The most frustrating match from Lucy. Would be really interested to hear from those who were courtside . . . . .

The Brits are 2-7 so far:

L32: (LL) Grace Dixon UNR lost to (Q) Carla Touly (FRA) WR 1204 (CH 1203 last week) by 5 & 0
L32: Nicole Peterson UNR lost to (8) Michaela Frlicka (GER) WR 692 (CH 611 in Sep) by 1 & 2
L32: Harriet Dart WR 1014 lost to (4) Klaartje Liebens (BEL) WR 586 (CH 583 last week) by 3 & 3
L32: (WC) Freya Christie UNR beat (7) Nikola Vajdová (SVK) WR 753 (CH 474 in 2008) by 5 & 4
L32: Katy Dunne WR 731 beat (WC) Isabelle Wallace UNR by 4 & 3
L32: (3) Lucy Brown WR 584 lost to Natalia Vajdová (SVK) WR 1018 (CH 879 in Sep) by 7-6(5) 6-4
L32: (WC) Maia Lumsden UNR lost to (Q) Nora Niedmers (GER) UNR by 5 & 3
L32: (WC) Jasmine Amber Asghar UNR lost to (2) Eva Wacanno (NED) WR 531 (= CH) by 7-6(2) 6-2

Funnily enough, 4 of the 5 non-GB qualifiers have played so far ... and all of them won!

14 breaks in the Jazzamay v Georgia match - they are now in a final set tiebreak.

Anna had a surprising amount of difficulty putting away the 1st set against Yuriko, whom she thrashed 1 & 1 in Barnstaple last month, but has just edged the tiebreak 11-9!

Great reports Priesty - love to read them.

Lucy is a truly frustrating player, real shame, but glad to hear that some of the youngsters impressed you, even if they haven't quite got the whole package yet which is only to be expected really.

Thanks again.

Katie's match finished at 6.40, so I've not been home that long and Katy and Harriet we still finishing their doubles when I left the venue.

Priesty has summed most of it up, but i'll give you my report a little later.

However the best match was the last match on court between Katie and the top seed, which was a really quality match.

Oh - and I had a very interesting discussion with Katy Dunne regarding Steven. Apparently Steven is the talk of the girl's locker room. I'll reveal the full conversation later, I hope Katy will not mind.....

A few thoughts from today:

Court conditions weren't great, it was freezing and the courts were very slow, which lead to some very long rallies. Nice set up, with 6 indoor courts - 3 on each side of the walkway. There was so much going on at times it was quite hard to keep an eye on everything.

Didn't arrive until just after 12, so missed the first set of games.

Watched a bit of the Grace Dixon match and she played very well in patches. She was broken serving for the tie break in the first set and she was hitting a lot of winners. I can see why she took out a seed at Barnstaple. The scoreline was deceptive as the match was much closer.
Didn't watch too much of Katy v Isabelle, but once Katy won the first set she dominated the match. Isabelle has a good lefty serve and solid ground strokes, but not quite as mobile as Katy.
Lucy Brown is an enigma. This is the second time I have seen her (Wrexham 25K)and she has played very similarly in both games. She takes early leads, but doesn't go and dominate her opponent and finish out the game. Lucy's backhand is excellent and dominated the match, but her forehand was error stricken and needs some work. Lucy should have won that game in straight sets, but she never looked comfortable when she went in front.
Harriet was unlucky to come up against an in form player. There was very little between the two players in reality, but Harriet took umbridge to some line calls and decided the umpire was a joke and was constantly muttering about calls rather than focusing on tennis. This was at a crucial stage in the first set. She is a nice player, has a lot more guile than most at that age and played some lovely backhand drop shots from behind her baseline.
Jazzamay v Georgia went on for hours and was full of very long rallies. Jazzamay should really have won the match, having numerous chances to finish off the match. Georgia hits the ball hard, but she is very tall and her footwork needs work as she can be made to look ungamely at times. She now has two counters and will get a ranking shortly. Jazzamay will win games at this level going forward.
Anna S made heavy weather of the first set, breaking several times, but getting broken straight back, but ran away with the second set. Miyazaki was better than I expected and had some nice deft touches.
Didn't see to much of Anna F v Charlotte as I was watching Katie's match and this game was behind me. Anna seemingly won quite easily, but the bits that I saw were error strewn and I was a little disappointed with Anna to be honest. Charlotte was OK, but she was stepping up a level as she hasn't made many first round draws.
The best match of the day in terms of quality was Katie B, with the entourage of LTA coaches watching(Jeremy Bates, Alan Jones(?), Martin Lee(?)) watching. It was obvious to see why Hoffman was top seed and has a ranking in the 300's. She has a very big serve and a strong baseline game. Katie started slowly getting broken early on and having to up the gears on serve in the first set when she was facing break points(quite regularly), which she did.
Once Katie managed to get on top of the big serve in the second set, she was the better player, holding serve much more comfortably and looking like breaking Hoffman's serve. She did serve for the set, but tightened and ended up winning the tie break comfortably, (Hoffman got a terrible call in the tie break). Unfortunately Hoffman upped her game in the final set and Katie started to make errors as fatigue set in.
Katie has a good serve, lovely ground shots and she moves her opponent round very well and she can hit winners all over the court. The one thing that was missing from the game was a touch of guile. I only remember one drop shot in the whole match. It won't be long before Katie is flying up the ranking and on a par with Hoffman.

As observed at Wrexham, ability wise there is not a lot of difference between a 600 ranking and a 1000 ranking, just the ability to string together winning points regularly(consistency) and to play the big points well.

A pretty sparsely populated doubles draw, so lots of byes:

R1:  (1) Jos Rae & Anna Smith CR 744 (484+260) vs BYE
R1:  BYE vs BYE
R1:  (4) Harriet Dart & Katy Dunne CR 2166 (1013+1153) vs BYE
R1:  BYE vs Natalia Vajdova & Nikola Vajdova (SVK/SVK) UNR
R1:  Clémence Fayol & Carla Touly (FRA/FRA) UNR vs BYE
R1:  BYE vs (3) Eva Wacanno & Julia Wachaczyk (NED/GER) CR 1060 (319+741)
R1:  BYE vs BYE
R1:  BYE vs (2) Anna Fitzpatrick & Michaela Frlicka (GER) CR 1007 (419+588)

*****

QF:  (1) Jos Rae & Anna Smith CR 744 (484+260) vs BYE
QF:  Natalia Vajdova & Nikola Vajdova (SVK/SVK) UNR defeated (4) Harriet Dart & Katy Dunne CR 2166 (1013+1153) by 2 & 4
QF:  (3) Eva Wacanno & Julia Wachaczyk (NED/GER) CR 1060 (319+741) defeated Clémence Fayol & Carla Touly (FRA/FRA) UNR by 3 & 2
QF:  BYE vs (2) Anna Fitzpatrick & Michaela Frlicka (GER) CR 1007 (419+588)

*****

SF:  (1) Jos Rae & Anna Smith CR 744 (484+260) vs Natalia Vajdova & Nikola Vajdova (SVK/SVK) UNR
SF:  (3) Eva Wacanno & Julia Wachaczyk (NED/GER) CR 1060 (319+741) vs (2) Anna Fitzpatrick & Michaela Frlicka (GER) CR 1007 (419+588)