Not a surprise - I think it was an entry error. She's not played on clay all season and I'm certain was looking at the weeks in Japan on grass. Just waiting for the 50K on grass for next week to be released to see if she is down for that.
Shame that Freya has withdrawn from China, as the field is very weak. The 4th seed would not make the main draw at the French 100k in the same week.
She is also down for a Turkish 10k the following week, not the Japanese 'grass' 50k, so I presume she'll not be off for a mini-tour of Asia, but hanging around Europe for the rest of the clay season, waiting for the grass to start.
EDIT: Though I see she is now hanging on my every word, withdrawing from Turkey as I typed the above. So presumably off to Japan (qualifying, at present).
-- Edited by wimdledont on Tuesday 26th of April 2016 10:39:20 AM
I assume Evan, Billy Harris, Laura D are all injured as they have withdrawn again. Nice to see some of mid rankers(Katy, EWS, Mandy, Mirabelle etc) having a go at some of the bigger ITF's
Bedene is several places out from making the MD and did not enter qualifying in Madrid so if he is to play there he is going to need either a qualifying or MD wild card. If he is going the WC route for this week he might rather try and get into the Rome challenger where he is the defending champion. He certainly could use a week where he strings some wins together on clay before RG.
After playing pretty much exclusively on clay in futures all year, I find it strange A Ward has decided to make the step up to challenger qualies on hard courts during clay court season. I must be missing something regarding the logic behind his schedule...
Maybe Alex is thinking it might be easier to chase points that might get him to Wimbledon qualies. The fields will be weaker on hard court challengers over the next few weeks. Makes sense as he doesn't have a chance of making French Open anymore. That may also be why he pulled out of the futures over the last 3 weeks as that ship had sailed.