Not a great draw for Emily. She had a much better opportunity to win finally a W25 MD match last week and didn't, so I don't expect her to either this week.
R32: Emily APPLETON (GBR) 721 vs Riya BHATIA (IND) [8] 515 (CH:510 August 17)
I didn't see the odds last week against the lower ranked Russian player, but I see Emily has opened up as a 1/3 favourite here, the Indian is 9/4, so if anyone fancies Emily's dire W25 run to continue, there's an opportunity to benefit from it financially. They are down to play on the Wednesday.
Judging by that, Emily ranged from 1.3-1.36 and Gabeuva 3-3.2 last week, which roughly translates to 1/3 vs 9/4 or 4/11 v 11/5, so again Emily was the favourite, but didn't deliver, so may well be priced far too short again.
I didn't see the odds last week against the lower ranked Russian player, but I see Emily has opened up as a 1/3 favourite here, the Indian is 9/4, so if anyone fancies Emily's dire W25 run to continue, there's an opportunity to benefit from it financially. They are down to play on the Wednesday.
Well, Emily came closer in the first set than I was expecting. She was in fact up 4-2 5-3 and 6-5, serving for the set twice. In the 6-5 service game she served 3 DFs, suggesting she tightened up massively, and then lost the TB easily 6-7(4).
There were 3 breaks of serve each, so appear to be evenly matched, but if Emily comes back from blowing this set I'll be very surprised.
And congrats here to Emily App, who has made the doubles final with Catherine Harrison. She might not have won a W25 MD singles match yet, but good to see her making progress at doubles at least. Up against Paige Hourigan again in the final.
The strange thing is she has beaten some seemingly OK players at W15 level this year who have went on to do something at W25 level. She beat Hourigan in Mexico a couple of months ago (admittedly via a late retirement, 4-2 in the second, so Paige may not have been firing), but she has made the singles SF here. She beat the higher ranked Perper who has won matches at W25 level since, including Jerusalem this week, but as soon as it's in a W25 event, she seems to crumble, even if she was beating that type of player at W15 level. Maybe there is a bit of psychology involved, because the likes of Gabueva who she lost to last week has played the majority of her most recent matches at W15 level.
She was made the 1/3 pre match favourite in both of her Singapore R1 defeats, so there must be some kind of variable to set those odds that way. It's obviously low level, non mainstream stuff, but the bookies still won't want to keep paying out 9/4 for the opponent too many more times going forward.
Much better in the second set for Emily and Catherine, but not quite close enough. A good result though, if only Emily could take her doubles form/confidence into her singles more effectively...
F: Emily APPLETON/ Catherine HARRISON (GBR/USA) 997 (464+533) lost to Paige HOURIGAN/ Aldila SUTJIADI (NZL/INA) [1] 458 (169+289) 1-6 6-7(5)