Week 7 - WTA Premier ($2.4M) Doha, Qatar - Hard

blob · All-time great

RE: Week 7 - WTA Premier ($2.4M) Doha, Qatar - Hard

korriban · Challenger level

4-6 1-6.

Put it like this, if Laura wasn't ill, this was like watching her at age 14 or 15. Going for winners on almost every shot, making a few, missing many many more, serve unexceptional, exceptionally slow to the ball. She MUST be ill......surely!!!

philwrig · Hall of fame

Saw snippets of the match, Laura walked onto the court with a downbeat expression, 1st set would have been worse if Hantuchova had not made as many sloppy errors. Laura's first serve for the most part had nothing on it, Hantuchova did return it well though. Loads of careless errors. 2nd set Hantuchova actually played well but Laura should have broken to make it 4-2 playing a much better game.

Doha doesn't seem to like Laura and also playing straight after Fed Cup week seems to be a no no. Clearly the shoulder is still inhibiting her and until that recovers to 100% she will struggle to win these types of matches.

tony_orient · ATP qualifying

I didn't see huge amounts of this match, but from what I did see Laura didn't seem to be 100% ready to play - perhaps Heather had the right idea giving herself a week off after Fed Cup because this is the second year in a row Laura has really struggled in the next match (last year she retired in the first set).

Her first serve lacked any sort of penetration and as a result she won less than half the points behind it. Daniela managed 6 aces too so it wasn't due to a slow court.

murray_2k9 · Challenger qualifying

Rest up Laura, that was horrendous

korriban · Challenger level

Phil is spot on here - she did look very subdued (no animation at all) from the very start, her serve was only at 3/4 pace (although her first serve %age didn't benefit from this), and she was painfully slow about the court, always stretching for shots that would be easy ralley balls for most of the top women, and going for outright winners from them, without a solid base, far too often and too early. Put simply, she was unrecognisable from the player who played so wonderfully at the US Open (serve, consistency, winners, movement, tactics, bottle - every angle).

By the time the Fed Cup squad had celebrated in Eilat and disbanded, it would probably have been late Sunday/early Monday - and given the challanges of transport to an Arab country from Israel, I'd be surprised if she arrived much before late yesterday afternoon or evening. With the let-down after the euphoria of the weekend, any niggles or minor coughs/colds probably now seem a lot more noticeable, and with lack of practice on top of this, it's not a huge surprise that this was a woeful performance (it was). After all, she was not playing that well in Eilat either, by her own admission.

Against this Daniela had no such problems after a fantastic performance for Slovakia over the weekend, after a shaky first set, which she still won.

So we have the GB #1 and #2 women continuing to rise up the rankings, but in reality not playing close to their level in late 2012. Lots to ponder for both of them and their coaches - problems that I'm sure all top players go through every few years and come through.

tony_orient · ATP qualifying

Certainly the rain delay in Eilat on Wednesday didn't help Laura. Not really a surprise that Laura wasn't properly ready for today.

I'll be disappointed if she doesn't turn up looking a lot more ready and focused in her next event though.

philwrig · Hall of fame

And of course the draw has now opened up with Kirilenko retiring in her match, Laura would have played a lowly ranked qualifier.
Also Hantuchova has won the tournament straight after Fed Cup in each of the last two years and she was definitely the one who was pumped up for this.

Fundamentally though Laura is an inconsistent player who will always have a tendency to hit alot of UEs.

The tournament in Brazil starting in 2 weeks time is the next big opportunity for points hopefully by then she will be fired up and injury free.

philwrig · Hall of fame

wolf wrote:
She withdrew from Brazil a few days ago so only has Dubai Q between now and Indian Wells.

-- Edited by wolf on Tuesday 12th of February 2013 06:46:17 PM

Ah thanks it did seem a bit mad the scheduling, but with not doing well here and unlikely to do much in Dubai given the strength of the field in hindsight it may have worked out.

korriban · Challenger level

If she's ill and/or injured, clearly she'll pull out of Dubai as well. I have to believe she was ill, because of her general lethargy on court. Frankly, based on the way she is playing so far this year, I'd imagine her coach will want to spend a few solid weeks with her getting her back playing the way she was 4 or 5 months ago. What we saw yesterday would NOT be enough to get out of qualifying in Dubai, and another poor performance would only set alarm bells ringing and further dent her confidence. So I hope she doesnt play next week either way. In my book if you start a match, you can't be significantly injured (pulling out is perfectly acceptable, even preferable), and the thing I was most shocked by was her almost complete lack of anticipation and movement, and a return to the old days of winner or bust tennis, mostly caused by being late to the ball. Coach Krajan has much to ponder.

philwrig · Hall of fame

Laura's PC transcript link: http://www.asapsports.com/show_interview.php?id=86480

Nothing there to suggest she was feeling unwell or any injury issues just that it was a bad day at the office.

korriban · Challenger level

philwrig wrote:
Laura's PC transcript link: http://www.asapsports.com/show_interview.php?id=86480

Nothing there to suggest she was feeling unwell or any injury issues just that it was a bad day at the office.

Ouch. If she's talking bad day at the office, and I was her coach and watched the match, I'd be considering my position. It was as bad as I've ever seen her play - I accept you can have poor timing for a good hour or so, but to have no serving power, no animation and no movement whatsoever compared to recent form without being injured/unwell is, frankly, hard to understand. Scary. And she didn't sound too upset in the PC either. Is something wrong elsewhere I wonder?

Julia Carrot · All-time great

Ah ! I'd seen a reference to that presser over a day ago and hadn't been able to find it, so thanks

Matthieu Barbarin @MattBarbarin
So press conf with @laurarobson5 was me&her debating abt who's the cutest inthe last OneDirection Video. She said Niall, I said Zayn #blush

Actually reading the full transcript really cheers me up. She not ill, she's not injured and she's going to play Dubai. And she's still thoroughly 'Laura'

All good.