Week 44 - ITF ($25K) - The Wirral, GB

Oakland2002 · All-time great

Week 44 - ITF ($25K) - The Wirral, GB

Helen40 · Grand Slam Champion

flamingowings wrote:
Helen40 wrote:
KK wrote:
Yes, but who know what might happen in the future. I always think you should go for a big win while you can. Laura Robson will always be a junior Wimbledon champion. Eleanor Dean was probably at the same standard at the same age, but was cruely robbed by injuries and will go through life without such a major achievement. (in the tennis field).
So true, it's hard to have that balance of long and short term planning. We didn't expect Laura to be this injury prone, saying that WR 27 wasn't exactly that shabby. Emma looks physically more robust though, so who knows. If only we had crystal balls.
Laura Robson will also always have an Olympic Silver medal as well - which is often overlooked.

I was more thinking of Emma's decisions to try and win high profile junior events or not.

TheTraveller2 · Lower Club Player

KK wrote:
Yes, but who know what might happen in the future. I always think you should go for a big win while you can. Laura Robson will always be a junior Wimbledon champion. Eleanor Dean was probably at the same standard at the same age, but was cruely robbed by injuries and will go through life without such a major achievement. (in the tennis field).

I agree. The level she is playing at should give her opportunities to get to the finals of grand slam juniors and play on the big courts of those great venues. Give it a go for at least another year - getting to those big courts on the real tour is a very different proposition......

foobarbaz · Strong Club Player

Playing at a level she is comfortable at, should allow her to develop the full repertoire of shots in a competitive setting. The key is to prioritise that. That will give benefits down the line, because unpredictability, and variability is a way to break the opponent. An example of that is an outrageous sliced drop shot that Ons Jabeur played recently, but also look at the variety of shots that the top men play. So, moving too quickly through the ranks and playing higher standard opponents too early could stifle a players' development.

KK · Club Coach

I accept that Laura achieved a lot more besides. I used her as an example as Eleanor Dean was of a similar standard at a similar age. Oli Golding would have been a better example. The point I was trying to make was that Eleanor was winning 10K tournaments and had given up playing junior grand slams at a young age. I do hope she doesn't regret not trying to win one. i would in her situation.

Oakland2002 · All-time great

Emma"s teams attitude to playing junior tennis has been quite interesting, she has from the number of tournaments played, played purely for development, not to amass an enormous number of points or specifically to get an inflated junior rank. Partly a product of being good we have seen short bursts of performance at each grade of tournament,

Grade 5: 1 tournament Champion (Nov 15)
Grade 4: 6 tournaments 2 as champion, 2 as finalist, 1 QF, 1 first round loss to Tauson (July 16-Feb 17)

March 17- July 17 mixture Grade 2, Grade 1 then Wimbledon .... big step up driven by LTA opportunity as opposed to team/family planning ?

Grade 2 2 tournaments in Spain on clay, 1st round loss then qualifying loss, (after LTA camp in La Manga?)
Grade 2 2 tournaments Italy and Romania both QF...... likely team choices
Grade 2 Hungary lost first round ... played doubles with Holly (does not generally play doubles ? Prep for later GB rep ?
Grade 1 Charloei again played doubles last 32
Grade 1 Roehampton first round loss
Grade A Wimbledon second round loss.... played doubles

Jan 2018 - Feb
Grade 3 Win
Grade 2 3 wins

SENIOR TENNIS March 2018-May
15 K. 3 tournaments Q(3), MD QF, won

RG junior June 18; 2nd round loss Clauson

100k 1 st round loss in 3 sets
Wim Q 1st round loss in 3 sets

Wimbledon July 18 juniors QF
US Open Sept 18. juniors QF

25K Q2 loss (Sep)
15K win
25k win

Given that Emma is going to be consistently tested at 25k and likely competitive at weaker 60 K's and she struggled really to perform at her best during the summer due to carrying injury it will be very interesting to see the choices she makes...again she will get so many opportunities turning them down maintaining her training patterns and staying fit will be the challenge. Personally I would give the AO a miss, focus on a run of clay 25k's (RG juniors us at such a bad time) Exams!! Grass season .... Wimbledon MD, juniors ..... US 25K"s US Open ( with some A level prep work for start of courses in the Autumn ). I would still seriously consider staying at school for A levels looking at what Dina Asher-Smith has done, I think keeping her brain active has really allowed her to stay focused ... who wouldn't want to train when the alternative is getting your head down to study for A levels or in her case a history degree, its merciful release but actually stops you over training and hurting yourself at a time when the body is still maturing, having a duel focus also very much keeps things in perspective.

Katie Swan when in the same school year was developmentally almost a school year back with her breakthrough juniors wise being the Aussie open juniors making the final, played futures in Egypt and Wimbledon Q in the summer. It's a long way to Aussie in GCSE year just for the junior slam... nice trip but really developmentally she would probably best off doing the run of 25 and 60K's Gabby Taylor doimnated last year which is not a good fit with full time school.

-- Edited by Oakland2002 on Saturday 3rd of November 2018 07:48:15 AM

Helen40 · Grand Slam Champion

Oakland2002 wrote:

Given that Emma is going to be consistently tested at 25k and likely competitive at weaker 60 K's and she struggled really to perform at her best during the summer due to carrying injury it will be very interesting to see the choices she makes...again she will get so many opportunities turning them down maintaining her training patterns and staying fit will be the challenge. Personally I would give the AO a miss, focus on a run of clay 25k's (RG juniors us at such a bad time) Exams!! Grass season .... Wimbledon MD, juniors ..... US 25K"s US Open ( with some A level prep work for start of courses in the Autumn ). I would still seriously consider staying at school for A levels looking at what Dina Asher-Smith has done, I think keeping her brain active has really allowed her to stay focused ... who wouldn't want to train when the alternative is getting your head down to study for A levels or in her case a history degree, its merciful release but actually stops you over training and hurting yourself at a time when the body is still maturing, having a duel focus also very much keeps things in perspective.

Katie Swan when in the same school year was developmentally almost a school year back with her breakthrough juniors wise being the Aussie open juniors making the final, played futures in Egypt and Wimbledon Q in the summer. It's a long way to Aussie in GCSE year just for the junior slam... nice trip but really developmentally she would probably best off doing the run of 25 and 60K's Gabby Taylor doimnated last year which is not a good fit with full time school.

Your points are well made, but I think it's soooo individual, physically, mentally and support wise. Looking at the list of tournaments she's done so far, it looks like they're going for the long game. But then, it may be that culturally they don't want her to miss too much school (In Chinese culture education is paramount). Physically, she's big and muscly already, so may not be as prone as some of her peers to injury. Saying that, I have no idea what/how serious the injury was in the summer. I think it is possible to study and compete, but it takes a special something. Isn't Katie Swan doing an OU course? I remember one of our girls is. But you only get one childhood, so the factors are endless!

TomTraubert · Futures level

Helen40 wrote:
Isn't Katie Swan doing an OU course? I remember one of our girls is. But you only get one childhood, so the factors are endless!

not sure bout swan but harriet explained at wimby this year that she do psychology by distance learn
about 2 third way down http://www.wimbledon.com/en_GB/news/articles/2018-07-02/2018-07-02_harriet_dart_first_round.html