Week 26/27 - Wimbledon women's main draw - grass

KK · Club Coach

Week 26/27 - Wimbledon women's main draw - grass

Madeline · Admin:Moderator + Tennis Legend

Edit - in reply to KK:

I've had the same problem in the past. I had Centre Court tickets on a day when Andy was playing on Court 1; needless to say our seats on Centre were left empy (I think it was a ladies match) while we watched Andy on the big screen from Henman Hill!

-- Edited by Madeline on Wednesday 26th of June 2013 08:54:15 AM

philwrig · Hall of fame

tony_orient wrote:
indiana wrote:
I see equality continues to not apply to the Centre Court and Court One 3 match schedules. Always seems to be two men's matches and one women's on each.

Even with only three real men's show court attractions on Wednesday, Verdasco vs Benneteau finds its way onto Court One and Sharapova gets shoved out to Court Two.

Generally each year all the top women have to take a turn on Court Two ( yes, Serena ! ) while I am not quite sure the "big 4" men have a clue where Court Two is.

I don't know why they can't start play on the two showcourts earlier to allow a 2 / 2 schedule, although I think I heard a suggestion it is to save overwear ( as distinct to invited guests needing to lunch first ! )

I think Wimbledon will have to rethink this at some point - especially as Laura and Heather become bigger draws in their own right. Will be interesting to see what court Laura is on tomorrow, hopefully on Court 1 (or Centre). If you look at the Australian Open, even players like Casey Dellacqua often get to be on the main court.

I agree the basic problem is the starting time of 1pm, start at 11.30am like the outside courts and as every other GS does and you wouldn't have a problem, 2 men's and 2 women's could be scheduled. Perfect. The courts survived the Olympics last year so for me thats not a valid excuse.

-- Edited by philwrig on Wednesday 26th of June 2013 10:08:08 AM

indiana · Tennis legend

I see equality continues to not apply to the Centre Court and Court One 3 match schedules. Always seems to be two men's matches and one women's on each.

Even with only three real men's show court attractions on Wednesday, Verdasco vs Benneteau finds its way onto Court One and Sharapova gets shoved out to Court Two.

Generally each year all the top women have to take a turn on Court Two ( yes, Serena ! ) while I am not quite sure the "big 4" men have a clue where Court Two is.

I don't know why they can't start play on the two showcourts earlier to allow a 2 / 2 schedule, although I think I heard a suggestion it is to save overwear ( as distinct to invited guests needing to lunch first ! )

LordBrownof · Futures level

indiana wrote:
Interesting to read that report frim up close, LordBrownof. I just watched on TV but had some quite different general impressions.

I actually thought Tara's focus was really good, possibly actually better than Kanepi, who threw in quite a lot of really loose shots at times, quite often on break points. As I said earlier, I also thought she was good at putting disappointments behind her.

She did seem to really enjoy the occasion and made a few faces, but I really didn't see it as an issue.

Strange we saw it so differently...

As I said, for the majority of the match I thought she was pretty good but there are a number of incidences the camera's wouldn't have picked up - laughing when her second serve got thumped down the line three consecutive times or between points when she was shrugging at her friend next to me and her shoulders dropped. Two small examples of things that were happening throughout the match. These were often followed up by poor service games.

The margines were so small I think eradicating these little lapses could've made the difference.

I was also sat in front of Kanepi's coaches who were brilliantly professional and motivating. At every point that would shout encouraging things (not coaching just "c'mon" etc) which seemed to lift her. Tara didn't have that for the first set and a half, in fact every time I looked at Jeremy Bates he was shaking his head. I'm not sure who her coach/es is but she could do well to have some of that in her camp!

korriban · Challenger level

Just looked at the BBC website and the "comments" attached to the article on Laura's win beggar belief - again! Every article about Laura and Heather seems to attract comments where at least 1 in 4 ignore their achievements and simply talk about them not being British at all. With Laura its of course still about her being Australian (not that chestnut again!), and Heather - well let's not even go there. One well-informed observer commented that Tara was clearly Japanese, not British.

I might understand some of this if the entire British population still lived in small villages in the middle of nowhere, never marrying anyone who lived more than about 3 miles away, and where cities or foreign travel hadn't been invented yet....but I rather thought we'd moved on from that hundreds of years ago. Clearly not.

kundalini · Specialist Reporter + Intermediate Club Player

Genie looks a future top 10 player; perhaps even a slam winner at some stage in her career. Big shots, movement a lot better than Laura's, defence looks slightly better too. Kicked second serve can be pretty good at times.

-- Edited by kundalini on Wednesday 26th of June 2013 01:42:14 PM

steven · Tennis legend

LordBrownof wrote:
indiana wrote:
Interesting to read that report frim up close, LordBrownof. I just watched on TV but had some quite different general impressions.

I actually thought Tara's focus was really good, possibly actually better than Kanepi, who threw in quite a lot of really loose shots at times, quite often on break points. As I said earlier, I also thought she was good at putting disappointments behind her.

She did seem to really enjoy the occasion and made a few faces, but I really didn't see it as an issue.

Strange we saw it so differently...
As I said, for the majority of the match I thought she was pretty good but there are a number of incidences the camera's wouldn't have picked up - laughing when her second serve got thumped down the line three consecutive times or between points when she was shrugging at her friend next to me and her shoulders dropped. Two small examples of things that were happening throughout the match. These were often followed up by poor service games.
The margines were so small I think eradicating these little lapses could've made the difference.
I was also sat in front of Kanepi's coaches who were brilliantly professional and motivating. At every point that would shout encouraging things (not coaching just "c'mon" etc) which seemed to lift her. Tara didn't have that for the first set and a half, in fact every time I looked at Jeremy Bates he was shaking his head. I'm not sure who her coach/es is but she could do well to have some of that in her camp!

