Should be a win but with Heather you never know.

I always thought with Heathers game she would have a very stable career. Hovering around the 30-50 mark with nothing spectacular.

Vinci went out of the AO in the first round of qualifying. And also lost her only other match since last August. Still a tough match though.

Hev's match about to start

indiana wrote:

---

[...]

Maybe the new bat will help. 

---

I fear at least one 'new bat' will have met its maker.

3-6 4-6

Just to mention that Kvitova won here, and did so, all week, in that amazing manner she gets in to every so often where everything flows, everything works and it is glorious to behold and unbeatable.
A smiling Petra guarantees a smiling me. Amazing to think where she was this time last year, unsure if she could ever play again.

I've always thought that, adjusted for age, era, every possible factor you care to imagine, take the best tennis of any woman you care to name, and somehow usefully, magically, scale them all out together: for me Serena wins every time, on probability, most of them at least 9 times out of ten. Serena's best beats everybody elses best, and I have no prevarication, no hesitation, no equivocation; some are close, but not too close to call.
The only exception I make is Petra. Petra's very very best against Serena's very very best. Lawd how long I have hoped we'd see that match, but it's never come to pass. For me, this would be the ultimate, the two highest points of quality. We'll almost certainly never see it now, which is all the more frustrating, as being from the same era, and with long overlap - neither past their best, or just coming up, their primes overlapped - there was a fair chance it could happen, unlike inter-generational debates.

Anyway, well done Petra. Pojd!

Rather remarkable too that Kiki Mladenovic was the singles runner-up to Petra here given she had lost 15 singles matches in a row since Washington at beginning of August ( though she is fresh from winning the Aussie Open doubles title with Babos ). If she'd actually won the final I was ready to add her to the "Remarkable non-GB thread."

Defending the title here and with much more to come off over the next few months she had looked ready to drop like a stone in the rankings.

As it is she just drops 3 places for now, to WR 13. With Julia Goerges ( semi finalist here ) passing her, Jo will remain as WR 11. Goerges makes it into the top 10 for the first time at age 29.

Re: Petra. I see her as like a female Delpo - much liked by everyone. Sure she may get some P3tra comments (and she herself is aware of that nickname!) Delpo also comes in for a lot of admiration.