It's been a strange 2013 for Laura and Heather. The good news is that they have both achieved career high rankings inside the top 40 (with a 3 at the beginning too!). However their form and results have been rather poor. In the case of Heather this looks to be chiefly related to her glandular fever, and with some proper rest and recovery, let's hope her performances will reflect all the hard work she did over the winter, albeit a little later than planned. With Laura, well, it's harder to know what is going on (I did see a Sports Illustrated article a couple of days ago that suggested Krajan had a history of making technical changes to players' serves which more often than not made things worse, and the expression "yips" was used).
I was looking back at their respective career records, and I was staggered by one statistic I found, which is probably well known amonst this learned community, but had somewhat passed me by.
Heather played her first competitive pro match on the tour in 2009. She has won 4 pro singles tournaments to date. A $10k, a $25k, a $50k (ITF) and her recent WTA triumph in Osaka (the first British win for 132 years, or whatever it was!). In addition she has recently won 2 WTA doubles titles. And there's a sprinkling of finals in there too.
Laura played her first competitive pro match on the tour even earlier in 2008, the year of her Junior Wimbledon victory. That year she won an ITF $10k as a 14 year old which is extraordinary. But that's it. No further tournament victories since, singles or doubles, ITF or WTA at any level (no junior tournament wins either). That's almost 5 years. Some near misses, plenty of SFs and a few finals, but no tournament wins. I couldn't believe it. I didn't think it would be possible to reach a CH of 38, but more importantly to have created such a large amount of expectation and marketing hoopla in the UK and abroad without some evidence that she was a future big tournament winner - able to string 5 or 6 matches together at whatever level.
Perhaps there is some mitigation around injuries, her aggressive high-risk gamestyle, bad luck, etc - but over the course of nearly 5 years it certainly shocked me. Perhaps Heather is the better prospect after all?
-- Edited by korriban on Thursday 2nd of May 2013 08:05:44 AM
-- Edited by korriban on Thursday 2nd of May 2013 09:40:12 AM
I have recently made a table to sum up a few of our British tennis players tournament wins for both singles and doubles, thought it linked in wellish for this thread and makes it easier to see how well our players have done. :) (Womens table in next post)
MensWomens
Name
ATP/WTA
Challengers/ 50k higher
Futures
Doubles ATP/WTA
Challenger/50k higher
Futures
Andy Murray
26 (includes US open & Olympic Gold)
2
5
2
0
0
Josh Goodall
0
0
19
0
7
19
Alex Bogdanovic
0
9
4
0
0
0
Dan Evans
0
1
8
0
0
7
James Ward
0
2
5
0
2
1
Jamie Baker
0
0
12
0
1
4
Ed Corrie
0
0
3
0
0
8
Dan Smethurst
0
0
7
0
0
7
David Rice
0
0
1
0
1
21
Sean Thornley
0
0
0
0
1
18
Oli Golding
0
0
2
0
0
5
Kyle Edmund
0
0
1
0
0
0
Andrew Fitzpatrick
0
0
2
0
0
4
-- Edited by jake270392 on Thursday 2nd of May 2013 12:55:46 PM
-- Edited by jake270392 on Saturday 4th of May 2013 04:47:10 PM
It is quite a strange statistic that Laura has never won a title since Sunderland 2008 - she has lost something like 6 or 7 finals in a row since (including Juniors & Doubles). I think it is a mixture of the things you mention plus being able to maintain fitness over a 5 to 6 match period. She had to retire in a 25k final in 2011 and ran out of energy in both Palermo and Guangzhou last year. It would certainly be nice if she could put that run to bed at some point this year!
Indy. I believe Krajan was appointed a week or so after the Olympics, which was after Palermo. This was a few weeks pre-US Open, so probably around the time she played Ohio/Cincinatti
-- Edited by korriban on Thursday 2nd of May 2013 04:19:44 PM
She was so good so early on that I'm not sure she even played that many ITFs, certainly not compared to Heather. This isn't the whole story but certainly contributes.
Wow, this makes interesting and scary reading. I've always felt that Laura hasn't met her potential, and feel disappointed at her losses to 'lesser' players, but the stats really highlight that she needs to get her head and physical training right if she is ever to truly meet the potential she showed in 2008.
I think Laura tends to "play up". So instead of competing and winning at a level she is at, or above, she tends to play bigger events and go out earlier in the tournament. So she didn't really do the ITF circuit at all.
