Absolutely. It's gone better than expected and they'll be delighted with British interest in the QF stage, considering we had nobody in the original main draw.
It'll be interesting to see how Jodie gets on next. She does have a tougher match than Maia, against someone who loves playing here even more than Maia herself.
Love all those aces... Someone has really helped strengthen Jodie's game up. I like the way she is looking much more comfortable and confident with herself on the court.
Jodie's always had a really strong game. Like Freya. Like Laura. Similar physiques so not surprising.
But the control, footwork and strategy has been a bit lacking (in all of them). Control is often sacrificed to power, which is fine, and sometimes the desire for control is counter-productive too (Katie B used to play too conservatively) but there is a balance.
That's hopefully what Alex is bringing to Jodie's game.
There is a much better balance to her game now indeed. She has just lost the first set 4-6, but Smitcova is the WR138, and Jodie has been highly competitive against her and matched up to her in rallied much more than I expected. That's huge progress and whatever the outcome from here congrats to her, Alex, and whoever else has provided inputs.
Looking back at the full single's results today, not one match went into a third set, not one set went to a tie break and none of the losing players managed to reach 5 game - got to be one of the quickest set of matches for a while.
Diatchenko and Bolsova dropped only 2 games Zimmermann and Hesse 4 Smitkova, Wickmayer and Tan, 5
Maia's 7 dropped made it look like she struggled in comparison, ha.
Edit - all 4 QFs feature a seed vs non seed. 1,2,3 and 5 all remain.
-- Edited by Ace Ventura on Wednesday 13th of February 2019 03:28:37 PM
In the bottom half of the draw
L16:- Naomi BROADY (GBR)/Storm SANDERS (AUS) UNR (86+UNR-CH=63) defeated Myrtille GEORGES (FRA)/Elixane LECHEMIA (FRA) 666 (434+232) 7-6(4) 6-3