Week 12 - ITF $15000 - Sunderland - Hard

Smidster · Challenger level

RE: Week 12 - ITF $15000 - Sunderland - Hard

DavidC · Tennis legend

steven wrote:
Meanwhile, Naomi Cavaday asks a question many of us have been wondering about:

"Final round of qualis in Sunderland for Ivana... there were byes here, where were all the young Brits?!"

"still can't get over it, where are all the young brits? I was dying to play these tournaments at 15/16 #whereareyoubritishtennis ???"

Byes in qualies in Sunderland is not unusual - I looked at one tournament from the 1990s and there were 9 byes then. I remember Jo Durie commenting just over 10 years ago that in some local junior events she was involved with there were 8 boys for every girl, which is indicative of the thin base to draw from. If you are a top junior then you are probably either playing abroad at the moment in major events or concentrating on school work before a 3 week series of lower grade events over Easter. Of the rest many will have major expense reaching Sunderland from the south (there were no byes last week in Bath,which is easier to reach for anyone in the Midlands, Wales or South). If you are a local girl then you need to pay IPIN membership on top of the entry fee to give it a go.

paulisi · Tennis legend

The girls let us down yet again - terrible to only get GB girls through by beating another GB girl.

steven · Tennis legend

DavidC wrote:
steven wrote:
Meanwhile, Naomi Cavaday asks a question many of us have been wondering about:

"Final round of qualis in Sunderland for Ivana... there were byes here, where were all the young Brits?!"

"still can't get over it, where are all the young brits? I was dying to play these tournaments at 15/16 #whereareyoubritishtennis ???"
Byes in qualies in Sunderland is not unusual - I looked at one tournament from the 1990s and there were 9 byes then. I remember Jo Durie commenting just over 10 years ago that in some local junior events she was involved with there were 8 boys for every girl, which is indicative of the thin base to draw from. If you are a top junior then you are probably either playing abroad at the moment in major events or concentrating on school work before a 3 week series of lower grade events over Easter. Of the rest many will have major expense reaching Sunderland from the south (there were no byes last week in Bath,which is easier to reach for anyone in the Midlands, Wales or South). If you are a local girl then you need to pay IPIN membership on top of the entry fee to give it a go.

That's interesting, and it makes sense that the further north you go, the lower the entry is, but on Naomi's more general point, even in Bath (and most of the UK 10Ks), the only reason the Q draws are full is because they tend to be half the size of the men's Q draws.

blob · All-time great

A bewildering week of malaise, an almost freakish cluster of results here and elsewhere this week for our girls.

Well, next week has to be better, no matter who's playing or where, so I'll just look forward to that.

korriban · Challenger level

For once, after 3 weeks of pretty much the same thing happening at 3 GB Futures, even I am genuinely lost for words. Its just as well we're on the cusp of a golden age for British tennis in these exciting times for the women's game in this country. And I quote.

If this were Westminster, someone would be forced to resign......

wolf · Tennis legend

paulisi wrote:
The girls let us down yet again - terrible to only get GB girls through by beating another GB girl.

They haven't let us down, they are not playing for us.

philwrig · Hall of fame

Look Tara was ill and none of our other players were favourites for their matches, so although it was disappointing I think it is important to keep it in perspective.

indiana · Tennis legend

Well, Lisa was certainly favourite in my book. Belzunce-Crompin is indeed quite a bit better than a typical unranked player, but I absolutely fail to see how Lisa wouldn't be favourite to beat her.

I thought 4 wins a decent outcome with a Tara being reasonably well proviso. It doesn't look as if she was, particularly looking at these last two sets' scores. Lisa's loss was a dsappointment and so we ended with just the 2 all Brit wins ( may have been lucky it became 2 all Brit matches ).

Encouraging from Katy ( OK, against Sam ) and that Fitzy got into such a strong position.

But overall I do think just getting these 2 wins is again quite a disappointment. More, even excluding Tara, looked very attainable.

