Weather has interrupted here so all the women's Q1 matches were postponed, and many of the men's Q1 matches appear not to have been completed either. Monday's Order of Play has yet to come out.
Laura and Nina Stadler (SUI) are also playing in the doubles together. Nina reached the doubles final with Alicia also two weeks ago, when Chanel Simmonds stood in the way. Chanel is still playing in the singles again this week, but is giving the doubles a break, no doubt to the relief of many.
Laura is playing her singles first round match against Naomi Totka now, and its been an extremely hard and close fought match so far. Two hours and two sets gone, and one point between them at this stage. 6-7(5) 6-4. Go Laura!
Sadly Laura had two more chances to hold in the set but failed to do so. The last three games were all breaks. A good performance though from Laura, the match overall took just 2 mins short of 3 hrs.
R1: SAINSBURY, Laura (GBR) 962 lost to TOTKA, Naomi (HUN) 6 668 CH=363 14/12/15 6-7(5) 6-4 4-6
Laura still has a doubles to come today with Nina Stadler. They are up against two very talented youngsters though. Salma Ewing, who won last week's tournament as a a qualifier (see last week's thread for the info Spectator posted on her and her SA born mother), and Eva Vedder, a Dutch youngster, who Salma narrowly beat earlier today in the singles.
Laura and Nina did indeed lose to the two precocious youngsters 2-6 5-7. Laura and Nina were 5-3 up in the final set, then lost the last 4 games in a row.
That's our interest completed on the women's side in Stellenbosch this week.
