Week 43 - ITF ($100K) - Poitiers, France - Indoor Hard

steven · Tennis legend

Week 43 - ITF ($100K) - Poitiers, France - Indoor Hard

steven · Tennis legend

QR1: Melanie South WR 606 v Crystel Mulder (NED) UNR

Mulder is a 29-year-old with a W 1 L 20 (19 of them double bakery including 13 double bagels)

QR2: South or Mulder v (q2) Stéphanie Dubois (CAN) WR 156 (CH 87 in 2012)

-- Edited by steven on Friday 18th of October 2013 05:55:35 PM

steven · Tennis legend

The least surprising scoreline of the day ...

QR1: Melanie South WR 606 beat Crystel Mulder (NED) UNR by 0 & 0

QR2: Melanie South WR 606 v (q2) Stéphanie Dubois (CAN) WR 156 (CH 87 in 2012)

H2H 1-0 - Mel won in 3 sets at Miami WTA qualifying in 2009

paulisi · Tennis legend

live stream of Mel's match on www.ifv86.com/

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

Thanks for that Paulisi - even Streamhunter hasn't picked that one up !

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

Dubois won the first set 6-1.

Not what you'd call close . . ..

korriban · Challenger level

First 2 points of the second set, the Canadian hits 2 forcing shots to Mel's BH side to which Mel takes not a single step towards the ball - the first was easily reeachable, the second 50/50. Not sure what the point is of competing in singles with this approach.

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

And yet she looks in quite good shape. By which I mean (not to put too fine a point on it) that there have been times in the past when Mel has looked as though she's been struggling with her weight.
And now she looks fine.
But she's certainly struggling when the ball is not near or even when it is near and but comes onto her too quickly. She scoops her backhand often because she's not in position to hit it properly. It's a shame - there's stuff to like too . . ..

korriban · Challenger level

I agree - Mel has clearly been looking after herself better than at some stages of her career. Movement to the backhand is very very poor, to the FH not so bad at all. But her anticipation is almost non existent, so she reacts far too late to changes of direction, or short/deep balls, and ends up completely in the wrong position. On the FH she can use her hands to compensate, on the BH not at all.

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

Well, it was a poor match and the score (6-1 6-0) reflected the tennis. . . . :(

Hope the doubles goes better . . .

steven · Tennis legend

JoKo gets Paszek in R1 for the 2nd week in a row - having upset her 4&4 this week in Limoges, Paszek has gone on to reach the Final there, so really had found some form just at the wrong time for Jo. Heather gets an even worse draw against a player who reached the semis of Québec WTA last month.

L32: Johanna Konta WR 115 v (WC) Tamira Paszek (AUT) WR 218 (CH 26 in Feb) - H2H 0-1, see above
L32: Heather Watson WR 133 v (6) Christina McHale (USA) WR 71 (CH 24 in 2012) - H2H 0-3 (the 2 in seniors, both in 2011, went to 3 sets)

scottie1 · Futures level

Coup Droit wrote:
Well, it was a poor match and the score (6-1 6-0) reflected the tennis. . . . :(

Hope the doubles goes better . . .

Mel has struggled all year in singles even in 10k British tournaments. At Roehampton qualifying she was out classed and looks the same here. Such a shame for somone who had a resonable game. Schiavone at Wimbledon was a long time ago.

indiana · Tennis legend

Oh dear, not great draws at all. In particular, Heather has been quite upset a couple of times after losing close matches to McHale. So, I guess the counter is it would be a great match to win, just it must be odds against.

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

I remember seeing Chrissy McHale play as a 13 year-old. Haven't seen her much on TV since but the bit that I have seen seems to show that she's still very much the same and, actually, very similar to Heather - a smaller player, very serious, very athletic . . . should be interesting . . . she's had a very mixed last 6 months.

PaulM · Tennis legend

Tough but to be fair there are very few players I'd have made Heather favourite against here on recent form.