Coup Droit wrote:

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ROSAMUND wrote:

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Tennis Nut wrote:

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LTA nothing to do with this. 

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 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! 

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 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.

 

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Coup Droit wrote:

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ROSAMUND wrote:

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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 

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 If Jo has no one to blame but herself  for doing so poorly  at RG why is anybody calling for her to replace Mike Joyce? Secondly the media cottoned on to the fact that she had not won a match at Roland Garros  but she also lost her first 4 singles matches at Wimbledon  between 2012 and 2015. Nobody seemed to harp on about this at the time but this was probably because her ranking was a lot lower and she didn't get the attention she gets these days. Additionally in the years  2012, 2013 and 2015 the media was more interested in Laura Robson.

Dodin gifts Hev a break at the beginning of the second.

*3-0

ROSAMUND wrote:

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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.

 

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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.

 

*5-0

Just super.

Océane is such a moody Miss I can't help it - I just like it when she loses.

And being estranged from the the FFT meant there was always the chance she would not want to really play ball.

Lovely result for Heather - and a nice GB crowd there, from the sound of it.