Week 13 - ITF ($10K) - Antalya, Turkey Hard

paulisi · Tennis legend

Week 13 - ITF ($10K) - Antalya, Turkey Hard

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

A lot's been said already about her other sports - netball and lacrosse.

Her natural sporting ability is obvious from her game - she has wonderful timing and (unlike Maia, say) takes the ball a lot earlier.

I gave her 'bounciest player' award when I saw her - she never, but never, stopped - and that was over three sets, in a top class field.

To be fair to the others, she's a lot smaller than many so the taller girls are never going to be as dynamic, they don't have to be (again, think Hev).

I expect her to do very well before college - and I don't think it will be a surprise.

From what I saw, I think her game is suited to grass (great fitness suggests slower courts but Emily's timing made grass look easy for her).

I think she plays 550-600 'now'. But should be a fair bit better in summer (assuming A levels haven't left their mark and she has time - there's always a random element if only playing a few tournaments).

However, as Strongbow, says, Stanford will give her significant options.

I'm just glad that she seems to have moved away from the 'I want to be a doubles specialist' idea (with apologies to the doubles fans

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DF · Tennis legend

Harriet has started well 2-0 up

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

back to 2-2 and then harriet breaks again.

Would love to see harriet get a run of wins - you get the feeling she really needs the momentum back, it's been quite a slump, and no actual injury or reason that we know of (all tied to those daft planning decisions last summer, in my view). Not sure her 'head' is quite over it all but the game potential is there.

Grachka · County player

Unfortunately, Harriet was broken to love to lose the first set.

Harriet Dart GBR 4-6 0-0* [6] Michaela Honcova SVK

Michael D · All-time great

Harriet lost the second set too, sadly beaten comfortably in the end, 4-6 2-6

The Optimist · ATP qualifying

Emily Arb is one of, if not the, most organised kid I know and I am sure she will shine at Stanford. I am so pleased she is disproving the theory peddled in this country that you can only be good at tennis if you stop focussing on education at about 14 years old. She gives full effort to whatever she is doing at the time, be it tennis, some other sport or schoolwork and shows it can all be fitted in at a high standard. At tournaments you see many kids just chilling out between matches. Emily finds a quiet corner and gets her books out and gets on with her work and socialises afterwards. She's not the only one who does this but they are few and far between. Visit a high performance academy outside of performance squad times and there will be a bunch of kids sitting in the sofa mucking around. So much wasted time! And I think it's helped Emily to stay positive about her tennis, having a life in school outside of her main sport must surely have helped keep things in perspective when the tennis got tough. I am sure she will play over her holidays and expect Stanford to take some of their players to futures / challengers during the autumn. I'm not sure she will pursue doubles to the exclusion of singles once she has finished college but I expect it to feature highly in her plans. She's a great doubles player and really loves that form of the game.

The Optimist · ATP qualifying

IMO Harriet is a bit of a 'confidence' player. Seems to have runs of good results and then is increasingly able to dig in and battle through and runs of poor results where self-belief seems to ebb away a bit more with each match. After that good win in the first round, I hoped this was going to be the tournament that broke the current poor run. Maybe she needs to play some British Tours or something to get back that winning feeling.