Lol.

#UAEsNumberOne

In all seriousness (although who knows...), it is a great opportunity for her, although it is a P5 this year so she could well be facing someone even tougher than Diyas (can't remember what she was ranked last year) but I think circa 55 is the main draw cut off.

I can't find the draw, it's not on tennisforum, wiki and can't see it on Twitter, but on paper, bar another random QWC, I'd imagine that will be as good as she could have hoped for. Someone struggling, retired in her last match and pulled out of Fed Cup. She'll still be about 8/1 mind.

Edit - Ah, I've saw it now and it's nothing like as strong as I thought it was going to be - I forgot about the Hungarian Open which has loads of 55-90 ranked players which I thought would all be in here. Babos is the 9th seed, so it could have been a lot, lot better, but I'm sure she'll give it a good go. Even missed TA pointing out that she was the 9th Q seed  

 

-- Edited by Ace Ventura on Thursday 14th of February 2019 02:08:26 PM

the addict wrote:

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ITF acceptance list still showing only 14 in the main draw, 2 SE's and 5 ITF, with no JE. And Maia still showing at Q3. So I hope the SE's and JE aren't needed - wish they'd sort out the JE position at least.

I was expecting to see the WC nominations by now.

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 They don't tend to publish WC in advance unless there is a pro active media team like Shrewsbury.

If I'm reading it correctly.

6 qualifiers from 24 entries

4 wildcards

5 Itf entries

Leaving 17 main draw entries if no SE are required.

That means Maia is definitely in. Assuming Jodie has a main draw wildcard that frees up another qualifying place, which means Lowest, Freya and Tara are all in qualifying. Laura may get in directly as well if 2 of the above are given wildcards.

I'd expect to see at least one junior in the qualis as a wildcard - maybe Destinee? Although maybe Ali Collins takes the 'sort-of-junior' spot.....

I see Miriam Bulgaru is in the final qualifying spot and is currently underway in her 15k quarter final match. It is in Tunisia (different continent) so I'm not sure if she would be eligible for one of the 2 SE spots if she reached the final? I assume not, but it would probably be better for the GB girls. It shouldn't affect anybody getting into anything as Maia is currently next in and there are 2 spots, and it also would mean that somebody ranked circa 500 would be in the main draw rather than someone circa 300, which would likely be an easier match if one of our 6 MD (plus any potential qualifiers) drew her in the first round. Doubt UK based Bolkvadze would see if this way mind as she would be the one to potentially miss out.

 

Edit - after all that, Bulgaru lost her QF match despite being the 1/3 pre match favourite, so we can rule that out.

-- Edited by Ace Ventura on Friday 15th of February 2019 11:00:47 AM

Q draw is out. Looks like it's Freya, Jodie, Laura and Emma for MDWC's.

Interesting that there's no Sam Murray in the qualifying draw as she was ranked higher than both Ella and Emily in the alts list. Freya and Jodie will surely have WCs and I assumed Laura and Emma would have the other 2 as they were both due to play, but perhaps one of them has dropped out, or more likely, Sam just withdrew or wasn't on site to take advantage of drop outs.

As for the main draw. Lumsden and Bolkvadze aren't in qualifying as expected so that'll probably mean no SE's were used. No Cindy Burger or Jacqueline Christian in quals either, so that would suggest to me that 2 have withdrawn from the main draw - hopefully not Fran or Maia. If I was guessing I'd say Krejcikova as her Insta had 'finally feeling better' suggesting that she is recovering from her illness (which stopped her playing Tara in Slovakia last week) and didn;t make it - she would have been 3rd seed, so likely that a stronger player isn't playing which should make things a bit easier for our girls. With back to back 60k titles, it wouldn't be a shock if Diatchenko withdrew as well, because she is back in the top 100 now.

No Scholsen or Colmegna in the Q draw which has allowed a couple of additional GB in the quals draw. Emily App was well down the Q list, so I'd imagine she would have just been on site and fortuitously signed in, saving a WC in the process.