The decision to get rid of Fitzy looked bad at the time; in hindsight, it looks even worse.

Hope she can put together a decent autumn to rescue an otherwise underwhelming season.

In contrast, despite the rather one-sided final two sets, Katie B had a really impressive qualifying, reinforcing the positive signs from Wimbledon and encouraging results since early March. 

Pity

But Naomi was never likely to get the business done with just winning 53.5% service points and broken 6 times ( twice in each set ). Her serve generally hasn't been great here. Yet a year or so ago she had turned it into the consistent weapon that it can and should be. She had a mindset / had been given a mindset that with it working consistently a break or two would give her sets and she should take pride in such a serve. She shouldn't be so chasing breakbacks.

Hopefully Katie takes lots from this week. She looks to have just been outplayed in the last two sets. She'll probably be tough on herself but she is clearly going in the right direction.

To be fair to Naomi the advances she made under Fitzy came in the first few months together and she really didn't seem to be progressing in the last few months of his tenure. Looking at her career earnings and knowing that she was still living hand to mouth and borrowing money to make it just 2 years ago its hard to condemn her for not wanting to continue to pick up the tab for a full time coach. I don't sense any animosity between the two and all things being equal I think Naomi would love a full time coach, she just can't afford one year round. I would agree that absent any late season surge in form I think she would be wise to work with someone during the winter break and maybe into the beginning of next season to maybe add some impetus back to her career but it's easy for me to say that when I am not the one having to pay someone out of my own pocket.

On another subject, anyone smarter than me like to work out the odds of a LL spot for Naomi? I am assuming Katie would be too far out for a realistic shot unless seeding is not a factor.

theemptyvessel wrote:

---

To be fair to Naomi the advances she made under Fitzy came in the first few months together and she really didn't seem to be progressing in the last few months of his tenure. Looking at her career earnings and knowing that she was still living hand to mouth and borrowing money to make it just 2 years ago its hard to condemn her for not wanting to continue to pick up the tab for a full time coach. I don't sense any animosity between the two and all things being equal I think Naomi would love a full time coach, she just can't afford one year round. I would agree that absent any late season surge in form I think she would be wise to work with someone during the winter break and maybe into the beginning of next season to maybe add some impetus back to her career but it's easy for me to say that when I am not the one having to pay someone out of my own pocket.

On another subject, anyone smarter than me like to work out the odds of a LL spot for Naomi? I am assuming Katie would be too far out for a realistic shot unless seeding is not a factor.

-- Edited by theemptyvessel on Friday 25th of August 2017 10:06:19 PM

---

 As Naomi is the 4th highest seeded player to lose in the FQR, she'll be in the LL draw, so a 25% chance if a LL spot opens up as it's the top 4 that make it in the LL draw.

Katie only has another 28 (9+19) points due off this year. So she has basically covered these with her 30 points here so should have enough points in the bag already towards Australian Open Qualifying to be guaranteed at least around her current WR 250.

Probably needs to push that up a bit maybe say to the 220s. Just 12 women qualifiers at the Aussie Open rather than 16 at the US Open reduces the size of the qualifying field and brings down the cut. So the WR 242 that just got her in here is not likely to be enough.

Such is her form I'd be very confident that she'll get that job done and we'll be seeing her in Melbourne.