Week 43 - ITF ($15K) - Wirral, UK Hard

Peter too · Tennis legend

Week 43 - ITF ($15K) - Wirral, UK Hard

paulisi · Tennis legend

Ella managed to throw away victory. Served for the first set and the last set.
Very negative persona.

the addict · Tennis legend

indiana wrote:
indiana wrote:
The doubles draw has peskies as the four seeded pairs ( indeed they are the only peskies in the draw ). Non-bold prediction - they won't be the four semi finalists.
Well done on Jodie & Freya beating the #2 seeds. A call out for non-bold predictions.

Good call Indi, no peskies in the semis !

Good wins for:-

Beth and Laura D over the top seeds 7-6 7-6

Emma and Eden over the 4th seeds 6-2 6-4

and a surprising scoreline, Maia and Sam with 0 & 0 over Jodie and Freya

indiana · Tennis legend

To be fair I didn't exactly go the proper bold route and suggest that actually none of the pesky seeds would reach the semis.

Nice to have guaranteed doubles winners by Wednesday afternoon.

the addict · Tennis legend

Nice to have two guaranteed singles semi-finalists + one with a good chance as well

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

paulisi wrote:
Ella managed to throw away victory. Served for the first set and the last set.
Very negative persona.

Yeah, I wrote down 'sulky so-and-so' next to her name last time I saw her. Wasn't impressed.

indiana · Tennis legend

I imagine Sam vs Beth would be the most likely bottom half semi with Beth's recent form not just here.

Be interesting paulisi's thoughts again.

the addict · Tennis legend

Well Ella must have pushed Orange really hard, as Remondina has been given a walkover into the semis.

paulisi · Tennis legend

the addict wrote:
Well Ella must have pushed Orange really hard, as Remondina has been given a walkover into the semis.

She was lobbing her serves in, so probably a shoulder injury although her ground shots were ok.

paulisi · Tennis legend

Very enjoyable day again. Freya was really good in the first set and couldn't quite keep the high levels up in the second to beat an average French girl.
Eden ran away with the first set, but Alicia gave her a real fright in the second and could easily have gone to a third.
Gemma lost a tight match against the Italian who showed some class at times. Gemma has shown potential that she can go a long way with a bit of experience and focus.
Ola lost to a girl who played very differently to the normal and mixed her game up. Lots of flat backhand slices and some serve and volley thrown in. Ola struggled with the low slices.Sam and Anna was really tight and there were some long games, but experience told in the end. As I said yesterday, Anna will have no problems playing on the main tour.

I covered the others elsewhere.
In the doubles, Sam and Maia should win the whole thing easily. They cruised past Jodie and Freya. Beth and Laura had to work hard to come through there match .Beth carried Laura again, although to be fair Laura played the second set tie break superbly. Laura and Alicia got a walkover and Eden and Emma looked a very natural team.
Doubles final should be straight forward to call - Sam and Maia v Beth and Laura(if Laura plays reasonably well)

The singles is a bit more complex.
Freya should come through against Eden, but don't write Eden off. Freya hasn't played much and may tire if it goes long.
I'd expect Sam to come through her match, but it won't be straight forward.
As for Maia and Beth. That is all down to how well Maia serves. If Maia gets a lot of first serves in, she will match Beth on the groundshots and probably come through. If she is slightly off her game Beth will give her a fright and could turn her over.
I'm going to predict a Remondina v Murray final with Sam coming through to do the double.

-- Edited by paulisi on Wednesday 25th of October 2017 06:05:54 PM

vohor · Grand Slam Champion

Very good set of results; especially Beth's convincing scoreline against the 2nd seed :D

paulisi · Tennis legend

Coup Droit wrote:
paulisi wrote:
Beth's first set was the best set I've seen for some time. Hardly missed a ball, loads of winners.
Beth definitely will break into the top 500.
Have been saying so for a while
Great to hear.
Soto should take a lot of credit too - they were really helpful, I think.

Beth has been with everyball tennis(Halton based) for a while now under Mike James (here yesterday) and travelling coach Ed Taylor. Ed has done a good job improving Beth.

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

I wasn't saying that Soto were the only one, I'm sure you're right that Ed has done a lot of good.

But having seen her every year for about the last 6 years, I think the real sea change in her game came after her time at Soto (although I think that whole thing was linked to self-confidence - even the confidence to go to Spain and base herself there for a while - so it's not 100% Soto themselves, but the time there). Her strategic playing seemed very different, in particular her ability to pick zones (which had been really weak before).

blob · All-time great

Doubles roundup: amongst other things, a very fine win for Silva & Hurst means we are already guaranteed a title

QF: Lumsden/Murray (GBR/GBR) defeated Burrage/Christie (GBR/GBR) 6-0 6-0
QF: Barnett/Sainsbury (GBR/GBR) defeated Di Sarra/Remondina (ITA/ITA) [3] W/O
QF: Hurst/Silva (GBR/GBR) defeated Masini/Stefanini (ITA/ITA) [4] 6-2 6-4

QF: Deigman/Grey (GBR/GBR) defeated Ivanova/van der Hoek (USA/NED) 7-6(7) 7-6(3)

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

Given the Italians were out in force in the Wirral (there were four Italians in the main draw), we've done a pretty good job of saying arrivederci to them

There's none left in the doubles, and only one in the main draw.

It's difficult to be too confident about Freya, given it's her first tournament back, and paulisi's there and predicts that Remondina will make the final, so that's a better indication.
But Redmondina lost in two easy-ish sets to Olivia Nicholls a couple of weeks ago (such a shame Olivia is injured) and has had very few decent wins recently (and only beaten two inexperienced, although talented, juniors here). So, despite the reservations above, I'm hoping that Freya will now be firing on all cylinders and beat her in two (after taking out Eden, who can play beautifully but often doesn't). Sam is so up and down too (losing to Julie Gervais so easily was against most people's predictions here). I'd love to see it but I don't think she'll win.