A bit of a change from this week - the Brits are all in different quarters of the draw! Will that work out better or worse, I wonder ...
L32: Melanie South WR 380 v Nicole Rottmann (AUT) WR 344 (CH 307 in 2012) - H2H 0-1, 3 sets, Cairns 2011 L32: (4) Lisa Whybourn WR 267 v (WC) Kamonwan Buayam (THA) UNR (17-y-o, world junior no. 51) L32: Naomi Broady WR 332 v (3) Zhang Ling (HKG) WR 245 (CH 184 in 2011) L32: (2) Tara Moore WR 200 v (Q) Jang Su Jeong (KOR) WR 594 (18-y-o, CH 400 last May)
The winner of Mel's match is likely to get top seed Rogowska in R2. Rottmann is on a 4-match losing streak (10K Final, WTA qualies, 2 x 25K R1s)
The other seed in Lisa's section is (6) Melanie Klaffner (AUT) WR 300, who took Kumkhum to 3 sets in the SFs this week. Buayam is currently world junior no. 51 and she upset top seed Rogowska last week before going out in the QFs to the player Lisa beat in the semis. However, Katie Boulter thrashed her 3 & 0 in a junior event in Korea in October.
The other seed in Tara's section is (8) Nicha Lertpitaksinchai (THA) WR 330.
__________________
GB on a shirt, Davis Cup still gleaming, 79 years of hurt, never stopped us dreaming ... 29/11/2015 that dream came true!
Hopefully this week's points will be enough to see Tara WR change from a 2 to a 1, but no reason why Tara cannot play to her seeding and get comfortably inside the top 200
Looks like putting all the Brits in the same quarter last week was the better option after all
Buayam upset top 200 player Rogowska in R2 last week, so clearly has her very good days (as well as, judging by that 3 & 0 thrashing by Katie Boulter a few months ago, her very bad days) but I didn't really think Lisa would have much trouble with her. Maybe all those long matches in the heat and humidity last week finally caught up with her.
As for the other two matches, a 3 set loss for Mel and a loss in 2 close sets for Naomi were probably what most people would have picked had they had to bet their lives on a pair of outcomes, i.e. a pity (especially since Mel must have got very close to winning the match in the 2nd set) but not huge shocks.
-- Edited by steven on Tuesday 30th of April 2013 12:30:04 PM
__________________
GB on a shirt, Davis Cup still gleaming, 79 years of hurt, never stopped us dreaming ... 29/11/2015 that dream came true!
Naomi failed to generate a single BP in the first 8 of her opponent's service games. They came off for rain at 4-3* 30-30 second set.
Then Naomi had 6 BPs on her opponents comeback service game (always hard to serve after a delay, mid-game) but failed to convert.
Opponent inevitably breaks Naomi immediately needing just the 1 BP, and served out the match to love. All over.
Very unlucky really, but the 8 return games without a single BP is the real problem here......tons of aces on serve as usual, but that doesn;t help break your opponent.
Naa, LOL, I'd never bet my life on a 3 setter, I'd practically always pick who I thought would win and then pick that as a 2 set win. The first set winner, even in tight looking matches, is invariably the second set winner too, which seems logical to me.
I accept Phil's point ( when I last voiced that I had won a tennis tipping contest on this rigid theory ) that you can have notoriously slow starters.
Fortunately I did not bet my life on Mel's match !
Anyway, clearly not the day we were hoping for and indeed expecting in Lisa's case ( would have been great if she could have followed on well from last week ).