Oakland2002 wrote:

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Jo has taken responsibility for harnessing her talent over the last 12 months and performances like yesterday reflect how well she matured as a competitor. With her coaches she has moulded her backhand (particularly cross court as mentioned by others earlier) and serve into consistent offence weapons allied with a relatively less potent but deep forehead in defence, the consistency of the later I think has been underestimated in keeping her in points allowing her to finish them when her opponent plays to her strengths. That is where she will be challenged in week 2. 

Nikulescu is atypical in terms of how she plays, frustrating opponents willing them to implode and thereby surviving as opposed to winning each round. Jo's game has matured most psychologically and from that perspective last nights game ranks a 10. Given her successes in last years US open and more recently in Melbourne she is beginning to show the consistency of game of a top eschelon player who is judged on her week two performance, as week one goes that was definitely a 10 but she is now moving from the undergraduate curriculum to have her thesis examined. 

I am really optimistic that Hev will be able to see how close she is to being able to make that step, although not quite having Jo's weight of shot she has great athleticism and there is no question that consistent use of her present ammunition backed with a baseline psychological 8 plus would put her in the same place.

With Katie likely to evolve over the next 2-3 years into a top 80 player and who knows a fit Laura moving in a similar direction and I think ladies tennis will be getting its market share of TV audience every June/July on these shores and with a frightening cohort of American teenagers I can't see August/September being too shabby across the pond. So very exciting here and on a broader front some top quality ammunition for the WTA to answer critics if the ladies game in the right way.

-- Edited by Oakland2002 on Tuesday 29th of March 2016 04:11:40 AM

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As a former journalist, I can say with fair certainty that sports journalism is the most chauvinist part of a profession that is incredibly male-dominated as it is...so even if all those stars align, expect many journalists to suggest this is because of the weakness at the top of the WTA, rather than strong competition driving quality up. There is massive snobbery about women's sports being inherently inferior because of the physical differences.

That being said, no reason why our current Top 100s or Laura / Katie should take any notice of what ill-informed journos think of their trade.