I do agree with wolf though. We may talk about "we" and "us" just really because we are supportive and want to see British players doing well. But they are not playing for "us" or owe "us" anything. So they don't need that indignant rubbish heaped on them.

philwrig · Hall of fame

OK forgot about Lisa, but still don't want to look too despondent.

indiana · Tennis legend

OK, I'll be a bit despondant that leaving aside for now the lack of depth, apart from Tara I wouldn't say that any of our top 13 women has had a particularly encouraging start to the year. And quite a number have for some time or recently been distinctly below their best.

These 15Ks are a bit silly and I can't be bothered about girls not gettimg the whole 1 point for reaching R2. But the form is fairly poor on average across the board and I really would like to see this pick up soon, patticularly when better reward opportunities come round.

korriban · Challenger level

EWS *5-2 first set. Now ordinarily, this would be a very good sign, but let's not peak too soon on this one...............

6-2. No fuss. Losing in qualifying lulling her higher ranked opponents in MD into underestimating her perhaps. Long may it continue. We've been here before a lot in the last few weeks, so no chickens being counted by this poster.

-- Edited by korriban on Thursday 21st of March 2013 11:49:09 AM

steven · Tennis legend

korriban wrote:
EWS *5-2 first set. Now ordinarily, this would be a very good sign, but let's not peak too soon on this one...............
6-2. No fuss. Losing in qualifying lulling her higher ranked opponents in MD into underestimating her perhaps. Long may it continue. We've been here before a lot in the last few weeks, so no chickens being counted by this poster.
Oh my I wonder if Vrljic took a while to wake up (Emily won the first four games) or something just went drastically wrong after the 1st set. Emily was still winnng a fair proportion of the points after the 1st set, so maybe the momentum shift was smaller than the scoreline suggests. Very sad to see it happen to yet another GB girl though.

R2: WEBLEY-SMITH, Emily (GBR) LL 435 lost to VRLJIC, Ana (CRO) 4 228 by 2-6 6-0 6-0

-- Edited by steven on Thursday 21st of March 2013 01:04:58 PM

steven · Tennis legend

blob wrote:
Emily lost 6-2 0-6 0-6

That's got to be fairly unusual!
I suppose 0-6 6-0 0-6 (or the inverse) would be even rarer.

Just remembered there was quite a close equivalent in Miami last night ... and in a men's match. Davydenko beat Lorenzi 6-0 2-6 6-0

-- Edited by steven on Thursday 21st of March 2013 01:05:17 PM

steven · Tennis legend

indiana wrote:
Ranking points so far this year.

1. Heather 300 from 6 tournaments.
2. Laura 248 from 7 ( plus more, please )
3. Tara 110 from 8
4. JoKo 92 from 7

and then...

5. Anne 27 from 4
6. Lisa 22 from 7
7. Emily 19 from 5
8. Naomi 18 from 6
9. Amanda 13 from 4
10. Anna S 10 from 7
11. Samantha 8 from 6
11. Lucy 8 from 7

WR 300 is currently 152 points. That is looking a long way off this year for some who would aspire to be inside or indeed well inside the top 300.

Better opportunities will indeed come than these 15Ks appeared to provide. But especially against non Brits our players here were not even getting the measly R1 win one point.

Equivalent figures from last year for comparison (i.e. the 12 top scorers in the first 12 weeks):

Anne 234 from 10 (so down 88% this year)
Heather 138 from 8 (so up 117% this year)
JoKo 105 from 6 (so down 12% this year)
Elena 92 from 6 (not played this year)
Laura 91 from 6 (so up 173%+ this year)
Naomi 73 from 8 (so down 75% this year)

Samantha 29 from 6 (so down 72% this year)
Fran 24 from 5 (so down 92% this year)
Mel 17 from 5 (so down 76% this year)
Emily 11 from 5 (so up 73% this year)
Lisa 11 from 5 (so up 100% this year)
Anna F 10 from 8 (so down 60% this year)

Of those in this year's list but not in last year's, Tara is up 2650%, Lucy is up 14%, Amanda is up 333% & Anna S is up from 0 points in the first 12 weeks last year.

So it is quite a mixed picture and probably worth remembering that the period between Fed Cup ties last year was pretty dire before getting better as we got into the summer, but so far (at least partly due to the last couple of weeks, where the new 15Ks really haven't helped) it does look even worse this year.

-- Edited by steven on Friday 22nd of March 2013 12:45:19 AM