Week 25 - Wimbledon Womens Qualifying

WD40 · Club Coach

RE: Week 25 - Wimbledon Womens Qualifying

WD40 · Club Coach

Naomi and Anna Lose the 1st set TB 6-7 (2-7).

PaulM · Tennis legend

They were under heaps of pressure on every service game, did very well to get to 6-5* but to blow 5 set points is rough. The tiebreak just raced by.

Only one winning team now I think

WD40 · Club Coach

FWDQR: (WC) Naomi BROADY/Anna SMITH (GBR/GBR) 788 lose to. Paula ORMAECHEA/Maria IRIGOYEN (ARG/ARG) 346 6-7 (2-7) 1-6.

WD40 · Club Coach

Don't want to comment on might have been's. as "if's" don't win matches.............nevertheless?

scottie1 · Futures level

korriban wrote:
Thanks for your report CD. Really interesting.
re Naomi. there are days when she is almost the female equivalent of Karlovic (great serve, but no game whatsoever), and others when she really plays quite well off the ground, like yesterday by the sound of it. Glad you feel the same way about her backhand - I have heard TV commentators saying that the backhand was her best shot, but I've always felt it was completely broken from a technical point of view - no legs or body; arm and wrist position all wrong; limited top spin and control; very hit and miss....glad it's not just me!! But this aside, delighted that she's playing better once more.
I'm still hoping that someone made it on Tuesday to see Mel's match (let's face it, a former top 100 player), where I believe she lost 10 or 11 games in a row, going down 2 and 0. I'd love to hear what actually happened. I have visions of Shahar Peer simply working the ball left and right, to keep Mel "moving", indispersed with drop shots, nothing more. Speed and fitness seems to be such an issue now, that surely every player on the tour is well aware of what to do. I know she won the QWC play-offs fair and square, so no arguments there, but it does seem a shame when players of the future, or on the up (like Harriet Dart, for example) miss out on gaining the valuable experience.
Â
Â
I was there on Tuesday saw a liitle bit of Mel to be honest I wanted to see Naomi and was not disappointed there! Mel was put from side to side on the bits I saw and yes to me she does look unfit. I knew beforehand(sorry about this-- she had no chance againat peer) so did not bother to watch whole match. Naomi s serve agaiunst Dubois was sensational but I was pleased she won the tie break as I felt Dubois would have won if a third set,Â Caught a little of the Lisa match she was playing a class player Vania King. no disgrace about losing. Saw Carreras against Pereira! Sorry but Carreras has no bigÂ weapons but trades shots from back of the court clueless at the net. Pereira was also poor at net--- putting several vollies into the net. Pereira was not that great but neither was Amanda!
Just seen some of the pictures of the girls team for the USA/GB junior match at Eastbourne.....I know she's still only 15, but I was still somewhat taken aback by how tiny Maia Lumsden is. Not just height, but build as well. Must be a huge barrier to overcome.....there are successful "smaller" women players out there (Cibulkova, Putintseva for example), but they all seem to be built like pocket battleships (but in a nice way!)
Wish them luck!

Â

korriban · Challenger level

blob wrote:
Ratty wrote:
Coup Droit wrote:
C's body serve caused N [Broady] real problems - being rangy she gets herself all tied up in knots, and the backhand return is dodgy, because her backhand is all arm and no body or legs.
[...]
The point is this. If you have the advantage of being comparatively big and strong, but the disadvantage of being comparatively unco-ordinated, then I would think that it is a better strategy to just stick with the arm, and not to bother to put in the hundreds of hours of practice necessary to try to co-ordinate the movements of three different sets of muscle groups.
[...]
That's an interesting point. The women recently to employ an impressive single handed backhand do all seem to be on the smaller side - Henin (5'5½''), Schiavone (5'5½''), Suarez Navarro (5'4''), Vinci (5'4''). Only Stosur (5'9'') is even remotely tall by modern standards, and she uses a one handed BH only about half of the time. I've almost certainly missed a glaringly obvious name in there.
Of some of those now retired, Graf (5'9'') Mauresmo (5'9'') Navratilova (5'8'') and Novotna (5'9'') were also at most very slightly above average height on tour (at their time), and the equipment and courts so very different.
Naomi, at 6'2'', certainly is the anomaly amongst single handers, and with the best will in the world, has not proven the raw ability of the players on that list.

The reason that Naomi's single handed backhand has almost no leg or body in it has absolutely nothing to do with the fact she is tall, or because its somehow more difficult to master the shot if you are taller. I suspect she was probably smaller than 6'2 when she was first taught the fundamentals as a small child. she's simply been doing the wrong thing for so long as a kid, that it's now almost impossible to remodel her stroke without taking a year or more out of the game. Same challenge for Wozniacki with her semi-moonball forehand.....12-15 years playing the same way is a devil to correct

-- Edited by korriban on Sunday 23rd of June 2013 09:04:08 AM

Ratty · County player

Coup Droit wrote:
C's body serve caused N [Broady] real problems - being rangy she gets herself all tied up in knots, and the backhand return is dodgy, because her backhand is all arm and no body or legs.

Here's a thought. The ideal is for the racket face to be moving as fast as possible when you hit the ball. Straightening your legs and rotating your trunk do add a bit of speed, but surely by far the greatest speed production comes from the arm swing - especially if you're tall and have long arms.

The point is this. If you have the advantage of being comparatively big and strong, but the disadvantage of being comparatively unco-ordinated, then I would think that it is a better strategy to just stick with the arm, and not to bother to put in the hundreds of hours of practice necessary to try to co-ordinate the movements of three different sets of muscle groups.

(Of course it would have been better to have stayed with the double-hander; single-handers look far more elegant, but I don't think they are nearly as effective, unless you have the unusual combination of being as strong as an ox, AND a natural athlete. One of the reasons that Djokovic battered Dimitrov at the French Open was that - unsurprisingly - Grigor had NO ANSWER to the shoulder-high kicking serve to his backhand.)

blob · All-time great

Ratty wrote:
Coup Droit wrote:
C's body serve caused N [Broady] real problems - being rangy she gets herself all tied up in knots, and the backhand return is dodgy, because her backhand is all arm and no body or legs.
[...]
The point is this. If you have the advantage of being comparatively big and strong, but the disadvantage of being comparatively unco-ordinated, then I would think that it is a better strategy to just stick with the arm, and not to bother to put in the hundreds of hours of practice necessary to try to co-ordinate the movements of three different sets of muscle groups.
[...]

That's an interesting point. The women recently to employ an impressive single handed backhand do all seem to be on the smaller side - Henin (5'5½''), Schiavone (5'5½''), Suarez Navarro (5'4''), Vinci (5'4''). Only Stosur (5'9'') is even remotely tall by modern standards, and she uses a one handed BH only about half of the time. I've almost certainly missed a glaringly obvious name in there.

Of some of those now retired, Graf (5'9'') Mauresmo (5'9'') Navratilova (5'8'') and Novotna (5'9'') were also at most very slightly above average height on tour (at their time), and the equipment and courts so very different.

Naomi, at 6'2'', certainly is the anomaly amongst single handers, and with the best will in the world, has not proven the raw ability of the players on that list.