Get in. 7-6 6-4. Highest ranked win since Begu last year. Well done Katie.

That's how to get over the line. Three aces in the final game, one on a second serve. Well played indeed.

What a good win - and what great serving !

Coup Droit wrote:

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Ace Ventura wrote:

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She's up a break in the second set as well.

Hopefully she can get the win here as it's largely been an underwhelming grass period thus far for the younger 100-300 range group. A few things haven't helped like injuries, weather (forcing matches indoors), stronger entry lists and fairly tough draws, but pretty much all of that group, for one reason or another, are down on point won compared to this time last year.

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 And she does, very nicely. 

As you say, AV, hardly been anything to smile about re the young(ish) female players so far in the grass swing.

Lovely to finally have something.....

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Yeah, it's been poor:

Harriet had a W100 SF, QF, QF by now, that's 100 points, she has 1 win and 30 points this year

Katie B obviously hasn't been able to defend the points she won last year

Even Jodie wasn't able to defend the 13 points for her Birm qual win last year when she was ranked around 500

Katy is also down and may not get the chance to defend her Eastbourne Q points next week either (or she might be in W quals)

Katie S has now matched her Surbiton R2, but she is still Nottm R1 (via quals) down from last year, but with the seed now out, hopefully she can add to it. Although she may have the defending champ up next (but hopefully Gabi)

Heather (I'll include her as she is still relevant on the WTA scene, albeit not as young) had an awful grass season last year, but she is still 5 points down so far.

Naiktha has the 1 Birminghan Q win, but she won a match at Nottm Q and 2 at Ilkley Qs last year, so she is also down

Gabi had a relatively poor grass season last year, ending it with 5 losses in a row, but her 2018 Surbiton QF, surpasses her Manchester L16 thus far - hopefully she can pretty much tie that later.

Maia lost both grass matches last year so her indoor win over the post 400 Tara has made her the only one of these 9 in points gain at this stage, and she does have the chance to add to that tomorrow.

 

Injuries are obviously unfortunate, as is drawing a player like Garcia early. Playing Sakkari on grass is generally better for a Brit than playing indoors etc. but this is the one time period of the year where they get opportunities they (or most other players) normally wouldn't, (usually) with crowd support and they are all a year older, so it is a bit disappointing.

However, there's still a week and a half to go though before the big one (although no Southsea this year of course), so hopefully there will be more great wins like this one. Shout out also to the likes of Sam, Naomi and Tara for doing well and better than last year, but it's generally better for British tennis if it was a younger player getting the wins, pushing up the rankings and making themselves more relevant on the world stage.

 

Lost the first set 3-6.

It doesn't really matter now, as there's not as many Brits in Wimbledon MDWC contention this year with Gabi and Naomi falling down the rankings, but Surbiton and Manchester were won by those who had already qualified for Wimbledon. However, Parmentier is obviously out now, as is Brengle, so that's 2 of the 4 players out who were already in Wimbledon. Rybarikova and Manchester champ Linette are the only 2 who remain. They are in separate halves, but I reckon there's a fair chance there will be a MDWC going to an Ilkley competitor.

It was three BPs, Smitkova was 0-40, and then - as you say - the DF on the BP against her

She loses the second set 5-7 and should be pretty cross with herself with the end of that set

Yes, I wasn't sure what the fuss was about - but I did think: who's umpiring this match, Smitkova or the umpire????

There was also a BIG fuss by Smitkova in the game where she went 0-40 down about a linecall.