She got a lot of wildcards and played big events much earlier than Heather, who took a more traditional route working her way up through ITFs.
That's why Heather has had a much more even trajectory up the ranking than Laura, who tends to have increase spikes based on a few good events.
Heather has a good spread of titles, which Laura doesn't. Laura has some high profile wins over top players, which Heather doesn't. As for which is a better guide to future success, err.. I have no idea!
What worries me is comparing clips of them both from the end of last year to the beginning of this year. Both particularly impressed in matches against Sharapova, which to me suggests they are both capable of upping their games when they need to. What really stood out though is Lauras fitness in matches against Clijsters, Li (at the USO) and Sharapova (at the Olympics) Lauras level didnt drop noticeably at all, giving her opponents no respite in which to pull away from Laura in the way top players so often do. This was particularly impressive against Li when she romped through the third set with a double break.
It seemed like Laura was finally adding the last piece of the puzzle - the fitness needed to execute her game and start racking up the scalps. In 2013 Laura was noticeably patchier against a poor Kvitova, yet still managed to get the job done - seeminly overcoming doubts about nerves and fitness, when in fact it seems she was the lesser unfit of the two. I had expected Laura to keep building on the form that we had seen in 2012, but against Stephens and every match that I have seen this year she has looked heavier, slower and generally under the weather. I think this respiratory problem will explain a lot, as even vs Ormachea Laura was spluttering at the beginning but I think its just a matter of time until Laura gets back up to that level.
It could well be still quite a lot to do with chest infection issues lately with Laura, and I do question whether it is helpful to fly here, there and everywhere for tournaments as opposed to giving her body a break and then put in practice / fitness blocks.
I think korriban too has possibly correctly recently questioned her coaching. Just how much did he have to with her autumn success ( I forget when he was appointed ? ) and how good is he for Laura now ? I would be worried re "technical" changes to Laura's serve, as to my admittedly rather untrained eye it is a fundamently good action with issues re consistency / nerves.
She has such talent and clear strengths, and one so wants to see her being all she can be.
Thanks, Korriban, so apparently already after some good signs.
Re the US Open, I am sure he did add positives, and tactically and movement ( for her ), Laura had a good 2 weeks. Just I guess honestly not clear how much he did add in that limited time.
I think you're absolutely right about the infection Indy. It would certainly explain why she seems to have regressed so much.
For me the clay will be about damage limitation as much as anything. If Laura can get her fitness up a bit and perform positively at Rome/Madrid I would certainly not count her out of doing well at the French with the right opponent.
I dont like Krajan unfortunately. His previous charges, Safina and Cibulkova followed the same pattern - big improvement in rankings, only to plateau and lose a lot of confidence. Laura so far appears to be doing the same and I think the clock is ticking on their relationship.
Obviously both Heather and Laura have short term issues to work through, health and fitness related primarily perhaps, before any concrete conclusions can be drawn. It was really the total lack of tournament victories of any kind from Laura over the last 4 and a half years which shocked me.
I had a quick look last night to see if this is unique among the "top" players. First of all Laura has played 80 pro tournaments in her career, winning her fifth - so that's her last 75 pro tournaments without a win. It's absolutely true that she didn't really focus on $10ks and even $25ks very much since she turned 16, but there are plenty of $50k-$100k events played between 2010 and 2012, and it seemed inconceivable to me that she didn't manage to win any of them.
On checking, pretty much all the other top players, including younger ones of Laura's age have won at the very least a decent handful of ITF tournaments on their way up. Interestingly, the only other player I found who had similar profile (before I got too bored as I worked through the list) was Sloane Stephens. Just a single tournament win, a $50k, albeit from far fewer tournaments - and she also "stepped up" to bigger events from a young age like Laura.
In my opinion, the mental and physical ability to win tournaments and string multiple matches together in various countries is a much bigger part of being a champion tennis player than the pure tennis skills - no prizes are given for 1 great match, or 1 superb set.
What was great about August-October 2012 was Laura stringing together the mental and physical aspects of her game for multiple matches in multiple tournaments. My concern is that prior to this and after this, there is no evidence that she has this ability - and the same can probably be said of Sloane Stephens. I hope and pray she finds someone who can help her complete the package....so near.....
Gosh, can't wait for the May-September period to see what happens.
