Michael D wrote:

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The qualifying draw is out now. Notable absences are Eden, Maia, Freya, Beth and Jodie, which sounds one too many for main draw WCs. There were questions around Jodie's fitness following her British Tour defeat a few days back.

In the q draw, which I will try and post, Tara is the only Brit seed (15). Other Brits in the draw are Hannah McColgan (WC), Alicia Barnett (WC), Nell Miller (WC), Danielle Daley (WC) (and who beat Jodie in the afore mentioned strange loss), Emily Appleton (WC), Ali Collins (WC).

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 Beth is playing Loughborough but not Glasgow. Danielle's win last week was not that surprising as she has been playing very well recently and Jodie is known for inconsistency! If the four above named have been parachuted into MD then it is a real slap in the face for Tara who is ranked at least 150 places above all of them.

blob wrote:

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Last year this event was a $15K, so there's no useful comparison in terms of field strength.
The upgrade does mean that we have fewer players getting an outing in qualies. This year we have 7 entries in qualies, 6 by way of a WC (Tara the only entry by merit)
Last year 16 players got to play a pro match in qualies; 6 were WC, and 6 players won a match (of which only one was becasue of an all-GB tie); we had one qualifier (Sara Beth).

Average age of the GB WC here is 19 - though this is distorted by 24 yo Alicia. In fact, 5 of the 6 WC are under 18½, and 3 (Miller, Daley, Collins) are under 18 (Hannah's 18th birthday is today!)
They are being sent out to battle players with an average ranking of 356 - I'm not sure how useful that is going to be.

Danielle Daley makes her pro debut
Hannah versus Tara is the first all-GB tie of the year.

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It would though be maybe an idea to consider having more than a 32 player 2 round qualifying draw.

So far this year the first Australian 25K has had a 48 player draw and the US 25Ks have had 64 player draws. In week 6 the France 25K will have 64 players, with Loughborough and Australia having 32.

Might not help get any more home ranking points but it would give more players, starved of home tournaments and any home 15Ks at all, at least an entry in and for all the GB players a draw chance that they might avoid a seed in QR1 ( a 48 player draw and the non seeds definitely would have a non seed for starters ).

It's a particular issue in Glasgow with such a strong field, but even for Loughborough and more generally ( we always just seem to have 2 qualifying rounds for GB 25Ks ) why not not have bigger draws ??

the addict wrote:

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I agree with Michael - one too many for MDWC. I also note that the two players immediately above Beth on the alts list made it into qualifying. Beth is the lowest ranked of the five mentioned, so I suspect that it is between Beth and Jodie for the fourth place, and the other three are in. Otherwise, you can take your pick from the other 6 ranked players further down the list - unlikely to be the case IMHO

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 Listen to Telstar - his information is normally spot on.

paulisi wrote:

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the addict wrote:

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I agree with Michael - one too many for MDWC. I also note that the two players immediately above Beth on the alts list made it into qualifying. Beth is the lowest ranked of the five mentioned, so I suspect that it is between Beth and Jodie for the fourth place, and the other three are in. Otherwise, you can take your pick from the other 6 ranked players further down the list - unlikely to be the case IMHO

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 Listen to Telstar - his information is normally spot on.

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 Yes, I know. He posted while I was checking the entry list, so we crossed.

Apropos of nothing, who vandalised the qualifying draw on the iTF site?
Why are the final brackets falling apart, or making a bid for freedom?
I think we should be told!