have fun, paulisi

I'd be very interested to hear what you think of the 2001 girls: Esther, Olivia, the two Martins and Jizel

my doubles partner's daughter is playing this today, Carla Nokes

verveandsolley wrote:

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my doubles partner's daughter is playing this today, Carla Nokes

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 No luck I'm afraid. Lost in straight sets

I see that Colin Beecher's son got a win yesterday.

And - re Emma R - Marni Banks, also born 2002, is playing, and won easily yesterday, and had a very good week at one of the British Tour events recently so obviously found the level fine.

Singles draws are up at www.itftennis.com/juniors/tournaments/tournament/info.aspx

In the boys Matt Story is the highest seeded Brit (3) while Dubai winner Aidan McHugh takes on wildcard Josh Goodger. Colin Beecher's son Matthew was comfortably beaten today by George Loffhagen, but Jack Draper, George's compatriot in the successful GBR 2013 TE Winter Cup under 12 team, is a late withdrawal

Too much talent to watch and across lots of courts. I'll end up bits and pieces of lots of matches again.

9am start - I'm sure it hasn't been that early in previous years.

Nice day watching some good tennis in freezing conditions. It was that cold even Beechy went and put a hat on. Nice to see Mel South there with the Bath contingent.

Men were on first and there was a cracking match between Brandon Murphy and Alex Parker. Alex is very tall with a big serve, but his groundshots struggled on occasions. As CD pointed out Brandon is one to watch. Good serve, quick hand and a very powerfully whippy forehand that caused all the damage.
I also saw the first set of Aidan McHugh's match which lacked the quality of the previous match. Aidan was very solid and didn't make many mistakes, but didn't have the power to cause great problems.
Damian Rodriguez and Simon Carr have both done well here before, so no suprise that was a close match which ended up with Simon Carr destroying his racket.
Matt Story looked very useful and cruised past the Polish player. I think the better players are in the top half of the draw.

Of the girls, we have a lot of very talented 13-15 year olds at the moment.
Lauryn looks a real prospect. Powerful game and good control and must be one of the favourites this week. The highest quality match was Rather Adeshina v Anna Bowtell. Both with huge serves and hard hitting from the back off the court. It probably would have made a decent final, but after a tight first set, Esther came on strong.
Hannah McColgan won very easily. Nice lefty game with a good swingy serve.
Georgie Walker lost a tight nervy match in which the standard wasn't the greatest.
The Martins sisters looked very capable. Essence won easily, but Destiny was involved in a real tight match with the very useful Jizel.
Gemma Heath was a real disappointment. I was expecting a lot more, but she didn't play well and Martina did. By the way, for anyone wondering Gemma is very big for her age and I was very surprised she is just 14. I would have guessed she would be 15-16 if I didn't know in advance.
Olivia Elliot is another nice player for her age. She is tall and has a decent serve and good back court game, but looked a bit nervy approaching the net and towards the winning line.
As for Emma Raducanu, she turned 13 last week. She is tiny, but is a little pocket dynamite and turned over a player 4 years older and has played on the main tour. She has a strong serve and all the shots in the book and is one to follow closely for the future. The scoreline flattered Louie as Emma was 5-2 up in the first and serve for the match at least twice in the second, but Emma got tight.
Emma might win another match, but don't expect too much this week.
The top half is much stronger than the bottom and I'm expecting a humdinger of a semi final between Lauryn and Esther with the winner taking the title.