Week 30 - ITF ($25K) - Wrexham, UK Hard

WD40 · Club Coach

RE: Week 30 - ITF ($25K) - Wrexham, UK Hard

korriban · Challenger level

Sabrina. Oh dear! cry

Another 13 DFs and 7 out of 8 service games lost against Pippa.....who, with respect, although she has promise, is still an unranked player without any notable breakthroughs in her junior career.

I still don't understand how Sabrina last year DID have a ranking as the 818th best tennis player on the planet and DID have a number of very decent wins, and DOES have quality pro coaching/training, and DOES travel the world on the ITF circuit, yet now seems to have been playing at a standard which is 3 or 4 rungs lower on the ladder throughout 2013, literally from day 1. She hasn't just lost matches all year, even against unranked players, she's being blitzed.

It just seems a bit odd to me.

WD40 · Club Coach

Jess Ren has lost 2-6 4-6.

Helen40 · Grand Slam Champion

paulisi wrote:
Helen - i would be interested to see what your feedback on Sabrina is. It looks like Pippa has the upper hand at the moment, which probabaly justifies my feedback yesterday.

Sorry paulsi, wasn't watching that one.

Saw Ren losing though. She had the bigger hit mostly, with the Japanese girl mostly 'putting' the ball back, sometimes quite short with slice, and then using her power when needed. Ren's movement was less good though, looking quite awkward at times when she was trying to change direction. Not a high quiality match by any stretch of the imagination, lots of UEs and DFs by the Japanese girl which almost let jess back in, but not quite as Jess couldn't step it up when needed.

I saw the back end of the second set of Lucy's match too. Lucy should have closed it out at 5-4, but although she could get ahead (and Van de Graaf wasn't playing at all well either), she bottled it every time she was ahead. Not a high level match either on the whole. Lucy having a nice clean ball strike, and footwork. If she can keep her head together she can win it, otherwise, it will be Holland.

paulisi · Tennis legend

Lucy is the only missing result - did she win or the Dutch girl?

Not on live scores.

steven · Tennis legend

korriban wrote:
I still don't understand how Sabrina last year DID have a ranking as the 818th best tennis player on the planet and DID have a number of very decent wins, and DOES have quality pro coaching/training, and DOES travel the world on the ITF circuit, yet now seems to have been playing at a standard which is 3 or 4 rungs lower on the ladder throughout 2013, literally from day 1. She hasn't just lost matches all year, even against unranked players, she's being blitzed.

The wins against Naomi Broady and Angelica Moratelli to make the QFs in Edinburgh in May 2012 were the high point really. Of the other 14 points which led to her career high:

- 4 came from tournaments in which she did not win a match (a qualifying wild card from Birmingham WTA & main draw WCs for Woking & Wrexham 25Ks and for Barnstaple 75K)

- 6 came from a 10K semi-final in Egypt, where one of the seeds in her quarter withdrew and the other retired (so she played unranked WCs in both R2 and the QFs)

- the other 4 were for wins against Eden Silva, Natalie Wall (both unranked at the time), (Q) Aysatulina WR 960 & Smolina WR 1002

So 18 points was never really a true reflection, though even if we ignore Edinburgh (not that I'm saying we should), I agree that her results in general were better last year.

steven · Tennis legend

WD40 wrote:
paulisi wrote:
No suprise in seeing Fran beat Eden 7-5 6-3

Question for those statto's out there - has Eden got any of her ranking points by winning a match?
The quick answer is yes..when she qualified last week for Woking. She won 2 qualifying rounds. Beating Bridget in the 2cd one.

Yes, that's right. In fact, only 1 of the 4 points she will have next Monday was a 'free' point (the Birmingham QWC) - she beat Kinard WR 635 to get a point in Preston in January and unranked Emily Southall to get a point in Shrewsbury qualies last September.

paulisi · Tennis legend

Lucy won judging by the drawsheet for the singles

All GB girls will probably get knocked out in the first round given the draws.

philwrig · Hall of fame

steven wrote:
korriban wrote:
I still don't understand how Sabrina last year DID have a ranking as the 818th best tennis player on the planet and DID have a number of very decent wins, and DOES have quality pro coaching/training, and DOES travel the world on the ITF circuit, yet now seems to have been playing at a standard which is 3 or 4 rungs lower on the ladder throughout 2013, literally from day 1. She hasn't just lost matches all year, even against unranked players, she's being blitzed.
The wins against Naomi Broady and Angelica Moratelli to make the QFs in Edinburgh in May 2012 were the high point really. Of the other 14 points which led to her career high:
- 4 came from tournaments in which she did not win a match (a qualifying wild card from Birmingham WTA & main draw WCs for Woking & Wrexham 25Ks and for Barnstaple 75K)
- 6 came from a 10K semi-final in Egypt, where one of the seeds in her quarter withdrew and the other retired (so she played unranked WCs in both R2 and the QFs)
- the other 4 were for wins against Eden Silva, Natalie Wall (both unranked at the time), (Q) Aysatulina WR 960 & Smolina WR 1002
So 18 points was never really a true reflection, though even if we ignore Edinburgh (not that I'm saying we should), I agree that her results in general were better last year.

