Tara levels
1 set all
Go Tara!

R2: MOORE, Tara (GBR) WC 227 lost to KUZNETSOVA, Svetlana (RUS) 13 14 1-6 6-2 3-6

After going 3-0 down and getting the break back to love *3-4 only to be broken again.

Very respectable effort by Tara, I really hope she continues to progress with the right attitude, because she's got all the talent you need to be a top 100 player.

That's been a brilliant grass court season for Tara, who picked up 198 ranking points. Only the last 16 at Wimbledon are guaranteed a bigger better haul, along with a handful of players who did exceptionally well in the grass WTAs, such as Riske.

She's now ranked around 195, and should qualify for the US Open quaifiers; with around 250 points needed to make the cut for GS qualifiers, her 198 grass points should see her very likely to make the cut for the next 4 Grand Slams - which would guarantee her an additional US$20k in prize money over the next 12 months. So she has definitely moved up a paygrade.

Further, I think that this change in form is not entirely down to the surface underfoot. For the last couple of years, while I've been taking a greater interest, Tara has been a stand-out dreadful performer on the ITF livescore stats in one particular dept - she's been the DF queen, racking up anything up to and over a dozen DFs in a match; often breaking serve consistently, but being broken herself, with loads of donations.

For the last month, she's been serving occasional DFs in pairs, not in dozens. I don't see any reason why that shoud revert, just because the surface underfoot changes.

Sorting out her serve was the one thing that all of her friends have been asking of her. She appears to have done it. That change alone should see her results over the coming 12 months improve dramatically.

Her ranking should shoot up; leaving aside her 198 grass points, she only has another 79 points to defend over the next 11 months.

-- Edited by wimdledont on Saturday 2nd of July 2016 08:42:03 AM

I was very surprised to see that Heather has been given the second-biggest fine ever, for nothing very much...

www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/jul/02/heather-watson-hit-with-wimbledons-second-biggest-fine-after-first-round-loss

My thoughts after the draw that Cibulkova may not have been that terrible potential L32 opponent for an upgraded to 16th seed JoKo may have been slightly misplaced, though I wish we'd at least had that match.

Some match vs Aga! And I reckon Dominika will sleep all right tonight. Liked John Mac suggesting that maybe Nick Kyrgios should watch a recording of that match as an example of leaving it all out there.