Week 38 - ITF ($25K) - Shrewsbury, UK Hard

PockyTastic · Futures level

RE: Week 38 - ITF ($25K) - Shrewsbury, UK Hard

wolf · Tennis legend

Emily lost 7-5 6-3, so just the doubles left now.

Joss & Anna v Mel/Coin have been moved to a streamed court, and Joss & Anna lead *3-0, winning the last game from 40-0 down.

Sam/Jade v Lucy/Barbat has been moved off a streamed court, and Sam/Jade lead 2-1*.

PaulM · Tennis legend

How did Em not win that first set :( She was all over it but just couldn't break.

Peter too · Tennis legend

R2: WEBLEY-SMITH, Emily (GBR) WC 440 lost to FEUERSTEIN, Claire (FRA) 1 123 5-7 3-6
R2: MURRAY, Samantha (GBR) 167 lost to BOREKA, Martina (CZE) 425 2-6 4-6

wolf · Tennis legend

Joss/Anna win the first set 6-4.
Sam/Jade win the first set 6-2.

wolf · Tennis legend

Joss/Anna won 6-4 2-6 [10-7] - some very exciting net points in there as well
Sam/Jade won 6-2 7-5
Jess/Le Roux lead 3-1*

Mervatron · Masters Series Champion

Good to see Joss back

Disappointed with Sam in the singles but we all have our off days. Hope she gets back to winning ways soon

korriban · Challenger level

Mervatron wrote:
Good to see Joss back

Disappointed with Sam in the singles but we all have our off days. Hope she gets back to winning ways soon

Everyone has off-days, but it was more the way Sam handled her off day which made no sense to me. If your big shots aren't firing on the day, going even bigger, even higher risk and even more aggressive is one possible tactic, I suppose, but it's certainly a low percentage option.

I recall Serena in a few matches when it just wasn't happening (and for her, that's rare!) taking all the pace of her serve and her forcing groundstrokes for a few games until she found her timing again - if she is humble enough to rein things in on her off-days (humble not a word I would usually link with her, I know) - I would think lesser players might also follow suit.

There's no points or prize-money awarded for style or the degree-of-difficulty of shots in tennis Only for winning, however ugly.

steven · Tennis legend

Emily: "Played my lil heart out+created enough opportunities to sink a battleship...if not quite a break at 4-2 ;)It's getting better tho #kaisan"

PockyTastic · Futures level

steven wrote:
Emily: "Played my lil heart out+created enough opportunities to sink a battleship...if not quite a break at 4-2 ;)It's getting better tho #kaisan"

Em is hard to bring down. She had her chances in set 1 but I'm glad she's still optimistic. She professes to hate indoor surfaces but she's bagged a win over a higher ranked player and pushed the top seed so will hopefully be confident when she steps out on court in USA or Australia (her comments in the LTA article suggests she has not decided where she's heading next).

Helen40 · Grand Slam Champion

paulisi wrote:
So it looks like just 2 GB girls into the second round.

Can the LTA justify putting on 25K tournaments in the UK?

Hev and Laura are too highly ranked to play

Joko has bigger ambitions and will soon be too highly ranked to play

Elena seems to be semi retired

Amanda is playing clay tournaments

So that leaves us with Sam, Tara, Naomi, Lisa, Jade and Emily as possibles to be competitive at this level. No-one else is coming through the ranks.

In fact Sam and Tara may have bigger tournaments in mind in 6-12 months time...

I'm really gutted this has been downgraded. I was really looking forward to going to it again. I was hoping JoKo would have been there again (Although now she's having such a great run in Guanzhou, I'm happy). It's been great in the past, I saw Hev in a final here (admittedly not playing her best), and it felt like one of the bigger GB tournies. Now we've just got the girls who sadly aren't getting up there ie who's rankings haven't changed much since last year .

Come on LTA if you're going to put tournaments on then put them at a level that will attract our girls and thus the fans.

steven · Tennis legend

I think the LTA probably did think this through, on the lines of ...

- Laura & Hev don't play ITFs any more
- JoKo might not either
- if we leave it as a 75K, it'll be so strong that few of the other Brits will have much of a chance

They have then got caught out by:

- 3 of the Brits who might have seemed most likely to enter and do well not entering (Lisa through injury and Tara & Bally presumably also because they are not fully fit, though in their case it is a bit more of a mystery and a 75K might have suited them better anyway)
- a stronger entry than for many 25Ks we've seen recently (maybe some players half-assumed it was still a 75K)
- a rather unkind draw
- Sam having an off day.

wolf · Tennis legend

QF: (1) Naomi Broady & Ana Vrljic (CRO) WR 333 beat Harriet Dart & Anna Fitzpatrick UNR 6-2 6-3
QF: (3) Samantha Murray & Jade Windley WR 384 beat Karen Barbat (DEN) & Lucy Brown WR 1167 6-2 7-5
QF: Cagla Buyukakcay & Pemra Ozgen (TUR/TUR) WR 528 beat Madrie Le Roux (FRA) & Jessica Simpson WR 1727 3-6 6-2 [10-4]
QF: Jocelyn Rae & Anna Smith WR 1409 beat (2) Julie Coin (FRA) & Melanie South WR 350 6-4 2-6 [10-7]

SF: (1) Naomi Broady & Ana Vrljic (CRO) WR 333 v (3) Samantha Murray & Jade Windley WR 384
SF: Cagla Buyukakcay & Pemra Ozgen (TUR/TUR) WR 528 v Jocelyn Rae & Anna Smith WR 1409

indiana · Tennis legend

I've always rather liked Emily's attutude. At various times I see her getting unsolicited advice as to what she should be doing with her career.

But it looks like she just loves playing tennis, does her own thing and gives of her best

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

indiana wrote:
I've always rather liked Emily's attutude. At various times I see her getting unsolicited advice as to what she should be doing with her career.

But it looks like she just loves playing tennis, does her own thing and gives of her best

I completely agree.

I don't always like her tennis (not the chip-chop stuff) but I love her attitude and approach and, if you follow the women's twitters, I think Emily and Mel South come across as extremely warm-hearted, international, open-minded, hard-working people. Many of the others, of course, come across fine too (and I realise that twitter is not a PR exercise) but Em and Mel stand out (and some of our youngsters could learn a thing or two!).