Week 17 - ITF ($25K) - Obidos, Portugal Carpet

indiana · Tennis legend

Week 17 - ITF ($25K) - Obidos, Portugal Carpet

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

Real pleased for Beth.

vohor · Grand Slam Champion

Great win for Beth :D

jb288 · Satellite level

Yes, chuffed to bits for Beth! Seems like someone working super hard to maximise their potential...a Katie O'Brien for our times ;)

indiana · Tennis legend

To confirm, the top seeds are into the doubles final.

SF: (1) Freya Christie & An-Sophie Mestach (BEL) CR 529 (383+146) best Luniuska Delgado & Rosa Vicens Mas (ESP) UNR 6-3 6-2

The other SF is scheduled for Friday.

Ace Ventura · Tennis legend

Interesting match up tomorrow and while it would have been nice for both to have a chance of reaching the SF, I'm kind of pleased they are playing each other.

You'd expect Katie to win and although playing a compatriot, she would have certainly taken playing someone ranked outside the top 600 in the QF of a 25k. As for Grey, she has done really well even beating Freya and then a seed to compliment her excellent recent doubles success.

Who do those who don't necessarily favour either player want to win?

Oakland2002 · All-time great

Katie purely because she has top 100 potential and I would like to see her realise it ASAP, ie. get back into the top 20 rank by age pronto. I agree Beth is punching well above her weight (perhaps she has found a new one!) and has a great week, I am very pleased for her, the difference is for Katie to have a good tournament she needs to win it!

Ace Ventura · Tennis legend

Oakland2002 wrote:
Katie purely because she has top 100 potential and I would like to see her realise it ASAP, ie. get back into the top 20 rank by age pronto. I agree Beth is punching well above her weight (perhaps she has found a new one!) and has a great week, I am very pleased for her, the difference is for Katie to have a good tournament she needs to win it!

That's kind of my thoughts. Given her ranking, Beth would have been a clear underdog against most of the other 7 remaining girls, if not all, so at least here we are guaranteed 1 semi finalist, whereas had Swan been up against a Ula Radwanska or the seed Beth put out, then both way well have fallen. As she's the 3rd seed, any thing less than SF is under par and while she certainly could do with winning it, a final would still be decent. If she could end her Portugal trip with a narrow SF and a F appearance then it's largely a decent trip. First week was obviously a let down.

indiana · Tennis legend

Yes I still certainly do think Katie S has at least top 100 potential.

In the live under 20 rankings she is currently #32. However with her having just turned 19 last month there are only 15 younger players ahead of her with the other 16 being older 19 yos.

Still hope to see her rise further against some of these players and not 'just' rise up the U20 rankings as slightly older players leave their teens behind them. Must be looking to be well inside the top 20 U20s before her own 20th birthday.

Current #20 U20 is live ranked 213. I would think she would be looking to be top 200 before her 20th birthday and that looks like that in itself may well have her inside that top 20. I had enough confidence in that to predict her ending this season at WR 188, so into the top 200 still a number of months before turning 20.

The main thing of course is that her game develops strongly but overall rankings and comparative peer rankings are some real indication of such progress.

Michael D · All-time great

Livestream is on and suggests that Katie S's and Beth's warm up may begin in the near future. Katie is already there, Beth has just arrived. It seems this will be the first match to start at the once more weather affected venue.

Ace Ventura · Tennis legend

First game just stated. Thought these were meant to be scheduled for the morning.

Michael D · All-time great

Ace Ventura wrote:
First game just stated. Thought these were meant to be scheduled for the morning.

Weather, as ever there. It takes those 'carpet' courts a while to dry out.

Beth holds first up, 1-0*

Ace Ventura · Tennis legend

Michael D wrote:
Ace Ventura wrote:
First game just stated. Thought these were meant to be scheduled for the morning.
Weather, as ever there. It takes those 'carpet' courts a while to dry out.
Beth holds first up, 1-0*

Thought it must have been weather related but there was no sign of rain when I did the usual Obidos weather search or at least not as obvious as other times these past 3 weeks.

blob · All-time great

Quite entertaining.
Ms. Swan closing in on victory, perhaps, 6-1 6-5*

blob · All-time great

Sarah Beth has a strange vulnerability: if you play a ball where she requires to move 3, 4 paces or more, her footwork is good, and she goes, gets the ball. However, if you hit the ball back to her, almost where she is, a few times in a row, she sort of stays where she was for the first shot, and doesn't move her feet. By the time of the third shot she's far enough out of podition that she plays the shot with almost entirely her arm, and invariably nets becasue of the poor mechanics that invokes.

MP Swan... 40-30*