Week 7 - ITF ($25K) - Rancho Santa Fe, USA Hard

paulisi · Tennis legend

RE: Week 7 - ITF ($25K) - Rancho Santa Fe, USA Hard

indiana · Tennis legend

Tara's AEGON funded of course so that should rather help. I don't know exactly how all the funding works.

I doubt it's too much of an issue playing some effectively two set doubles. Less pressure, physically and mentally, than her singles. Maybe bit more of a ( nice ) issue if she keeps going all the way in both...

Yes, good for Mel though, while she continues to have her singles struggles.

RBBOT · Futures qualifying

Especially with the dull but tiredness reducing no-ad scoring.

blob · All-time great

under way. Tara saved 2 early BP 1-1*

blob · All-time great

Brengle takes first set 6-3
Both players having trouble holding so, but Tara mo(o)re so - she only held once.

Julia Carrot · All-time great

*0 - 2 in the decider.

Tara is not a 'morning person' today

Julia Carrot · All-time great

* 0 - 4

korriban · Challenger level

Julia Carrot wrote:
*0 - 2 in the decider.

Tara is not a 'morning person' today

She wasn't a morning person last Friday either, it took her 9 games to get going.

Both her previous winning matches this week and (I believe) last week were late afternoon matches.

blob · All-time great

GSM Brengle 6-3 6-0

Chastening.

Brendle seemingly has Tara's number - extends the H2H to 0-3

Tara just couldn't get anything going at all. Real problems holding serve, even from 40-15 a couple of times - she held just once in the match.

14 points this week, same as last, and she has a lot of scores ~12-14 in her ranking total. One extra win at 25K, for a nice juicy 24 points are probably what she needs to really push on.
Maybe next week in the Surprise 25K.

Doubles later.

indiana · Tennis legend

Yes, pretty good though Tara's start to the year has been ( more especially relative to her own recent starts ), it's the big score weeks that she needs to really push on in the longer term. Averaging 14 is less than the average of her 16 counting scores now.

I do think the ability is there, just maybe too many times doesn't seem to turn up for some matches.

indiana · Tennis legend

It is possible she has a morning issue. I think many folk can relate to not being morning people in their own environment, quite apart from particular questions re how late she was up / how prepared she was. Haven't studied her results in any more depth, but Andy really seemed to have a morning issue for the first 2 or 3 years of his pro career and I would expect him to have been preparing professionally.

I see more in the possible general morning issue than I saw in your gale force winds stuff last week. With that, I think some folk's games may be much less suited to such conditions and / or as Tara suggested too used to indoor conditions. Not sure you can really solve that in a 45 minute to an hour practice session in the conditions, more just help yourself to some extent

indiana · Tennis legend

Hmm, thinking further, myself and others have previously said that Tara sometimes just doesn't seem to "turn up". I wonder what the correlation is between these matches and her early matches.

Maybe not a lot really. But if there was significant correlation then what should she do about it ? eg. consider all her prep, ask Andy ?!

blob · All-time great

SoreMouth lose the first set 3-6
Down a break in he second too *0-2

blob · All-time great

No real fight or quality from the pair today it seemed; broken to love in the final game

SF: Tara MOORE/Melanie SOUTH (GBR/GBR) lost to Asia MUHAMMED/Allie WILL (USA/USA) 3-6 3-6

indiana · Tennis legend

Yes Steven, I'm essentialy with you on this.

As I indicated, I think there could well be a morning issue ( though curtently we only have a very small sample of known seemingly poor morning performances ).

However I do very much doubt the various suggestions of possible blatant unprofessionalism that korriban suggests are possible. Tara is an ambitious girl, I cannot believe she would jeopardise her chances through such as foolishly staying up far too late or not being bothered to practice enough in the morning. For her still young years she is a pretty experienced player, not some junior, and as I said ambitious, so I seriously doubt she needs a coach there to "crack the whip".

As I said, if general results did indicate a morning issue, it would be sensible to consider all aspects of her preparation for such matches, such as timings of everything from getting out of bed until the match starts. But that is quite different from suggesting that she is willfully jeopardising her chances by currently unprofessional practices. I don't believe it !