Fran goes one better than last week playing to seeding and beating players ranked 5,3 and 2 in the final rounds. Also impressively only one match going to three sets!
Week 31 proved to be a prolific week for juniors stepping up to play senior tennis: Sasha Hill (17) made a fantastic debut reaching the Final and still going !!! of a 15 k and created a career high win beating a player just outside the top 600 which may take some beating! However she will now have the opportunity in the final!
SF: HILL, Sasha (GBR) UNR (JCH 377) beat ROBBE, Alice (FRA) UNR 18yo JCH=608 6-3, 7-6(4)
F: HILL, Sasha (GBR) UNR lost to APPLETON, Emily 1 (GBR) 613 4-6, 3-6
Fran made excellent progress in the Woking 25K knocking out the top seed and a top 300 player in the first round but loosing in R2 to a resurgent Freya. I think a bit of familiarity and a determination not to loose to a younger Brit may have helped Freya to focus in what was a hard fought R2 battle.
Don't know quite why you've only put those three from the Woking qualis - are you just putting those who get a win? If so, you've missed Martina.
But seems a little unfair as the others are 'juniors playing professional tennis' too, even if they lost in QR1 (and it was a 25k).
The others (and well done to them for having a go) include:
Eloise Saraty, Olivia Elliott, Martina Paladini Jennings (who got a win in QR1 and lost in QR2) and Olivia Sonnekus Williams
Apologies to the girls I missed it was unintentional and early on a Saturday morning.
CD by all means add anything I miss, that would be the emotionally intelligent think to do it is quite an undertaking and by all means feel free to put the boys up separately. If you havent I will do later I need a bit of breakfast!
Congrats to Jack (age 16, 2001) on his first ATP point. And to George (age 17, 2001) for a good (nearly very good) tournament. Ewen (age 18, 2000) came through three rounds of qualis but couldn't quite get that R1 win:
Belgium:
R1: (wc) Jack DRAPER (GBR) 6-1 5-7 6-3 Juan Carlos SAEZ (CHI) [2]
R2:(q) Stefano BALDONI (ITA) 6-3 6-4 (wc) Jack DRAPER (GBR)
Finland:
R1: George LOFFHAGEN (GBR) [7] 6-1 6-0 Kristofer SIIMAR (EST)
R2: George LOFFHAGEN (GBR) [7] 6-2 6-2 Panu VIRTANEN (FIN)
A few debuts in qualifying this week and Olivia put up some strong resistance after her win in Ilkley last week, but Fran the only representative in the main draw unfortunately having to face the world no 106 but I suppose what doesnt kill you makes you stronger?
Q1: BISSETT, Amelia (GBR) WC UNR lost to EKSHIBAROVA, Vlada (ISR) 1 495 1-6 2-6 Q1: ELLIOTT, Olivia (GBR) WC UNR lost to GIOVINE, Claudia (ITA) 12 657 3-6 6-7(1) has Q1: CHRISTIE, Freya (GBR) 9 562 def ALLEN, Victoria (GBR) UNR 6-3 6-0 Q1: PITAK, Aleksandra (GBR) def SILVA, Eden (GBR) 4 516 6-1 2-1 Ret. Q1: TAYLOR, Ella (GBR) 16 838 def PALADINI JENNINGS, Martina (GBR) UNR 6-0 6-0 Q1: BARNETT, Alicia (GBR) 5 536 def DALEY, Danielle (GBR) WC UNR 6-0 6-1 Q1: MALAZONIA, Tamara (GBR) WC UNR lost to BRONZETTI, Lucia (ITA) 8 557 3-6 0-6 Q1: MARTINS, Destinée (GBR) UNR lost to PIVOVAROVA, Anastasia (RUS) 10 643 0-6 7-6(1) 1-6
Q2: PITAK, Aleksandra (GBR) lost to TAYLOR, Ella (GBR) 16 838 2-6, 0-6
R1: JONES, Francesca (GBR) 466 lost to Diatchenko, Vitalia (RUS) 1 106 CH=71 2014 1-6, 2-6
In contrast on the boys side some significant progress for Aidan and George both back on the winning trail, a break through for Jack after an excellent early summer. This included a two set win against the top 500 ranked no 1 seed Jack kept going to the SF where he retired after loosing the first set. Some good wins and plenty of tennis played by our top junior boys this week.
Generally I worry a little that some of our juniors for all the right reasons get opportunities that they are desperate to take and play on when injured perhaps not even being completely honest with their coaches. As a consequence they do enough damage to have to stop playing. Generally I am not a big fan of playing through injuries until physical maturity. There is no net gain in doing so.
-- Edited by Oakland2002 on Tuesday 21st of August 2018 07:05:14 PM
Yes. As stated before, one of the top LTA coaches actually asked Emma Rad at the Bank of England club how her tendonitis was, Emma said 'all right ish, not too bad' or something like that and he said 'yes, well, absolutely everyone has a bit of tendonitis, it's normal'.....
Now, maybe he was trying to reassure her because she was about to play a match but, frankly, I thought it pretty cavalier.
As you say, playing through pain for juniors just leads to problems.
(Not saying that this necessarily applies to Emma, by the way, no idea, she might be fine and just taking a long holiday/training or whatever......)
-- Edited by Coup Droit on Tuesday 21st of August 2018 07:16:09 PM
Yes. As stated before, one of the top LTA coaches actually asked Emma Rad at the Bank of England club how her tendonitis was, Emma said 'all right ish, not too bad' or something like that and he said 'yes, well, absolutely everyone has a bit of tendonitis, it's normal'.....
Now, maybe he was trying to reassure her because she was about to play a match but, frankly, I thought it pretty cavalier.
As you say, playing through pain for juniors just leads to problems.
(Not saying that this necessarily applies to Emma, by the way, no idea, she might be fine and just taking a long holiday/training or whatever......)
Thank CD. I hadn't realised that she had tendonitis as I've only really been following her since the FO, and hadn't thought to look at the junior threads to get info.
That makes sense, I agree that there's time enough to not play tournies and concentrate on getting your game and body to be the best they can within your limitations. I do believe she's a great prospect for the future though, and I love her work ethic.
Congrats to young Oscar Weightman, age 16, who got his first ranking today, singles ATP 1617
And mega congrats, of course, to Jack Draper for his back-to-back ITF 15k titles - a brilliant performance - and giving him a 24/09/18 ranking of ATP 784 (and counting)
George Loffhagen is at 836 and Anton Matusevich at 1573
In the doubles, we have rankings of 1468 for Brandon Murphy, Connor Thomson and Jacob Fearnley.
And congrats equally to Emilie Lindh who also gets her first adult singles ranking today, WTA 1057
Nell Miller is 1229, Emma Raducanu is 822, and Fran Jones is 472
Emilie Lindh is also now ranked in doubles, 1190, a great double.
Equally, Olivia Sonnekus-Williams is 1241, Danielle Daley is 1322, and Ola Pitak is 1289.