Good draw for both Heather and Laura, an improvement on two weeks ago. Laura in particular just needs the confidence of winning a match and she should have a decent chance against Giorgi (who is without a win for even longer than Laura so it will be a nervy match)
-- Edited by tony_orient on Monday 18th of March 2013 06:29:51 PM
Reasonable R1 draws, but little chance of going really deep:
L96: Heather Watson WR 39 v Ayumi Morita JPN WR 50 (CH 40 in 2011),who beat her 5 & 2 at the same stage 2 years ago L96: Laura Robson WR 43 v Camila Giorgi (ITA) WR 85 (CH 73 last month)
L64: Watson or Morita v (31) Yanina Wickmayer (BEL) WR 30 - winner likely to face top seed Serena L64: Robson or Giorgi v (32) Alizé Cornet (FRA) WR 36 - winner likely to face 2nd seed Vika
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GB on a shirt, Davis Cup still gleaming, 79 years of hurt, never stopped us dreaming ... 29/11/2015 that dream came true!
Morita was finding some decent form at the start of the year but I think might have picked up another small injury since. Giorgi has had a shoulder injury since the end of last year and hasn't played since January.
Wickmayer is a bit of a nemesis for Hev but Cornet is not a bad draw for R2.
Azarenka has been struggling with a foot/ankle injury and was doubtful to even play Miami.
David Law on 5live basically saying Heather simply playing consistent percentage tennis all the way through, good standard throughout. For almost 2 sets Moriya was awful, now Moriya playing superbly......always the challenge with the way Heather plays; the match can often be on the opponent's racquet.
-- Edited by korriban on Tuesday 19th of March 2013 05:47:28 PM
Heather deserves a lot of credit for attempting to add more aggression to her game in the hope of raising her peak level and ultimately giving her a chance of getting into the top 20, perhaps even top 10. It should hardly come as a great surprise that this transition is a very tricky one, as previously she focused on keeping the ball in court; now she is having to make decisions about whether to go for a winner. Getting the balance right is very difficult and was always likely to take several years. In the mean time, Heather will play lots of matches in which she is caught between the old and the new; not knowing which approach to use. Not confident enough in her attacking game to execute well enough to win matches that she might win comfortably playing high percentage tennis.
Whenever I've watched her this year, she's looked lost. You can tell she knows the long term plan and really wants to accomplish it but she doesn't trust herself to attack consistently. In fact she seems to get down very quickly if she makes an error when attacking. Other times she will play incredibly passive tennis and get frustrated with herself for not playing more aggressively.
Over the years I've seen quite a few brits who seemed to have the potential to rise significantly in the rankings, assuming they worked hard on their games and developed certain aspects. Two years later their game was just the same, and surprise, surprise, their ranking hadn't improved much either.
-- Edited by kundalini on Tuesday 19th of March 2013 07:44:10 PM
I don't think "burnt out" is the right phrase, she's not played enough tennis for that. Seems more just she's let things get into her head, is low on confidence, feeling deflated and a few weeks off the tour will help her get sorted and freshen up for the clay.
She must also be looking for time away completely, as she's had plenty non tournament weeks.
to be honest, part of me feels she's just not used to losing as much as she has been, and doesnt know how to deal with it yet
-- Edited by PaulM on Tuesday 19th of March 2013 11:03:38 PM