Weeks 22 & 23 - French Open, Roland-Garros, Paris (clay)

Grachka · Club Coach

Weeks 22 & 23 - French Open, Roland-Garros, Paris (clay)

Oakland2002 · All-time great

I love watching Hev but goodness gracious I am going to have to get my coronary arteries sorted out sooner rather than later. A match of low general quality but I couldnt take my eyes off it. Hev has such obvious strengths but is a bit like the girl with the curl. When shes good shes very very good but when she is bad shes........ and we saw everything this morning. Mertens had lost it and really in the second set Hev just needed to keep the ball in play and we would have been guaranteed a third.

She served really well in the first round but was inconsistent today, but the way Mertens was playing she could have taken a bit off her first serve and just focused on hitting the spots and she would have been in it. Hev has top 30 mobility, backhand, and overhead game her serve when in the groove is also fit for purpose similarly the forehand consistency is the issue. Who is coaching her now? Is it still Morgan Phillips?

indiana · Tennis legend

13 of the top 16 seeds reach R3 ( #15 Vandeweghe now joining the two top 16 seeds from Jo's section, #5 Ostapenko and #9 V Williams, in departing ). And 21 of the 32 seeds are through.

indiana · Tennis legend

Decent looking 3 set win for Serena over Ash Barty.

I don't see her going all the way but she is in a quite interesting section of the draw :

(11) Georges vs S Williams
(28) Sharapova vs (6) Ka Pliskova

the addict · Tennis legend

Barty missed a chance there, could (should IMO) have won that in straight sets.
Next match (or two) is going to be much harder.

ROSAMUND · Futures level

Coup Droit wrote:
ROSAMUND wrote:
Coup Droit wrote:
ROSAMUND wrote:
Tennis Nut wrote:
LTA nothing to do with this.
Quoting Mike Dickson he says Jo deserves a degree of sympathy for having to carry home hopes in solitary fashion at the top of the women's game in the UK. This is because the LTA system with masses of money over the years cannot produce the players!
Completely agree about the LTA's failings.
But it is no excuse for Jo.
Ostapenko carried the home hopes in pretty much solitary fashion last year (certainly as much if not more that Jo) and did fine !
Halep isn't far off.
There are many countries with only one real contender.
Home players are under extra pressure at their home tournament.
But Jo has no one to blame but herself for doing so poorly at RG
Re countries carrying hopes in solitary fashion, back in the dim and distant past , Ann Jones was happy when Virginia Wade appeared on the scene because it relieved some of the pressure on her and similarly Virginia Wade was happy when Sue Barker appeared. Simona Halep might be Rumania's only realistic hope of carrying off a major championship but Rumania does at least have Cirstea, Begu, Buzarnescu, Niculescu and Bogdan likely to make Grand Slam main draws by right. I would be happy if GB had the equivalent.

I'm sure Ann and Ginny and others were happy when others came along to share the load.
Just as I'm sure Andy would have been happy if there had been another GB top-30 player in the men's over the last 8 years or so.
But there wasn't and Andy got on with it.
As did Azarenka, and Wozniacki, and Svitolina, and lots of others who carry more pressure than Jo as practically single-handedly representing their country.
In fact, I think there's been remarkably little coverage of RG here compared to other countries (presumably because Andy is not playing)
This will change with Wimbledon but Dickson cannot claim that there has been huge pressure on Jo (I'm sure Jo wouldn't claim it herself) - having Greek friends, the amount of press pressure on Tsip. and Sakkari - again, sole holders of the flame pretty much for their country - is immense in comparison.

Re players representing their countries single-handedly, Svitolina has support. She has failed in Paris but Tsurenko has reached the last 16. Similarly Kostyuk reached the third round in Australia. With Azarenka,Govortsova was around to supply some support and reached the last 16 at Wimbledon in 2015. Azarenka has successors in Sabalenka and Sasnovich who have already played in a Fed Cup final. I accept that Wozniacki is Denmark's only player of note. Basically Britain has only had 2 players representing us since 2014 in Jo and Heather. Where are their successors? We only have 1 representative in the girls junior championships in Paris.

flamingowings · All-time great

Rosamund - in junior yes, 1 rep. But we have Gabi and the Katie's all coming along nicely around the 200 mark. They will be the more immediate successors to Jo and Heather.

indiana · Tennis legend

I see that Jo's R1 conqueror, Putintseva, has beaten (26) Strycova ( from early on the one remaining seed in that section ) in straight sets. Meets (13) Keys in the QF.

Ace Ventura · Tennis legend

Not sure if this should go here or in the junior section, maybe both, but Emma is on the Eurosport Player now and has just taken the first set 6-4 and has just boken for *1-0 in th second. Just started watching about 10 mins ago, but looks like comfortable and Emma has taken 36-22 of the points so far. Mind, the one game I did watch she was 0-30 down when trying to serve it out and there were a few breaks of serve in the first set.

Ace Ventura · Tennis legend

Ah, just seen there is discussion in that section so that'll be the last I post of it in here.

ROSAMUND · Futures level

indiana wrote:
I see that Jo's R1 conqueror, Putintseva, has beaten (26) Strycova ( from early on the one remaining seed in that section ) in straight sets. Meets (13) Keys in the QF.

Well at least Putintseva didn't disappear in the 2nd round. She actually reached the quarter finals in 2016 as well where she took Serena Williams to 3 sets.