Week 22 - WTA Grand Slam ($13M) Paris, France Clay - *singles qualifying*

seagull · Hall of fame

RE: Week 22 - WTA Grand Slam ($13M) Paris, France Clay

blob · All-time great

Watson vs. Voegele

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

It's Caro for Laura

seagull · Hall of fame

Robson has Wozniacki!!

blob · All-time great

I call three wins

paulisi · Tennis legend

blob wrote:
I call three wins

I hope you are right. They are pretty good draws. Depends how fit Hev is really. Laura's is difficult but Caroline is nothing to be feared.

philwrig · Hall of fame

Good and bad for Laura, could have had a nearly guaranteed 100 points and a Wimby seeding with a kind 1st round draw, but now has a winnable match against a top seed in dire form, ideally would have preferred this match in the 2nd round but not a disaster. Probs still make Woz the favourite and conditions will not help Laura as Tony pointed out, but I'm not sure Woz likes the slower conditions either.

Decent draw for Hev except its her 1st match back and she lost to the Swiss girl this year.

Good draw for Bal, Marina has struggled on the clay recently.

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

Well, I doubt that's put a smile on Mr. Wozniacki's face . . . .

steven · Tennis legend

Just to add a few stats to the bare bones of the draw:
R1: ROBSON, Laura (GBR) 35 v WOZNIACKI, Caroline (DEN) 10 10 (CH 1 in 2010)
Caro reached the RG QFs in 2010, the year she first became world no. 1 and has reached R3 at every other RG in the last 5 years. However, we all know what her form is like at the moment ...
R1: WATSON, Heather (GBR) 50 v VOEGELE, Stefanie (SUI) 58 (CH 56 last month)
H2H 1-1. Vögele was the player Heather beat (4 & 4) in the final qualifying round here in 2011 but she lost to her 1 & 2 at Memphis this year. Heather is 2-2 in RG main draws, Vögele is 0-1.
R1: BALTACHA, Elena (GBR) 234 v ERAKOVIC, Marina (NZL) 91 (CH 39 last May)
H2H 1-0, Bally won 3-6 6-3 6-1 in Copenhagen (hard court) in 2010. Both have 1-3 main draw records at RG.
Also wondering if it might make sense to start a new thread for the main draw. I know we aren't going to get to 50 pages as for Fed Cup, but still ...

tony_orient · ATP qualifying

Apparently top half of the draw goes first, so Laura on Sunday/Monday and Hev & Bally Monday/Tuesday. I'm happy for it to be that way round as Laura's match will definitely be over the bank holiday when I'm not at work (I have a feeling we will be lucky if one of Hev or Bally make it to a televised court).

Will be interesting to see the Sunday OOP. With a smaller schedule and none of the top few players usually in action if Laura does play Sunday she could well be on one of the big two courts.

Early odds for Laura's match make it pretty much 50/50, unlike the tennisforum poll where Laura leads 111-21! I think that might reflect Caro's popularity on that particular site.

Also, Caroline tweeted to show a picture of her after practice with Agnieszka Radwanska and Petra Kvitova - so she won't have got any help on how to beat Laura there biggrin

-- Edited by tony_orient on Friday 24th of May 2013 07:44:57 PM

korriban · Challenger level

Very good draws indeed for both Laura and Heather.

Laura has the perfect game to take on Caroline - huge power and and attacking approach - if Laura serves well and is reasonably consistent with her aggressive play off the ground, with relatively short rallies, then there is absolutely nothing Wozniacki can do about it, and she will lose. Caroline COULD off course try to be more aggressive, but she seems to prefer to lose, rather than take a risk. Of course, as it's Round 1, very hard to predict how each player will be feeling, so in reality the result is hard to predict. But at least it will be 100% on Laura's racquet.

Jovanovski is a good player, but I'd back Laura if she makes it through Round 1. Makarova or Kuznetsova is the tough one: it all depends if Laura has a fantastic serving day - if yes, she has a sporting chance; if no, I'd give her almost no chance (against Makarova anyway). Actual Round 4 against Kerber could be a decent match-up, as she has a tendency to get defensive when she is expected to win. Anyway - the quarter is about as good as it gets.

Heather plays Voegele, who had an off-day against Elena. Tough but if she gets through, I'd expect her to be facing Kanepi, not the seeded player (Zakopalova) and it's a winnable match on paper with a fit Heather. The likely outcome is Heather losing first round, but if she is fit and fresh, she certainly has nothing to lose and a reasonable chance of reaching round 3.

Spectator · All-time great

On a very random note, what do people think of this year's poster? After last year's, I'm inclined to think most things would be an improvement. This one looks to me like two yellow-clad ballerinas doing an imitation of tennis players ... or are they rapidly moving tennis balls flying over a pile of sand .... ? At any rate, it's quite quiet, if typically slightly mystifying.

PS: Interesting that the site is now in French, English and Chinese. No Spanish?

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

I think it looks like a pile of ducks.

(Not quite sure what a pile of ducks actually looks like but I think the poster gives a pretty good idea . . . )

I rather liked the 2011 green ball tree (but I know others hated it).

Whatever you get, you know it's going to be all 'arty-farty' . . .

steven · Tennis legend

I get the feeling that the whole idea is to make it so preposterous that it gets people talking about it. Sad but ...

Having said that, I liked the 2011 tree too, but last years (while it involved more effort than this year's) looked pretty awful.

Julia Carrot · All-time great

Analysis on BBC site

Johnathan Overend

"Wozniacki won't fancy this one little bit. She's going through a horrendous run of bad form, losing four matches in a row on the European clay, and she's well aware of Robson's recent high-profile scalps.

Laura's been hitting well in practice and has a great shot of another upset. In her coaching corner will be Iain Bates, from the LTA's Fed Cup team, as Sven Groenveld - her interim coach - has to remain impartial. He works for Adidas and is also close to Wozniacki, another client of the clothing manufacturer."