Johanna is the first British lady seeded at a Grand Slam since Australian Open, 1987, when Jo Durie was 14th seed (of 16). We have never before had a Grand Slam seed in the 32 seed Era. She is also our first seed at Roland Garros since 1984, when Jo Durie (naturally) was seeded 7th.
R1: (SR) Laura ROBSON (GBR) 329 vs. Andrea PETKOVIC (GER) [28] 31 (CH 9 10/2011) Winner plays Putintseva/Wozniak, Azarenka possible in R3
R1: Johanna KONTA (GBR) [20] 22 vs. Julia GOERGES (GER) 60 (CH 15 03/2012) Winner plays Puig/Govortsova, Keys possible in R3
R1: Naomi BROADY (GBR) 79 vs. Coco VANDEWEGHE (USA) 40 (CH 32 02/2015) Winner plays Mattek-Sands/Begu, Vinci possible in R3
R1: Heather WATSON (GBR) 54 vs. Nicole GIBBS (USA) H2H 0-1 2014 Seoul, South Korea - WTA International - Hard - HW [8], NG (Q) - R32, NG won 7-5 6-2 Winner plays Kuznetsova/Shvedova, Pavlyuchenkova possible in R3
*Rankings will all change prior to the matches being played
Jo is the highest seed since 1987, but Laura was seeded 30 for the 2013 US Open
Whilst there are no easy draws there, it does give Heather a good chance of getting the win she needs to be 100% sure of her Olympic place. She would probably have to beat Kuznetsova to improve on her usual R2 finish though.
-- Edited by tony_orient on Friday 20th of May 2016 11:35:44 AM
All tricky draws, and no major confidence on any matchup. Could get 3 winners, could conceivably have none.
That's all pretty much exactly how I see it. Not just that we could have three winners, or none, but that I feel both outcomes are about equally likely too.
Two in each half of the draw should spread the matches out and hopefully avoid conflicts. Ah, the joys of having the dizzy heights of four in the main draw of Roland Garros to follow! Happy days!
Based on the early betting odds, par for the first round would be 1.72 wins (with Heather given most chance of winning ahead of Jo). Less than a 2% chance of all 4 winning, and 8% chance of no wins at all.
Others have said it all (including sending waves of appreciation to IF!) Women's draws as tricky as the men's are (initially) relatively decent. Who knows? But four MDs is great. And when you consider that, barring unforeseen circumstances, several of our younger players could well be in qualies (at the least) next year, it's even more exciting.
It's worth mentioning that Gibbs has not had a top 100 win on clay in the last two years and no win at all on clay this year... I don't think Heather could have asked for a better draw (even the qualifiers would be a worse draw as they have all won 3 matches on clay coming in).
In fact her only ever top 100 win on clay was against Misaki Doi back in 2013.
I'd say Heather should go in as a very strong favourite.
I also think Broady's draw is a lot better than it seems. If you are going to play Vandeweghe, make it on clay... The same can be said for Naomi but she's proved she can win matches on it this year and should go in as confident as she can do for this surface. A win would be pretty huge for her. In the last three years Vandeweghe has had only one win over a top 100 player on clay (Lisicki which went to 7-5 in the third Last year). She does NOT like the dirt one little bit.
in fact, I'm going to predict three of our girls in the 2nd round.
-- Edited by cwej on Friday 20th of May 2016 05:53:06 PM