paulisi wrote:

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First time I've seen Laura since the injury.
Serve is inconsistent, shot selection not always the greatest, but the one thing I have noticed is the lack of big winners. Laura was renown for those big forehand winners, but hardly seen any. Lost a bit of power?

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Well, in previous tournaments, and otherwise since her injury, she has been hitting the ball with full power, but encountering the inconvenient problem that the court then proved too, short, too, narrow, and the net too high. Perhaps she is dialling it back a bit to keep the ball in play more.

Agree with Peter too's assessment above.

2-6 2-6

15 winners, 32 unforced in 104 total points. Won just six points on return in the match.

briteny wrote:

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Come on.....!!!

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Think you might have meant this for a different thread

Laura & Naomi lost heavily.

Unless it was ironic, in which case indeed

briteny wrote:

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briteny wrote:

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Come on.....!!!

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 Mistake post! Dan won ! :D

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I ended up going to Wimbledon at the last minute today so got to see the first set of Naomi's match and all of Laura's match live.

Naomi's match was pretty bad - if her serve wasn't winning free points she would have lost the first set 6-0. She seems to have lost all confidence in hitting through the backhand which meant she veered between making lots of soft errors or hitting slices that were quite tentative. A big reason for Naomi's rise up the rankings has been the improvement in her backhand so seeing it go so badly today was worrying. I don't think she would have troubled any opponent in the draw with the way she played today let alone a top 20 seed, and the way the grass season has gone for Naomi is such a shame after all the hard work she has done to be in these tournaments on merit. World Team Tennis might work well her her as a next event, as with wins and losses not directly down to her she should relax and get some rhythm back. The higher bouncing yet still fast US hardcourts suit her game really well if she can find some form again.

Laura played a lot better than Naomi did but she was also up against a better opponent, and serving and especially returning let her down. Kerber served intelligently swinging the ball out to Laura's forehand, especially on the Ad side and Laura too often went for a big return down the line which almost always missed. If there is one big thing she needs to work on it is developing a neutralising return to get into the point. Laura's serve is also down on both pace and accuracy from before her injury - I don't think she is holding back, just doesn't have enough consistency to be able to hit serves at 110mph. Once points got into a rally, I though for the most part Laura played pretty well against a brilliant defensive opponent - I didn't get any impression at all that Laura was down on power and there were several points where she worked openings very effectively. The reason she hit less winners than some other matches is that she didn't get a short ball to put away unless she forced the issue and didn't get many easy putaways following the serve.

In summary, Laura did enough good things that I enjoyed seeing her play live but equally some big weaknesses that meant she was never going to threaten to win the match. It would have been more interesting to have seen Laura in a match against a lower ranked opponent as this draw didn't give her much of a shot at 60 extra points and is pretty meaningless as an indicator of how Laura will do on the ITF circuit.

The 4 matches tomorrow, all against non-seeds, always offered the more likely hopes of some British victories - either Naomi or Laura winning would have been a massive bonus.

Yesterday always looked like two drubbings waiting to happen; and so it proved :(
Today looks more promising; fingers crossed :)

Katie Swan has just arrived on court 16 for her Wimbledon debut. I'm sure she would have liked better preparation for today but hopefully she can put in a good performance.