Week 24 - ITF ($25K) - Obidos, Portugal - Carpet

Mervatron2 · Futures level

Week 24 - ITF ($25K) - Obidos, Portugal - Carpet

Ace Ventura · Tennis legend

Hadn't heard of this opponent and may well be a future world beater as far as I know, but on paper, no junior pedigree and below Maia and Fran (same age) in the rankings, they do seem poor defeats. 1 win for Fran and 2 for Maia in 2 events isn't brilliant. Probably should have stuck with the grass qualifiers.

paulisi · Tennis legend

Disagree - better chance of getting points at a weak 25k than having to go through qualifying at a 100k

Strongbow · All-time great

Right tournament - wrong result. **it happens wink

Ace Ventura · Tennis legend

Interesting to see the person who put them both out lost routinely to 26 year old Parrizas-Diaz 6-2 6-2 in the QF today. Diaz is ranked 4 places higher than Maia at #424.

They and their team will obviously know their game far more than me and know where they are likely to pick up more points and where they are bet suited, but they are the only 2 that haven't played grass so far this season and pretty much everyone else in the GB top 25-30 have played at least 1 event on the surface. The likes of Jodie, Emily App, Freya, Beth, Eden S all similarly ranked (to Maia) chose to stay here with mixed fortunes and others lower ranked like Eden R and Ella gained significant points.

I just feel with overall GB events reducing and bar a couple of 25k's at the start of the year and later in the year, this is the only time the tour is over here. Maia would have likely had MDWCs anyway and had she got Beth's Manchester 1st round draw she would have been buzzing.

Looks like Maia will be in Ilkley qualifying so will be interesting to see how she gets on there, but bar the odd win here and there, it has been a bit of a disappointing few months for her since reaching the Glasgow final.

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

Yes, I agree.
Although one can argue that the 100ks are too rich for some of our players (I liked it when Surbiton was a 50k), they can spend the rest of the year doing 15ks, or 25ks, or whatever the new format is - now is the only month of the year for the GB players to showcase their tennis to a home crowd, and home bigwigs, and home sponsors.
Easy to criticise, of course, when it's all gone pear-shaped taking the other approach, but why wouldn't you play the run here?

Strongbow · All-time great

Maia is only a few points off her CH of 420. Until recently she was part of a crowd of players in the 500-650 band. To have progressed so far that she could be GB #10 is a huge acheivement. As long as nobody expects too much she'll be fine.