Watching it on TV, I remember being quite happy that she was smiling a bit and hence wasn't getting too uptight, but obviously I couldn't see what she was smiling at and I must admit I didn't check whether there was any correlation between times I saw her smile and what happened immediately afterwards.

I'm not sure who her coach is - I thought it was John Morris (maybe not since she moved to the NTC, I guess) and that Jeremy Bates was with Anne. However, comparing the last 3 DC captains, I've always got the impression that Leon makes a very positive difference, John Lloyd made a very negative difference and Jeremy Bates seemed to make little difference either way. (I'm talking about during matches, obviously - no idea what any of them are like away from the match court)

tony_orient · ATP qualifying

Just as a comparison to the wildcard debate which seems to be quite a hot topic in the media, I thought I would look up how the home wildcards performed in the other slams (for the Women). The results are:

US Open: 1 win (v a player using a protected ranking) 5 losses
Australian Open: 0 wins 5 losses
French Open: 2 wins (including a WC v WC match) 4 losses

Basically Caroline Garcia is the only player to win as a home wildcard without getting a really nice draw. Australian tennis has a similar lack of depth to British tennis so no surprise they also had no wildcard winners.

Also, it it just me who finds the constant mentioning of the £23,000 wildcards get for the first round really annoying? Firstly, in the context of sport that amount of money is irrelevant (how many foreign footballers get paid that much every week to sit on the bench? biggrin ). Secondly, any player in need of a wildcard is funded by the LTA anyway. Whether they get their money through Wimbledon or some other means doesn't really matter. Finally, I'm pretty sure most players would gladly accept the wildcard if there was no money on offer - I don't think players ever get nervous finishing off a match because they are thinking about prize money.

-- Edited by tony_orient on Wednesday 26th of June 2013 03:25:10 PM

korriban · Challenger level

I agree CD. Jeremy Bates may be a good coach for all I know, but as a court side motivator he comes across very poorly. Similar to John Lloyd, although perhaps not quite as bad. In DC, both of them always looked like they were sucking on lemons, with a hang dog "defeated" look even at the best of times. No confidence, no aura, no advantage. Shaking your head is absolutely pointless, and tells the opponent that you aren't doing what you were told.

I don't mind silence and I don't mind a stony face, as per Lendl, because you just know he's been clear as crystal with instructions. Plus he has an aura of success about him. But I do mind shaking heads. I also have a bit of a problem with Louis Cayer falling asleep on camera during one of the matches this week (forget which), especially as it was right at the beginning.......I know he's regarded very highly, but surely that's a massive own goal!!!!

I noticed some positive reinforcement from Miles Maclagan all the way through Laura's match. No screaming perhaps, but gentle nods, clapping and fist clenching and never negativity.

For what it's worth I thought Tara was equally good against Mladenovic as Kanepi, both results that could easily gone the other way. Against the French player Tara had *4-2 in the second set TB and hit a screamer of a forehand barely wide and I thought on another day it might have been called in. It was very close. She faltered after that - not a freeze or a choke but certainly playing too safe, and it cost her. Against Kanepi she was desperately unlucky not to break the Estonian for *6-5 final set. It looked on the line on replay. Kanepi played Tara's final service game very well, but once again no freezing/choking. There was no inevitability about the result at all. In other words she had learned from the M'Lady match. Very impressed, and I hope this time next year she might be a qualifier by ranking anyway.

Perhaps she could borrow another coach!!

tony_orient · ATP qualifying

indiana wrote:
I see equality continues to not apply to the Centre Court and Court One 3 match schedules. Always seems to be two men's matches and one women's on each.

Even with only three real men's show court attractions on Wednesday, Verdasco vs Benneteau finds its way onto Court One and Sharapova gets shoved out to Court Two.

Generally each year all the top women have to take a turn on Court Two ( yes, Serena ! ) while I am not quite sure the "big 4" men have a clue where Court Two is.

I don't know why they can't start play on the two showcourts earlier to allow a 2 / 2 schedule, although I think I heard a suggestion it is to save overwear ( as distinct to invited guests needing to lunch first ! )

I think Wimbledon will have to rethink this at some point - especially as Laura and Heather become bigger draws in their own right. Will be interesting to see what court Laura is on tomorrow, hopefully on Court 1 (or Centre). If you look at the Australian Open, even players like Casey Dellacqua often get to be on the main court.

AliBlahBlah · All-time great

Really? Benneteau/Verdasco on Court 1? Really??? confuse

Peter too · Tennis legend

Helen40 wrote:
Can someone gag Sharapova and De Brito!

Larcher the Banshee just beat Shriekapova.

I decided to give it a miss, the only way to have watched that match would have been with the volume turned very firmly to ZERO.

-- Edited by Peter too on Wednesday 26th of June 2013 04:40:50 PM

korriban · Challenger level

AliBlahBlah wrote:
Really? Benneteau/Verdasco on Court 1? Really???

I know. Cue rows of empty seats. Sharapova sent out to court 2, along with Hewitt/Brown, which makes no sense at all. The Sharapova vs LDB match will be the ultimate scream-a-thon ever seen at Wimbledon, and I suspect that on a big show court, packed with the great, the good, and lots of journalists - this would have created a huge media storm, especially if the crowd got vocal about it. It still might, but probably less on court 2.

Ear defenders on!

steven · Tennis legend

I saw a MLdB play a couple of games in qualifying at Roehampton. You know how some players (like Vika) make their screams last until their opponent is about to hit the ball (which I always think should be classed as cheating) - well at some points while I was there, MLdB didn't even pretend the shriek was part of the breathing linked to the shot - she playing the shot quietly and only started the shriek while the ball was going over the net!