indiana wrote:

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To me, Laura needs to take some time out again, get that wrist properly sorted and build again for an effectively delayed new season. Frustrating, but just don't try to "manage" it.

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Yes, hopefully she will now - it's not surprising that players rush to make slams, so probably a good thing there isn't another one for a while. I hope Fed Cup doesn't come too soon but fear it might well do.

lauras sahara dry humour in the first answer might escape some and they could suggest this as a bad training plan: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxJFG1ArbiM

I don't really recommend it but for anyone who wants to, the 'highlights' of Laura's match are on the Aussie Open site in the video bit

indiana wrote:

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What was Laura's eighth of the draw has rather opened up with the losses for the two Italians, Errani (7) and Vinci (12). In retrospect they possibly did look potential earlyish casualties from the top 16 seeds.

So already the only other seed remaining in that section apart from Flipkens (18) is Laura's pal ( who she's actually been pretty poor previously against ), Eugenie Bouchard (30).

Thus, ifff she'd been ( able to be ) at her absolute best and actually beaten Flipkens, Eugenie would then have been the highest ranked player she could have subsequently met before the QF, where Serena would rather likely lie in wait.

Ah, ifs and maybes, and while Laura didn't play well, it appears Kirsten certainly did, so it would have been a tough task even for a fit, on form Laura.

But just saying...

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 Although it should be noted that Ms Flipkens was, in turn, thrashed 3 & 0 by the "mighty" Casey Dellacqua in R2, so I really do think we shouldn't read too much into the quality of Ms Flipken's play in R1. Eugenie kept up her side of the bargain by making R3 in straight sets. Her new coach must feel he made a good call on prioritising the Canadian.

It does feel very weird only having Andy to follow from R2 once again in both mens' and womens' draws....I had hoped those days were long gone.

korriban wrote:

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It does feel very weird only having Andy to follow from R2 once again in both mens' and womens' draws....I had hoped those days were long gone.

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 Well, looking on the bright side, not so long ago, it was only Andy in R1!

Meantime, just get that wrist right, don't battle it, don't try and "manage" and if putting it at any significant danger of a longer term problem, don't feel guilty about pulling out of the Fed Cup. Just give YOUR season a chance to get properly started rather than possible ongoing frustration or worse.

I think a good point was made that the left wrist problem may be a compensatory injury to the previous right wrist problem, eg. what she was maybe doing differently to compensate on her backhand. She had at the time also talked about maybe running round her backhand all together to play ( more unnatural ) forehands so she can be driven to keep going maybe too much.

Whatever, rightly or wrongly, is said about Laura's commitment to training, she does show comitment to ppaying tournaments. Outside mandatories I have often been surprised as to where she has popped up, to generally very little reward in these non mandatiries.

Laura is still young and can aford to step back. One day she won't be and might look back wishing she had stepped back more.

It's not great, but as Spevtator says "it is what it is". You don't have to go out and beat it, you can accept it, or rather play the longer term strategy.

Any idea what channel's covering the Open?