Portugal moves onto a different venue, and a hard court surface which seems more weather appropriate.
Emilie Lind Gallagher here chasing her elusive third counter to gain a WTA ranking, from her current absolutely zero status with no national ranking. She will have to qualify the hard way though, inevitably drawn in the same section as the top q seed, who seems a wild card entrant too, as she was not on the entry list - Linnea Malmqvist (SWE) WR878. Also in the same section is an 18yr old Brit, Worthy Goldman, who is a new name to me. Iman Garshong and Amelia Stuart are also in qualifying; everyone in the first q round is unranked.
There is certainly no chance that Worthy will ever experience an Emily Smith type double identity
And I've just realised she and her opponent have byes into QR2, so its just the other 3 that have QR1 matches. Should Emilie win, then she will play Linea Malmqvist, the top q seed, and then the FQR will be against the winner of Worthy's match. Amelia Stuart has the easiest section as there are no seeds in it, ie no ranked players.
Well Emilie has won her QR1 match but closer than I expected against an unranked player, but then looked and although 20 now, Anastasia does have a JCH 270 from Feb 15. A good win for Iman too, and Amelia's score has still to come.
QR1: Emilie LIND GALLAGHER (GBR) UNR beat Anastasia RENTOULI (GRE) UNR 3-6 6-3 6-2
QR1: Worthy GOLDMAN (GBR) UNR 18yrs vs BYE
QR1: Iman GARSHONG (GBR) UNR 18yrs beat Madalena AMIL (POR) UNR 16yrs (JCH: 2298 Jan 18) 6-3 6-1
QR1: Amelia STUART (GBR) UNR vs Oana IRIMESCU (ROU) UNR
QR2: Emilie LIND GALLAGHER (GBR) UNR vs Linnea MALMQVIST (SWE) [q1] 878 (CH:681 Aug 17)
QR2: Worthy GOLDMAN (GBR) UNR 18yrs vs Madison WESTBY (USA) UNR
QR2: Iman GARSHONG (GBR) UNR 18yrs vs Olga HELMI (SWE) [q4] 1174=CH 18yrs (JCH:169 Jan 18)
She went to NAU in the states. (Apparently, her younger brother is called 'Winworth' - I see a family pattern there!)
Ellie Millard is also at Northern Arizona she played in Essen last week. Northern Arizona play in the Big Sky conference made up of 12 teams. It gets one bid to the NCAA tournament this year Northern Arizona who were seeded No 1 lost out to Idaho. Their assistant coach was the mountain region assistant coach of the year, Northern Arizona have a strong women's team including another Brit Worthy Goldman . So not a bad place to be to improve your tennis but not necessarily a spring board to the WTA. A big College with other 30,000 students! Also at altitude which must confer an advantage home and away.
-- Edited by Oakland2002 on Saturday 16th of June 2018 07:55:18 PM
amelia done won 3 in a row for the 1st time ever to come thru qualies also for the 1st time ever
come back from a 1st set bagel today to!!! and NOW she gets her shot at a point lol