Week 22 - ITF ($50K) - Eastbourne, UK Grass

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

Week 22 - ITF ($50K) - Eastbourne, UK Grass

Spectator · All-time great

That's a superb day for the GB women! Some really stellar wins in both singles and doubles. Agree that Riske is a tough proposition in the next round - but exciting to have the opportunities to be playing that level of opponent.

PaulM · Tennis legend

Problem with Laura is her ranking actually flatters her as a few events shes lost round 1 in gave her 10 points. More than 25k QF and almost as much as a 10k title. So she's got her ranking up by doing nothing.

Laura will of course get a Wimbledon wild card, but I really hope that with the top 250 mark seemingly being dropped, there is a bit more flexibility in approach so that as well as Katie S, the likes of Tara and Katy are given serious consideration.

Mervatron · Masters Series Champion

Great 1st round results. Shame about Laura.

Hopefully Tara and Lisa can continue. Will be tough for Katy.

AliBlahBlah · All-time great

R1; Murray/Webley-Smith (GBR/GBR) def. Caregaro/Eklund (ITA/FIN) 3-6 7-6(5) [10-7]

R1: Pitak/Pitak (GBR/GBR) lost to Garcia-Perez/Terziyska (ESP/BUL) 3 & 6(1)
R1: Robson/Vekic (GBR/CRO) lost to Moore/Perrin (GBR/SUI) [3] 4 & 2

R1: Arbuthnott/Grey (GBR/GBR) def. Bai/Bains (AUS/AUS) 3 & 4

R1: Phillips/Tuen-Matthews (GBR/GBR) lost to Yang/Zhang (CHN/CHN) [2] 0 & 0

QF: Murray/Webley-Smith (GBR/GBR) v. Muhuammad/Sanchez (USA/USA) [1]
QF: Moore/Perrin (GBR/SUI) [3] v. Garcia-Perez/Terziyska (ESP/BUL)
QF: Arbuthnott/Grey (GBR/GBR) v. Yang/Zhang (CHN/CHN) [2]

Helen40 · Grand Slam Champion

PaulM wrote:
Problem with Laura is her ranking actually flatters her as a few events shes lost round 1 in gave her 10 points. More than 25k QF and almost as much as a 10k title. So she's got her ranking up by doing nothing.

Laura will of course get a Wimbledon wild card, but I really hope that with the top 250 mark seemingly being dropped, there is a bit more flexibility in approach so that as well as Katie S, the likes of Tara and Katy are given serious consideration.

Has the 250 been dropped? I thought it would just be waived for Laura and Katie as exceptional circumstances.

I'm all for the LTA giving Laura WCs to help her back from injury. It took Muzzah a good year to return properly, and he wasn't getting re-injured. So whilst I am frustrated that she's taking so long, I do believe she's getting closer and also that she should be given all the help she can from her home federation - at least this summer.

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

The question, though, is what is 'all the help she can'?

Money is not a real issue for Laura - so it may well be more actual help for her to be given a Quali WC and to win a match or two.

As PaulM says, her ranking is completely false and she has only won one main draw match all year (against a WC youngster).

As such, the federation may well be helping her more by not giving her a MD wildcard.

However, it seems certain that she will get one. And I hope 100% that she gets a win or four.

But the comment of 'I'll be playing a 'little' tournament next week' rather sticks in one's throat.

The fact that she has only won one MD match in the last 9 months or so does not mean (to me) that it's taking her a really long time to come back - it means that she has entered the wrong events.

Mervatron · Masters Series Champion

Agreed.

Should have started at 10k's. Seen how that went and then used her PR and WC's in bigger events building up. Right now the most important thing is to get some wins and building the confidence.

indiana · Tennis legend

Helen40 wrote:
PaulM wrote:
Problem with Laura is her ranking actually flatters her as a few events shes lost round 1 in gave her 10 points. More than 25k QF and almost as much as a 10k title. So she's got her ranking up by doing nothing.

Laura will of course get a Wimbledon wild card, but I really hope that with the top 250 mark seemingly being dropped, there is a bit more flexibility in approach so that as well as Katie S, the likes of Tara and Katy are given serious consideration.
Has the 250 been dropped? I thought it would just be waived for Laura and Katie as exceptional circumstances.
I'm all for the LTA giving Laura WCs to help her back from injury. It took Muzzah a good year to return properly, and he wasn't getting re-injured. So whilst I am frustrated that she's taking so long, I do believe she's getting closer and also that she should be given all the help she can from her home federation - at least this summer.

Yes, there was something that came out that they are not going by a specific ranking.

