Week 14 - WTA Premier ($795,707) Charleston, SC, USA - Clay

Helen40 · Grand Slam Champion

RE: Week 14 - WTA Premier ($795,707) Charleston, SC, USA - Clay

murrayman650 · ATP level

3rd set

Robson to serve

15-0

15-15

30-15

30-30

40-30

40-40

adv Bouchard

1-0 Bouchard

Laura , try to serve properly please

tony_orient · ATP qualifying

Worst possible start to the third set which has handed the initiative straight back to Genie

wolf · Tennis legend

steven wrote:
Bouchard hit a ball that landed 3 inches out, and the (somewhat elderly) line judge said "out" so softly that the point lasted 5 more shots.

LMAO.

Helen40 · Grand Slam Champion

Looks like both of them are tightening up, one DF a piece in this set.

murrayman650 · ATP level

0-15

15-15

30-15

30-30

40-30

40-40

adv Robson

1-1 (breaks back)

0-15

0-30

15-30

15-40

30-40

2-1 Bouchard

Helen40 · Grand Slam Champion

Looks like Robbo's taking pace off her first serve to get it in as her percentage has gone up, but now only winning 25% of points on it.

1-2 in the third.

Julia Carrot · All-time great

Laura's gone to la la land now. *1 - 5

Peter too · Tennis legend

R2: ROBSON, Laura (GBR) 16 42 lost to BOUCHARD, Eugenie (CAN) 114 4-6 6-3 1-6

Saved two match points and then gave away a third.

philwrig · Hall of fame

Laura just doesn't seem to be able to handle playing Genie mentally, whereas Genie just seems to treat as another match. This is Laura at her worst monologueing to herself, smashing rackets on the ground etc., Points won on first serve by Laura's standards were just ridiculous.

Ah well back home for a brief rest, maybe play next week in Poland.

blob · All-time great

So, Laura becomes Genies best ever win, and her first top 50 scalp (previous best 56).

Sorry to say I saw it coming, Genie's played a lot on clay recently, mostly in tough matches in South America against good clay exponents, with pretty good effect.

I couldn't see Laura making up the difference on this surface, with that serve, from cold.

There may be, as yet unknown, extenuating circumstances, especially considering how the third set raced away from her.

philwrig · Hall of fame

Julia Carrot wrote:
Hey ! One of them had to lose

Not 100% sure about the shoulder but there was a photo on sportinglife.com article where I thought I could make out a bit of tape. Her 1st serve today was just woeful by her own high standards.

tony_orient · ATP qualifying

That match was typical of a few of Laura's recently - very up and down before falling away badly in the deciding set. It's clearly a pattern she needs to reverse as it means she is losing too many winnable matches. In every match she has played recently there have been periods where she is well on top.

Surprised she only won 50% of first serve points (compared to close to 90% yesterday). Maybe Genie has a better read on Laura's serve that most players but also possible she wasn't serving at full capacity. Laura isn't going to win many matches with those sort of serving stats.

steven · Tennis legend

Last few tweets from Ben:

Queen Monologuer. RT @SI_BTBaseline: Robson misses. "Stop being such a muppet!" Misses again. "Again. Double muppet!" Ah, Britain. #FCC2013

Laura Robson takes the second set to force a third vs. viral vid partner Genie Bouchard. Oppa. #FCC2013

Bouchard wins 6-1 in the third over a quickly fading Robson. Laura threw her racquet at her chair in frustration after match point. #FCC2013

philwrig · Hall of fame

blob wrote:
So, Laura becomes Genies best ever win, and her first top 50 scalp (previous best 56).

Sorry to say I saw it coming, Genie's played a lot on clay recently, mostly in tough matches in South America against good clay exponents, with pretty good effect.

I couldn't see Laura making up the difference on this surface, with that serve, from cold.

There may be, as yet unknown, extenuating circumstances, especially considering how the third set raced away from her.

Laura has superior clay court form eventhough I do think Genie has had good results on this surface. Given the courtside tweets all Genie needed to do was basically keep the ball in the court for long enough. I'm sticking with my theory that Laura finds it difficult to play well against her best friend.

She was losing it mentally in the first set and I just think she was worn out mentally by the third, leading to the poor score in that set.