be the stronger tournament, as evidenced by the fact that Laura is seeded in Shenzhen but higher-ranked Heather is not seeded in Auckland.

blob · All-time great

early breakfast with robson. matches start at 4 am and she's second match on her court. annes double follows straight on

blob · All-time great

oh if laura wins will she have enough points to go top 50?

steven · Tennis legend

Yes she will, unless lots of players just below her have very good weeks.

Peter too · Tennis legend

-- Edited by Peter too on Monday 31st of December 2012 10:43:29 PM

tony_orient · ATP qualifying

Julia Carrot wrote:
Laura's match will be streamed

I won't pass up an opportunity to watch Laura for the first time this season, so looks like an early start tomorrow morning.

Edit: whilst checking it's on Bet365, I noticed Laura is at odds of 4/9 to win. I wish I was that confident! Heather is also odds-on to win in Auckland, but I think both matches are close to 50/50.

-- Edited by tony_orient on Monday 31st of December 2012 10:49:24 PM

blob · All-time great

right. thanks mate

blob · All-time great

cheers very useful table (and very ugly table too)

RBBOT · Futures qualifying

Does anyone know what the colour coding for the player's names means?

kundalini · Specialist Reporter + Intermediate Club Player

RBBOT wrote:
Does anyone know what the colour coding for the player's names means?

According to a post in the long rankings thread in the Challengers' section of TennisForum the colours indicate TheBoiledEgg's feelings towards the player concerned. The post was not by TBE so may not be accurate.

Red > blue > purple > orange > green > white > black

Julia Carrot · All-time great

Laura's match will be streamed

blob · All-time great

invisible ink?? ^^^

kundalini · Specialist Reporter + Intermediate Club Player

Unreturned serves: Robson 6 (4x1st, 2x2nd) - Niculescu 19 (3 aces, 11x1st, 5x2nd)

Laura's serve was desperately short on penetration and her return of serve was terrible, though she managed to fire a few backhand return winners. She did plenty of running around but most of the long rallies ended with a Robson groundstroke hitting the net or missing the court.

Robson 20 winners - 34 ues + 13 aggressive shots that resulted in forced errors
Niculescu 3 winners (not including aces) - 6 ues + 3 aggressive shots that resulted in forced errors

Laura really needs to dominate the points won in 3 shots or less. When her opponent is ahead on unreturned serves, Laura is going to be in trouble even when they don't possess an evil slice to torment her during long rallies. By my maths, in this match, points won in 3 shots or less, the score was R 19 - N 27

Her movement seemed ok and there were some lengthy rallies. First serve percentage not too bad at 59%. The conditions were perhaps too slow for Laura. MN was wearing lots of extra clothes though Laura had just a longer sleeved top than normal.

-- Edited by kundalini on Tuesday 1st of January 2013 08:05:03 AM

kundalini · Specialist Reporter + Intermediate Club Player

philwrig wrote:
One question I have for who watched the match, any sign of improvement on her movement compared to last year?

The stream wasn't ideal but Laura's movement seemed slightly better than last autumn. There were several lengthy rallies, usually involving Robson dashing around the court, which almost always ended with an ue from Laura, rather than a forced error, or indeed, a Niculescu winner into a big space. Normally Laura's movement stands out as an obvious weakness, even if she's clearly improved on past performances. In this match, her movement just seemed average standard for a top 100 player. Having said that, MN seemed to be playing high percentage tennis so perhaps she wasn't going for the lines as much as most opponents would do, thus giving Laura more opportunity to get to balls.

It is certainly possible that a close-up view may well have shown that Robson wasn't getting her feet in the right position for the return of serve and to deal with the Niculescu slice. But the only view we got was a rather distant one so who knows ?

-- Edited by kundalini on Tuesday 1st of January 2013 07:52:33 AM