Week 1 - WTA International ($250K) - Auckland, New Zealand - Hard

kundalini · Specialist Reporter + Intermediate Club Player

Week 1 - WTA International ($250K) - Auckland, New Zealand - Hard

kundalini · Specialist Reporter + Intermediate Club Player

Naomi v Julia Goerges. It is very windy. I suspect Naomi may have to perform better if she is to win her 2nd match today.

JG with 2 super forehand winners but Naomi fights back with a 2nd serve ace, a lovely drop shot winner, then eventually holds after several deuces through some big serves 1-0*

Julia holds to 15 1-1

Naomi poor groundstrokes 0-30, then super serving including 2 aces and a brilliant b dtl winner as she holds to 30 2-1*

Julia easy hold to love 2-2

Naomi holds to 30 despite leaving a return that landed in, another delicate drop shot winner early in the game 3-2*

Easy for JG 3-3

Naomi self-destructs with 4 awful errors on her initial ground-stroke after her serve and a woeful volley wide to hand Julia the break after saving 2 bps 3-4

A df brings Naomi a bp but JG saves it with a big first serve, Naomi earns another with a super b dtl winner then JG b ue long for the break 4-4

Naomi with a weak volley allows JG to hit a b pass, df, JG f winner, then Naomi saves 3 bps, gets to game point only for JG to hit an amazing return, Naomi drop shot error, then JG b dtl winner 4-5*

Julia can't find a first serve ultimately throwing in two dfs to concede the break 5-5

Naomi careless on what should have been an easy winner lets Julia hit a pass, JG controls the next two, then Naomi with a wild f ue long 5-6

Julia starts with another df but no more errors as she holds to 15 5-7

--

Naomi still rather erratic but holds to 30, a super b to finish 1-0*

Julia comfortable hold to 15 1-1

Naomi with a clever wrong-footing backhand then 3 unreturned serves 2-1*

Easy hold for JG 2-2

Two dfs from Naomi but big serves and a huge f winner allow her to hold to 30 3-2*

Love hold for Julia 3-3

Naomi very careless to start the game but takes 4 in a row with some good play 4-3*

Julia easy hold to 15 4-4

Naomi inept forehand error, woeful b ue long, finally a brutal f just wide as she is broken to love 4-5*

Julia holds to 15 4-6

---

Big difference in quality between the players. Both have huge serves and decent backhands. Julia hit tons of super forehands while Naomi's is embarrassing at this level. The Broady return of serve rarely did enough to get her into the rally; Julia scoring heavily with forehand winners immediately after her serve. Thought Naomi played better than in her first match today but still struck far too many careless shots, either errors or failing to finish points when she had control. Forehands immediately after her serve were an unmitigated disaster. 8 times Naomi lost the first point of her service game, either through a soft error or failing to do enough when in control. Julia hit one unforced error in the 2nd set.

Positives: first serve seemed reasonably good to me and she struck some aggressive 2nd serves too. Backhand was impressive and a couple of lovely drop shots in the opening set. Even hit a few drive volleys.

-- Edited by kundalini on Wednesday 4th of January 2017 07:33:41 AM

paulisi · Tennis legend

On court again.
Naomi lost first set 7-5

Peter too · Tennis legend

R2: BROADY, Naomi (GBR) 90 lost to GOERGES, Julia (GER) 53 5-7 4-6

AliBlahBlah · All-time great

At least Goerges had also had to play earlier that day too.
Shame. But in good company. Serena lost, and Venus withdrew.

AliBlahBlah · All-time great

Doubles
R1: Jocelyn RAE/Anna SMITH (GBR/GBR) 155 lost to Gabriela DABROWSKI/Zhaoxuan YANG (CAN/CHN) [4] 99 5-7 2-6-

R1: (WC) Laura ROBSON/Marina ERAKOVIC (GBR/NZL) 651 defeated Alicja ROSOLSKA/Taylor TOWNSEND (POL/USA) 146 6-1 7-5

QF Opponents still TBC.

PaulM · Tennis legend

Very gutsy and hugely important win over Kovinic this morning. She was pretty terrible but just fought.

Caught some of her Georges match and definitely and big gulf in quality between the two but she wasn't that far away, just too many sloppy points which she absolutely has to cut out, especially off the forehand. They cost her so much.

Slice block return half way down the net still a feature!

Spectator · All-time great

Very glad for Ms Robson and Ms Erakovic. Wins at WTA level - whether in doubles or singles - are all to the good.

vohor · Grand Slam Champion

Delighted Naomi managed to get one win under her belt; and not too far adrift against Georges; some encouragement at the start of the new year then :)

AliBlahBlah · All-time great

Doubles
QF: (WC) Laura ROBSON/Marina ERAKOVIC (GBR/NZL) 649 v. Kiki BERTENS/Johanna LARSSON (NED/SWE) [3] 63

The Optimist · ATP qualifying

LordBrownof wrote:
The Optimist wrote:
Heather I'm sure is looking for a coach but maybe finding it hard to get a good one with her slide in rankings last year. As for Laura I guess it depends whether she is still heavily funded by the LTA. She has hardly earned any money on court (although clearly still has various sponsorship deals) for 2 or 3 years now so may not be able to afford one off her own bat. My understanding is that she has recently moved into the JTC group alongside Freya, Harriet and Katie B. I don't know whether they send coaches out to tournaments with any of their players but would suspect if they can get a group playing a similar schedule that they would supply coach support. Imagine that is what happened in the recent US run involving that group of girls.
Just circling back on this - I found this article from September in The Guardian. Did this just not work out and I missed it?
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/sep/26/heather-watson-pulls-out-wuhan-open-tennis-dizzy-spells

Don't know if it's worked out or not! Mainly because the original article passed me by......

LordBrownof · Futures level

I remember seeing it but then in my old age completely forgetting I'd seen it...

Seems odd. He was congratulated on twitter in September but then there's been nothing since and no sign of him on Heather's social channels. Considering he only joined her in China, could win a prize for shortest partnership in history!

I want so much for Heather. There were moments in her match against Mlad last night that I thought were excellent. But she clearly needs some help at times on shot selection and strangely given how she started on tour, in that match at least, patience.

PaulM · Tennis legend

Sad thing for Heather is that if she had stuck with her "old" game she'd probably still be top 50 quite happily. She took a risk to give her the tools to achieve more than that, and it's not (yet) paid any dividends. I still think it was the right choice to make that switch-up in her game in the end, showed she was serious about trying to move up to the next level and not just play it safe. But not everyone can get there. Still time.

blob · All-time great

Laura & Marina currently 3-6 *1-0
Match is streamed

DF · Tennis legend

They lost 3-6 4-6