Week 7 - ITF ($25K) - Perth, Australia Hard

the addict · Tennis legend

Week 7 - ITF ($25K) - Perth, Australia Hard

Priesty · Challenger level

Helen40 wrote:
It's a shame two of our girls have to play each other in the SF, but well done to both. What' happened to Gabi, on papaer it seemed like the most winnable match.

Possibly ran out of steam after all the matches she has played recently? Sounds like she was up against an in form opponent too.

philwrig · Hall of fame

Better week for Laura, I wonder how much being close to her Mum's side of the family including her grandparents ( Perth based) are inspiring/motivating her this week.

Mervatron2 · Challenger qualifying

Agreed. Thought i'd see Gabby through and who knows with the other two. Both in good form. At least one in the final another good week.

indiana · Tennis legend

(2) Irina Khromacheva, Laura's QF conqueror from last week, has beaten Maddison Inglis 6-0 6-4 in the first SF.

And next on the match to find her final opponent ...

blob · All-time great

Oh dear!
Katy wins, 5-5 RET

My stream had fallen off for the last 15 minutes, so didn't see the finish.

Katy will at least have a chance to join the $25K winners group, and we'll await news of Laura.

Peter too · Tennis legend

SF: DUNNE, Katy (GBR) 280 def ROBSON, Laura (GBR) 238 5-5 Ret.

F: DUNNE, Katy (GBR) 280 v KHROMACHEVA, Irena (RUS) 2 190 CH=89 27/2/17

-- Edited by Peter too on Saturday 17th of February 2018 12:48:05 PM

indiana · Tennis legend

SF: Katy Dunne WR 280 (CH 258 in September 2017) beat Laura Robson WR 238 (CH 27 in July 2013) 5-5 RET

F: Katy Dunne WR 280 (CH 258 in September 2017) vs (2) Irina Khromacheva (RUS) WR 190 (CH 89 in February 2017)

They have not met before. Like Laura, Khromacheva was a JWR 1 at age 15.

I didn't see any of it. Must hope nothing too serious for Laura.

indiana · Tennis legend

Katy will certainly take out her CH 258 and very probably be top 250 for the first time if she wins the final. She won't be far off her CH 'just' reaching the final.

With Katie B having quite a few more points to come off before the end of March than the others ( Katy D has none before May ), the GB ranks 4 to 7 ( in current order Katie B, Laura, Gabi and Katy D ) could close together quite a bit in the next month or so. But then again they are all for starters entered in 25K events next week so things could shake up quite a bit again.

In the more important bigger picture It would be great to see them all moving up the world rankings.

steven · Tennis legend

indiana wrote:
SF: Katy Dunne WR 280 (CH 258 in September 2017) beat Laura Robson WR 238 (CH 27 in July 2013) 5-5 RET

F: Katy Dunne WR 280 (CH 258 in September 2017) vs (2) Irina Khromacheva (RUS) WR 190 (CH 89 in February 2017)

They have not met before. Like Laura, Khromacheva was a JWR 1 at age 15.

I didn't see any of it. Must hope nothing too serious for Laura.

Hip, probably not too serious, apparently.

Priesty · Challenger level

Our players are cursed with their hips atm cry

Good luck in the final Katy.

Mervatron2 · Challenger qualifying

I think our players seem to get more injuries than most others but then again that may just be cos i follow GBR players closer. But all of our players seem to get injured quite a bit.

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

It's an interesting point, Merv.

My own view, although not really based on stats, is that - as you say - we all follow the GB players more so note every injury in every level of player. And that it's not actually much different from other countries.

But there are two points that are maybe relevant. Firstly, if you have very few players, any injury you do have is felt far more deeply. Also, the normal variation is more noticeable. (i.e. taking a daft example but: if the normal injury rate is 50%, and you only have three players, then it would be perfectly normal to have 2 players out (coz you can't have 1.5) and so now you've actually got 66%, and only one player left, and it feels awful. Whereas if you've got 20 and 10 are out, having 10 left to follow is fine).

Similarly, and this is based on France, and again not scientific, but I think the length of time the injuries drag on for might be longer. The French are passionate about physiotherapy. It's on the same medical level as your GP. i.e. everyone gets given sessions at the physio, as a first-step cure, for a whole heap of ailments. The GP hands them out as prescriptions. And not just one or two sessions - it's always a course of 10-15 minimum.

For sports people, this is multiplied by ten. Any injury will get intensive physio afterwards (because it's threatening your job and your livelihood). And it's all free (as in, it's all covered by your compulsory insurance). Even for those who only have minimum insurance, the top-up is relatively small because the minimum is quite high and physio rates are capped by the government. (And sportspeople will almost always buy top-up insurance anyway, precisely for that reason). From direct experience of a whole heap of injuries, I think it makes a huge difference.

indiana · Tennis legend

I too doubt that the proportionate GB number of time off with injury episodes are that different from other countries and may just indeed seem that way because we so much more follow GB players. In fact just numberswise they may just now be in general less than at many times *. And we do without really following players hear of plenty other non GB players out or coming back from being out plus plenty retiring from matches ( often seemingly the round after they beat Brits! - but that again is probably not relatively so much the case and there are certainly many other retirements ).

But interesting points from CD. And also the chances of any non "in" players getting much NTC help must be quite small.

* though there are a number of our lower ranked players that have been very quiet this year for unknown reasons.

blob · All-time great

I can provide some illumination into one number related to this: the RET numbers for last year

Of the 1748 matches played by Brits in 2017, there were 37 matches featuring at least one GB Player in which the result was a win by RET. (2.12% of all matches)
Of those 37:
A Brit retired against a pesky on 18 occasions (48.65% of RETs; 1.03% of all matches; 1.12% of Brit v Pesky matches)
A Pesky retired against a Brit on 16 occasions (43.24% of RETs; 0.92% of all matches; 1.00% of Brit v Pesky matches)
A Brit retired against a Brit on 3 occasions (8.10% of RETs; 0.17% of all matches; 2.11% of Brit v Brit matches)

In total then, 21 of 37 matches featured a Brit as the RET player (56.76% of RETs; 1.2% of all matches)

So, Brits retired more by all measures, 20% more often than did a pesky. Also, there was that a noticeable bump in all-GB encounters (2 of the 3 RET's in all-GB matches were not in matches held in GB!)

This would all be more meaningful with more years of data. For example, a single player trying to play through injury at severeal points in the year (like Mandy) would affect the sample. That may be true for Pesky's too, but we are unlikely to encounter any individual such player frequently enough in one year to smooth out the inbalance (that player would, by definition not be playing very often, and it is umlikely that all the times that they played AND that they reitred would be against US; whereas all of our RETs from our players do get recorded)

But that's all the data I currently have.