Thanks Michael. I think I won a few people round with my vocal support.

It was a really enjoyable match. I also saw the first set of Beth and Olivia and the difference in the weight and depth of shot between the two matches was striking! Its been a good day out. Gutted they were no British singles players left to watch. But I guess thats largely because the best players have been upgraded to Eastbourne and Southsea. Off to Eastbourne on Friday!

Re the double foot fault call against Fran, just a few comments.

Firstly, and obviously, I might be wrong. I am sure I'm not but I expect (and hope) the linesman is sure he's not too. So maybe I'm mistaken.

But there are several other valid points:

1. It's pretty rare that a player footfaults on both first and second serves. In general, the action is quite different and this applies even to the feet. So a player may do it on one sort of serve but not the other.

2. It's rare too that players ever footfault on second serves anyway. Generally, it's a shot where you throw the ball behind your head, and lean backwards, to generate top spin. So you can't footfault. Unlike the first serve where you throw it in front and throw your body forward and so it's easy to footfault.

3. Having been called once, you're ultra careful next time. Fran took longer positioning her feet. So footfaulting on the very next serve seems way more unlikely than normal.

4. Fran was utterly convinced - she tried showing the linesman how it wasn't possible, with they way she plants her foot and swivels. Of course, she might be wrong too but I don't think so.

5. Having got my national umpire thingy in France, I know that you're taught to call the rules as you see them BUT to also be attune/empathetic to the nature of the game.
Your job is to officiate, not to be officious. It's not the same.
So if the linesman is 100% sure it was a footfault he should call it, no matter if she is young, British, whatever..... But given that it was absolutely borderline at very best (or not at all, in my view), then he should have erred on the side of caution.

6. Lastly, he even said it with a sort of glee. Difficult to describe but, to me, it sounded like 'ha ha, caught you out'.

In short, I don't think it cost Fran the match (unlike the awful line call that effectively cost Josh Milton the match a few years ago).
But it was ridiculous, unnecessary, in my view wrong, and generally bad officiating.

Coup Droit wrote:

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The big talking point though is Holly.

For anyone who doesn't know tennis (or maybe for those who do) you'd have though to call the Child Protection Authorities. From an outside view, it wasn't far short of child abuse. What the public saw was a skinny young girl, with her arm heavily bandaged, with a truly miserable look, getting thoroughly trounced, publicly, in front of 150 people.

My feeling was that either she was in pain (in which case don't play), or was fed up with tennis (in which case don't play) or - if she WAS happy and OK - then her level was MILES off (in which case, don't play).

Now, Holly supposedly is very reserved so maybe her 'face' is misleading, so to speak. Indeed, one tennis adult said she is very difficult to talk to, she won't make eye contact, won't talk to you. Now this might be normal for certain teenage lads but for a pretty, sporty, successful teenage girl, that strikes me as odd and worrying. (Added to which, apparently she has nothing to do with any of the GB players, either face to face or on social media, she's cut herself off completely).

And it wasn't just her face but her demeanor. Two old ladies next to me said 'well, you'd think she'd at least try a bit more'. And you knew what they meant - it was like she was going through the motions.

Re her arm, it's very heavily strapped from forearm up to bicep. A European physio person said, while watching her, that she seemed to have hypermobile joints. If that's true, she has a heap of problems ahead But the physio woman only said it as possibility (something about how her shoulders turn inside out a bit when she serves) and may well be wrong.

She has certain technical quirks, though - mainly on her serve and her forehand. And they're not good quirks. Partly because of this, certain bods were critical of her US set-up (although maybe sour grapes?) regarding her coaching, playing plan etc. etc.

And again, it was another player who seemingly had done no grass court prep and it showed.

But, really, the question was why on earth did that girl get a wildcard, why did her parents/coach let her accept it, and why didn't the social services stop the match before the end and put her (and the rest of us) out of our misery.....

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 Maybe Holly has morphed into a sulky teenager but the real youngster I remember in the junior ranks was very confident and full of herself.