Week 15 - ITF (W25) - Sunderland, GB - Hard Indoor

Ace Ventura · Tennis legend

Week 15 - ITF (W25) - Sunderland, GB - Hard Indoor

Ace Ventura · Tennis legend

Crucial break for Harriet and hopefully she can carry the momentum forward. *4-3.

She did of course drop the first set when they last played in France 3 weeks ago, so hopefully a similar story here.

the addict · Tennis legend

Just started watching. Whatever happened at the end of the first set/start of the second. Only 4 points to Harriet in 5 games ?

Michael D · All-time great

MTO for Harriet now, not at the races in this final set. Paar has a good weight of shot which Harriet is finding not easy to deal with in the rallies 5-7 6-4 *1-4

Peter too · Tennis legend

F: DART, Harriet (GBR) 1 135 lost to PAAR, Laura-Iona (ROU) Q 378 5-7 6-4 2-6

-- Edited by Peter too on Sunday 14th of April 2019 03:24:48 PM

Ace Ventura · Tennis legend

So the wait for a WTA point scoring 2019 single's title goes on (unless we try and claim Naiktha's Mildura success). A contrast in circumstances to last week when it was a GB qualifier going up against the top seed in the final, this time it was the other way round. A bit disappointing, especially with Harriet beating her a few weeks ago (also 3 sets), but at least she has strung some wins together and the 30 points is the equivalent of her going to Lugano and winning a first round match, so they will come in handy.

Well done Paar, that's a big win / tournament for her, her biggest title of her career, a month shy of her 31st birthday.

indiana · Tennis legend

Coup Droit wrote:
Ace Ventura wrote:
Harriet underway with an immediate break *1-0.

Surprised both finals are on at the same time, especially on adjacent courts.
I've been to several events in the UK that do this.
It really annoys me.
I think it's disrespectful to both finals.
And certainly puts me off going, if it's quite a long way off.

Yes on each point.

On being disrespectful to all finalists. It's a let's get this over with and out of here schedule. Or do too many have planes to catch in different GB events?!

And on an indoor hard court so no possible weather issue and supposedly with the LTA having a remit to spread tennis they schedule matches in a way that will clearly put some people off attending cry

Kind of goes back to earlier comments about apparently no serious attempt ( or attempt at all? ) to get ball kids on Easter Holidays. Chance to involve and interest youngsters lost.

I think the pretty poor attendance earlier in the week has been mentioned. I'll take a stab that that is not in spite of being well advertised.

JonH · All-time great

Further to some of the discussion on this thread, here is the USTA FO wildcard challenge format for 2019

www.usta.com/en/home/pro/pro-tennis-events/roland-garros-wild-card-challenge.html

Ace Ventura · Tennis legend

Quite interesting that the French are also applying a similar strategy to their WCs on the women's side. They are offering 2 MDWCs based on merit - one for the highest cumulative scorer of 7 French ITFs this year - 4 25ks, 2 60ks and 1 100k, so they generally will be stronger line ups than just a bunch of 25ks, as will JonH's US example as they are largely 80 and 100k events, so should feature better players, but if we incorporated say Surbiton and Manchester, then it would work a lot better.

They are also giving one to the person highest in the Race, who is not in the main draw by right, which again is good as you are picking those most in form - Harriet would currently get that if Wimbledon were to do that.

Certainly something they could think about for next year.

JonH · All-time great

I agree , Ace, I would like to see our mens and womens wild cards awarded in a much more transparent fashion and linked to form and results.

For the 8 wild cards I would like to see:

1-3 - the ITF grass events (women) / Challenger Mens

4-5 - the Best British performers on some sort of points system (WTA/ATP I guess a la USA) for the top Brits in the grass events (including main tour and qualies, ITF/Challengers) and maybe take that back to the 4 hard court ITF events earlier in the year.

6-7 based on top ATP/WTA race players ytd not already qualified as of right or by above methods.

8 - junior winner from 2018

If places still available, any Brits not qualified who are in top 200 by ranking order...

It would probably still be the same players but it gives everyone a chance and also creates that narrative for the British places in terms of the events being held in the run up to Wimbledon.

As an aside, the LTA got rid of the rule around top 250 in 2015 and has a much wider freer policy now, I think people still believe the top 250 rule exists but it doesnt appear to (unless the snuck it back in with Scott Lloyd but I cant see anything to suggest they have)

www.theguardian.com/sport/2015/feb/10/lta-wimbledon-wild-card-policy