That coach in Portugal who predicted Katie would be a professional player on his first meeting with her, age 7 or so, must just watch these results with a huge smile on his face (unless, of course, he predicts that for all of them and nobody ever gets to hear about the others !)
-- Edited by Coup Droit on Wednesday 12th of April 2017 10:14:49 PM
Play starts at 1pm local time today, Katie on second.
Their dubs opponents still tbc but that match will be played NB 5:30pm local time, according to oop.
Katie and Sam's match is available to watch on Youtube. Sam was wearing a precautionary sleeve type thing on her left arm (was it an elbow injury she had before?). First time I've seen her play on a surface that isn't grass.
I watched Sam a fair bit when her matches were streamed about 3 years ago when she broke the top 200. She looked impressive and was unlucky in some of her defeats then. She's now at the age where it looks like the time for her has passed. Credit to her to for using the PR to play some higher ranked events though, if you are going to have one last summer it may as well be at as high a level as you can compete. When you watch the match with Katie though you can see a currently based 200ranking v a 600 one on form etc.
I think Sam has been hampered over the last 2/3 years by some big injuries. I hardly think it's fair to say her time has passed. She'd become a solid top 200 player. Hope to see her back up there again in time.