I imagine not just Laura will be a British MD WC

DF · Tennis legend

Agreed but her attitude seems to be the biggest problem. She still thinks that she is one of the best tennis players but in fact now she has to start from the bottom.

indiana · Tennis legend

Regarding Laura's ranking, while absolutely accepting a great deal of her points have come from mandatory R1 loser points, I actually doubt that her ranking really flatters the level she is at. Almost coincidentally it may be not far off ( and she probably could have achieved many points in other / better? ways ). I certainly wouldn't say too high even for her much reduced current form.

Do people really think she is worse / much worse than to be expected of a WR 329 player ? I don't and I expect she would show up pretty well against Brits around that mark.

My concern is that she has not yet moved well above that sort of level, not that that level flatters her.

Progress ( and I do think there is some ) is very slow.

-- Edited by indiana on Tuesday 31st of May 2016 08:58:05 AM

Michael D · All-time great

DF wrote:
Agreed but her attitude seems to be the biggest problem. She still thinks that she is one of the best tennis players but in fact now she has to start from the bottom.

Yes, and starting from the bottom means getting fully fit and seeing this as an opportunity to work really hard on aspects of her game that are obviously inhibiting her progress like her lack of mobility on the court. I don't know what caused her 3rd set collapse yesterday, but she was only on court for a little over 2 hours, so whatever it was should not have happened now, if she was more match fit/ prepared. At this stage in her comeback, lasting 2 hours should not be an issue.

I think a problem here is that Laura is thinking she just needs to recover her 'game', the type of shots she was hitting before, and if she can recover the shots, and start to get them in more frequently, the results were follow. But there are other areas of her match strategy that are obviously lagging, and it needs a more holistic approach and a reduced sense of entitlement. Yes, Laura was once ranked #27 and I would hope has the potential to get back there, but she needs to forget about that now and really focus on rebuilding her game and her ranking from the ground up, as you say. And it certainly does not appear that this is yet her strategy. I'd be happy to be wrong and I'd certainly like to see Laura climbing the rankings again through matches actually won, but think her strategy needs shifting before this is going to happen with any consistency.

Long time reader · Lower Club Player

I went down to Eastbourne yesterday and it was very cold and windy. If you like watching players toss the ball in the air to serve and then catch it again you missed an absolute treat.

Hard to know what to say about Laura, I thought the first two sets were quite decent from both players but once Laura was broken in the 3rd her confidence seemed to drain away and she started making lots more unforced errors. It didn't seem to be anything to do with fitness to me.

It was certainly a competitive match and Laura didn't look out of place with the other players on show, which would make me think that while her ranking comes from freebies it isn't really false, but she needs to start winning matches and at the moment its hard to see her doing that.

Lisa was very impressive after a slow start and was the better player once they got into rallys. Zhang returned very well and Lisa missed a few returns at big moments or she wouldn't have needed the great fightback. Zhang fell apart a bit with errors and double faults at the end but it was still a very good win for Lisa over what I thought was quite a good opponent. Garcia Perez who she plays today is very tall with a very big serve so it won't be easy.

Lisa is also serving normally now instead of having her racquet high in the air at the start which hopefully is a good sign about her fitness.

Didn't see as much of Tara or Katy but from what I did see Tara was very good but her opponent wasn't great and Katy's match was played in gale force winds and was a real battle with lots of long rallys.

DF · Tennis legend

Thanks for the report Ltr. It was lovely weather here so surprised to hear that it was so cold and windy at Eastbourne.

AliBlahBlah · All-time great

Thanks for the report Long time reader

On Laura (again), from above:
Well, Laura does more than OK by WC from other federations, in the last 12 months (quite apart from SR) she's had entry to:
Charleston Q - Premier
Miami MD - Prem Mandatory
New Haven Q - Premier
Vancouver MD - $100K
Gatineau MD - $25K
Granby MD - $50K

Which is 6 WC, 15 free points, enough for WR842, and more than any other single player both in terms of number of foreign WC, and points.

If you add in the GB WC for:
Wimbledon MD - GS
Eastbourne Q - Premier

Then from WC alone - without winning a match - we get to 26 free points, WR687. 687!!!

Eventually, we could just reduce this absurdly to saying that if we just gave her enough points to make the top 100, then she'd start performing again, as a 'big match player', and tennis would be better off for it because she's a 'popular crowd pleaser.

That one point in ten shows flashes of beautiful pure ball striking and pure unholy talent is fool's gold.
If, even when your opponent doesn't pressure you, you can't keep the ball in the court, or over the net more than 2 points in every 3, then. you. will. lose. every. time.

The only one that needs to help Laura now, is Laura.