Spoke to Katie at Surbiton today. Back in training but still a few weeks away from competing - as in wouldn't offer a guess.

Didn't realise she had come close to stopping playing the game.
Let's hope she can get a fresh start and really fulfill the promise she has and crack the top 100.

Katie's last match was a retirement at Roehampton on 30th July. I wouldn't expect to see her before the 6 months is up and she can get a SR. But I'm feeling very positive about a comeback.

the addict wrote:

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Katie's last match was a retirement at Roehampton on 30th July. I wouldn't expect to see her before the 6 months is up and she can get a SR. But I'm feeling very positive about a comeback.

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 I've come to this one a bit late, but the only problem with an SR for Katie is that her ranking had significantly dropped by June, when she attempted to get into Wimbledon, by joining the wildcard play offs, which themselves then lead to another event and the successful then make it into Wimbledon qualifying.

When she attempted that comeback in June, having not played or gained ranking points since February/March, it removed the possibility that she previously could have waited for the 6 months and then come back in August/September 2024, with a fairly decent SR.

Now Katie's SR will I think place her at below 300 and possibility quite a bit lower than that, so it will be difficult to use the SR to get entry into decent competitions.

I feel the pressure is really now on Katie. She has nearly all her remaining ranking points coming off in January and February, and after that will have only one ranking point left (when she lost to Heather Watson at Nottingham in July).

I thought at the time that it was the right strategy for Katie S to make an attempt to get into Wimbledon, but after months of not playing since July, now it looks as if she will be starting from scratch just before her 26th birthday.

Like lots of others on here, I seriously rate her as a player and sincerely wish her all the best - but I am really wondering where her career goes from here and wonder whether she can get the few wins that she needs to secure some more ranking points and entry into better tournaments in 2025.

As lots of you who have seen my posts know - I am very much not a tennis boffin and lots of you on here know much more than I do about how protected rankings work and exactly how bad it will be for her when she does come back after six months out, but my guess is that the brief foray of tournaments that she had in June and July has made it much harder for her to now make a comeback.

 PS. I think that Katie's ranking was about 500 when she last played in July??

-- Edited by Andy Parker on Thursday 19th of December 2024 01:05:48 AM

There are 2 W35 in the UK during Jan and 2 W50 in Feb. She'll almost certainly be in the Feb ones, the Jan ones look too early to retain any SR but she may decide it's worth it given that 584 doesn't give any access to big tournaments and the current WTA ranked has 74 points so 2 good results and she's not far off anyway. The level in Jan should be weaker as the top Brits will be in the Southern hemisphere. All in all I'm leaning towards it being a risk worth taking.

 

ETA Assuming she is fit to play then.

-- Edited by emmsie69 on Thursday 19th of December 2024 08:56:55 AM

Thanks for the updates, which answered my questions - 35k tournaments will mean a low start for Katie, but maybe if she wins a couple, it could work in her favour. Anyway it is an important time for her, I think. Fingers crossed that she can come back injury free and firing on all cylinders.

She came back too early last time.