She was exceedingly unlucky last year, playing some very consistent tennis throughout qualifying. I was surprised not having seen her play before that point; some of the girls her age or younger had higher profiles. Those performances were consistent with the effort and dedication described in the article. It would be great to see her progress, it is clear that mental and physical resilience are essential to deal with the day to day of challenger tennis, talent alone is not enough.

Just seen a post from Harriet. Didn't realise apart from the injuries, she had a bout of pneumonia this year.

Great read, the addict.

Now we know who the 'big Eastern European' guy is

Anett Kontaveit is/was based in Istanbul too with Marijan.

Anyway, he's doing a brilliant job with Harriet, and good luck to her against Plis.

Oakland2002 wrote:

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Harriet undoubtedly deserves her success, the conditioning work has made a massive difference to her game. Tactically and technically I always felt she was pretty robust, putting in the hard graft is really paying off. Long may it continue.

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 I agree. Her schemas of play seem to be better too.

But that can be very much linked to fitness too. If you trust in your body to hold up for the next two minutes as opposed to only the next ten seconds, your choices are far wider.

And even technique is very strongly linked to fitness - if you're tired within the point, you can't/won't be in the right position so you won't be hitting the ball correctly.

Obviously fitness is key for confidence, too. It's all inter-related.

(As an aside, I was talking to one of the Aussie fitness coaches at the W qualis and he was saying that, in his view, many of the British men didn't seem to be a peak fitness. I'm not sure if it's fair but it was his view....)

 

 

Priesty wrote:

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Who is Harriet's mother? I was intrigued when I heard Sam Smith say she knew her quite well from her junior days.

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 I didn't hear properly (and the name meant nothing to me) but I thought Sam said Susannah 'Devreux' (???) - not sure about that surname - think it was something like that - but I might have been imagining it.

wolf wrote:

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Priesty wrote:

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Who is Harriet's mother? I was intrigued when I heard Sam Smith say she knew her quite well from her junior days.

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 https://lta.tournamentsoftware.com/sport/player.aspx?id=F92676AB-A707-4075-852F-D08F2423E12C&player=1245

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 I'm fairly certain you are right wolf. Here's a family pic posted by Harriet

https://www.instagram.com/p/BdI9RUXF06D/?taken-by=harriet_dart