Also Naomi wasn't in the right frame of mind when she claimed that big upset win.

WD40 · Club Coach

paulisi wrote:

All GB girls will probably get knocked out in the first round given the draws.

The best chances for a win I think will be Katy Dunne and Lucy Brown..

murray_2k9 · Challenger qualifying

I suspect I am being unfair, but the girls game feels like it has changed a lot over the last few years. I used to feel that we had a lot of dangerous GB players who were capable of going deep at ITF level or at least some good upcoming players who might get a scalp or two. Now it feels like we are miles better at WTA level but really lacking anything coming up through the ranks at this level. I agree with WD40, other than potentially Katy and Lucy this tournament will be cleaned up by foreign players.

tony_orient · ATP qualifying

murray_2k9 wrote:
I suspect I am being unfair, but the girls game feels like it has changed a lot over the last few years. I used to feel that we had a lot of dangerous GB players who were capable of going deep at ITF level or at least some good upcoming players who might get a scalp or two. Now it feels like we are miles better at WTA level but really lacking anything coming up through the ranks at this level. I agree with WD40, other than potentially Katy and Lucy this tournament will be cleaned up by foreign players.

Whether on not the depth in players at ITF level has changed, I think this weeks tournament is a bit of a one off. Last week at Woking, Tara made the final and Lisa the semi-final. For one reason or another, none of the GB top 12 are at Wrexham so that leaves a relatively weak representation from GB players.

paulisi · Tennis legend

Agreed Mel was the highest GB ranked player left in at 603

Laura and Hev don't qualify
Tara couldn't play due to an admin error
Joko, Sam, Naomi and Jade already in NA plus Emily
Lisa in bigger tournament in Astana

So the only players missing are Elena, Anne K and Mandy Carreras(who plays out on the clay)

The depth is there, the question is the scheduling with most of the GB players going to the US circuit. Maybe the LTA need to think about pulling the schedule closer to Wimbledon or dropping this to a 10/15K

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

murray_2k9 wrote:
I suspect I am being unfair, but the girls game feels like it has changed a lot over the last few years. I used to feel that we had a lot of dangerous GB players who were capable of going deep at ITF level or at least some good upcoming players who might get a scalp or two. Now it feels like we are miles better at WTA level but really lacking anything coming up through the ranks at this level. I agree with WD40, other than potentially Katy and Lucy this tournament will be cleaned up by foreign players.

It sort of begs the question as to which is in better shape, British women's tennis or men's tennis ?

i.e. ignoring Andy's win, which may well swing the balance, being so recent and all the euphoria (i.e. assume, say, that he got knocked out by Verdasco in the quarters), is it better to have one absolute top man, followed by only a couple of top 300-ers (one of which is a brand new arrival), and a reasonably good number of top 400-ers and top 500-ers (although two are retiring) ?

Or is it better to have a couple of young top 50 - for the sake of argument - women, followed by two more young up-and-coming top 200 women, a couple of others very close or not far off, and then a huge chasm with no one behind ?

scottie1 · Futures level

Coup Droit wrote:
murray_2k9 wrote:
I suspect I am being unfair, but the girls game feels like it has changed a lot over the last few years. I used to feel that we had a lot of dangerous GB players who were capable of going deep at ITF level or at least some good upcoming players who might get a scalp or two. Now it feels like we are miles better at WTA level but really lacking anything coming up through the ranks at this level. I agree with WD40, other than potentially Katy and Lucy this tournament will be cleaned up by foreign players.

It sort of begs the question as to which is in better shape, British women's tennis or men's tennis ?

i.e. ignoring Andy's win, which may well swing the balance, being so recent and all the euphoria (i.e. assume, say, that he got knocked out by Verdasco in the quarters), is it better to have one absolute top man, followed by only a couple of top 300-ers (one of which is a brand new arrival), and a reasonably good number of top 400-ers and top 500-ers (although two are retiring) ?
Or is it better to have a couple of young top 50 - for the sake of argument - women, followed by two more young up-and-coming top 200 women, a couple of others very close or not far off, and then a huge chasm with no one behind ?

Defiinetely womens tennis is in better shape

Apart from Andy Murray the top british man would be 240 which to be honest is a total disgrace!