So much for my fairly comfortable win for Laura prediction.
But how much even further ahead in the tennis rankings would Laura be now without having a serve that is so often a bit of a liability.
And how much even even further ahead would she be if she could make her serve the real strength it has the potential to be.
OK, didn't play that well generally today, whether or not partly because she was facing Eugenie, but not serving well must influence other parts of your game. I have often been surprised it hasn't effected Laura more.
Pity. She has generally done so well and is the highest ranked teenager in the world. But when you think what more could be there....frustrating...
I've not seen Ms Bouchard play before, but considering she was a junior world #1 yet almost no tennis pundits have called out her name as one to watch, suggests she is a sound and consistent "backboard" type player in the Wozniacki mould. Great for juniors, limited upside in the pro game to be a superstar. A top 30-40 player almost certainly.
Against all but the very best players, I believe that Laura is now, effectively, playing herself. The opponents tend to be spectators in the Laura show, assuming they keep the ball in play. For periods of the match they are wiped off the court, for others they run away with proceedings as Laura offers up UE after UE. I presume today was yet another example. Safarova, Kvitova, Cirstea are all the same to some extent. Which was why the AO match Kvitova-Laura was painful to watch.nBut exciting!!!
Will she ever crack it? I hope so, but until then, we have one of the game's biggest enigmas. Lets be clear, she should beat Bouchard 9 times out of 10 on their respective games.
My biggest worry for the coming months is that Laura isn't seeded for both Roland Garros and Wimbledon ( looking a not unlikely prospect now, when I had at the beginning of the year hoped, nae expected, otherwise ) and she then gets awful draws in each and very few points.
Looking at the year so far, it it isn't hard to see that the points have probably been there to be top 32 if she had been able to play as consistently well as we and clearly she would have wanted her to.
On a positive note she still has 200 more ranking points than at this stage last year and a great run in the doubles to look back on, so although we were maybe hoping for more, it is no disaster.
I've not seen Ms Bouchard play before, but considering she was a junior world #1 yet almost no tennis pundits have called out her name as one to watch, suggests she is a sound and consistent "backboard" type player in the Wozniacki mould. Great for juniors, limited upside in the pro game to be a superstar. A top 30-40 player almost certainly.
Against all but the very best players, I believe that Laura is now, effectively, playing herself. The opponents tend to be spectators in the Laura show, assuming they keep the ball in play. For periods of the match they are wiped off the court, for others they run away with proceedings as Laura offers up UE after UE. I presume today was yet another example. Safarova, Kvitova, Cirstea are all the same to some extent. Which was why the AO match Kvitova-Laura was painful to watch.nBut exciting!!!
Will she ever crack it? I hope so, but until then, we have one of the game's biggest enigmas. Lets be clear, she should beat Bouchard 9 times out of 10 on their respective games.
From what I remember of Bouchard's match against Svitolina in the Wimbledon Girls final, Eugenie was quite aggressive. She regularly went in for 1st strike tennis. It was her opponent who seemed more in the Wozniacki mould. Though I guess Svitolina had a terrible serve that day which was just begging to be hit. Maybe against Laura she did play more conservatively as she saw her friend was all over the place OR maybe her match against Svitolina bucked the grain as she saw how attackable the Ukrainian's serve was.