Week 31 - WTA Premier ($876k) - San Jose, USA - Hard

flamingowings · All-time great

Week 31 - WTA Premier ($876k) - San Jose, USA - Hard

Ace Ventura · Tennis legend

That's a pretty fair draw as SaiSai is on a losing streak, has a fair few points to come off, and a lot of the points on her tally (around 400) have come from pretty weak ITF events in her home country. Not saying Hev will win as she hasn't exactly been inspiring this year, but could have been a lot worse. Good luck to her.

flamingowings · All-time great

Heather is also in the doubles draw.

L16: Erin Routliffe & Sabrina Santamaria (AUS/USA) vs Heather Watson and Ellen Perez (AUS)

-- Edited by flamingowings on Sunday 28th of July 2019 09:01:35 PM

Ace Ventura · Tennis legend

Vekic has just about got over the line, so Hev should be on soon.

PaulM · Tennis legend

*3-5

Missed two break points. She's only held serve once. Backhand looks ok, but forehand is ropey.

the addict · Tennis legend

That is actually two breaks to three - so serve not so crucial

mbturner · Lower Club Player

Lost the first set 3-6. Broken four times, three times to love!

Ace Ventura · Tennis legend

It's generally been a low quality match IMO. If BT were showing Gauff instead of Mladenovic in Washington, then I'd have switched channel.

mbturner · Lower Club Player

3-6 1-6. She really ought to be playing at ITF level.

HarryGem · Club Coach

I'm sorry to say that was an utterly dismal display by Heather. I realise she is short of confidence at the moment but there was a lack of effort and application at times that was simply not good enough.
The match itself was of very low quality.

Ace Ventura · Tennis legend

Agreed re the ITFs. It's hard to hard to see her ever getting consistently back into the top 100.

SaiSai is overranked IMO - she's live ranked 58 on 920 points and 385 of those are from Chinese ITF / 125k events, where the 2nd highest win in those 3 tournaments was 139 - she can easily dip back home when she is off form, like she did at Anning in April and beat the 290, 241, 235, and 282 en route to a 125k final and a guaranteed 95 points. She's 5-18 at the Grand Slams and has never been past round 2 and, although she is stronger on hard than clay or grass, was coming into this on the back on 10 lost sets in a row, since she squeezed past 263 Hamrony Tan 7-6 7-6 in Strasbourg. Watson was just 6/5 pre match, which wouldn't happen against pretty much any other top 50 player, yet she was looking like a 6/1 outsider.

Worst part is, that's our current 2nd best player.

HarryGem · Club Coach

Ace Ventura wrote:
Agreed re the ITFs. It's hard to hard to see her ever getting consistently back into the top 100.

SaiSai is overranked IMO - she's live ranked 58 on 920 points and 385 of those are from Chinese ITF / 125k events, where the 2nd highest win in those 3 tournaments was 139 - she can easily dip back home when she is off form, like she did at Anning in April and beat the 290, 241, 235, and 282 en route to a 125k final and a guaranteed 95 points. She's 5-18 at the Grand Slams and has never been past round 2 and, although she is stronger on hard than clay or grass, was coming into this on the back on 10 lost sets in a row, since she squeezed past 263 Hamrony Tan 7-6 7-6 in Strasbourg. Watson was just 6/5 pre match, which wouldn't happen against pretty much any other top 50 player, yet she was looking like a 6/1 outsider.

Worst part is, that's our current 2nd best player.

I was going to mention the last bit too but didn't want to appear too negative. If Jo retired tomorrow British women't tennis would be in the doldrums at best.

Ace Ventura · Tennis legend

HarryGem wrote:
Ace Ventura wrote:
Agreed re the ITFs. It's hard to hard to see her ever getting consistently back into the top 100.

SaiSai is overranked IMO - she's live ranked 58 on 920 points and 385 of those are from Chinese ITF / 125k events, where the 2nd highest win in those 3 tournaments was 139 - she can easily dip back home when she is off form, like she did at Anning in April and beat the 290, 241, 235, and 282 en route to a 125k final and a guaranteed 95 points. She's 5-18 at the Grand Slams and has never been past round 2 and, although she is stronger on hard than clay or grass, was coming into this on the back on 10 lost sets in a row, since she squeezed past 263 Hamrony Tan 7-6 7-6 in Strasbourg. Watson was just 6/5 pre match, which wouldn't happen against pretty much any other top 50 player, yet she was looking like a 6/1 outsider.

Worst part is, that's our current 2nd best player.
I was going to mention the last bit too but didn't want to appear too negative. If Jo retired tomorrow British women't tennis would be in the doldrums at best.

Yeah, I was just looking at OER and saw where Hev was live ranked and looked at the players ranked above her, and Germany have 7 players above our #2, Russia 11 (more expected), Switzerland, Spain and France 5, just to name a few.

Jo's revival has been brilliant and very timely as it was looking like she might transition into a 40-50 type player, but to be #8 (in the Race to Shenzhen) at this stage of the season is outstanding, but just as well as you were alluding to.

-- Edited by Ace Ventura on Tuesday 30th of July 2019 10:18:05 PM

indiana · Tennis legend

It's certainly been a disappointing year in general, as I concede in the Strongest Nation thread, following various discussions through the year related to short and longer term results abd sone mitigating factors.

Longer term doldrums? I am still more optimistic than some when you look at the age profile of our top 10 and say think where Jo came from initially, quite apart from coming again lately. Yes a bit unusual but far from unique.

There is to my mind still at least top 100 potential in a few players. 2020 will be the year, err maybe.

HarryGem · Club Coach

indiana wrote:
It's certainly been a disappointing year in general, as I concede in the Strongest Nation thread, following various discussions through the year related to short and longer term results abd sone mitigating factors.

Longer term doldrums? I am still more optimistic than some when you look at the age profile of our top 10 and say think where Jo came from initially, quite apart from coming again lately. Yes a bit unusual but far from unique.
There is to my mind still at least top 100 potential in a few players. 2020 will be the year, err maybe.

I used the world doldrums because I'm not seeing much progress at the moment. I'm nowhere near as knowledgeable as you guys on here but there seem to be many more questions about our younger players than perhaps there should be.

In many ways I share your optimism as we have a batch of players around the 19/20 years of age mark who might make it and have the time to do so. However, Harriet is 23 and Katie Boulter 23 tomorrow whilst Katy Dunne will be 25 next February. Though hardly old they are also not that young in terms of tennis players.

Harriet is currently our number 3 player and though her season has been ok, when tested at the highest level she's come up short, well short in some matches. She also hasn't played a competitive match since Wimbledon has she? (Some WTT stuff excepted).

There is undoubtedly some talent among these young women but I would question the overall fitness and physicality, the diet, the sports psychology, the commitment to playing competitions, and indeed the overall strategy behind each woman's long term goals.

We seem to bring on players who do well but then fall away badly. Gabriella Taylor is a prime eg. Some very good results last year but this year she's fallen off a cliff in terms of ranking and her match at the Wimbledon qualifiers showed a player obviously lacking in confidence and whose serve clearly needs a lot of work.

I'm realistic to not expect a raft of top 10 players but I'd like to think we could have 3 or4 safely in the top 100. By that I mean say ranked 40-70, and not flitting in and out of the top 100. The next two years are big on potential let's hope they are big on delivery too.

-- Edited by HarryGem on Wednesday 31st of July 2019 05:18:27 AM