Week 34 - US Open, Women's Qualifying Singles, New York, USA - Hard

Jiwan · Club Coach

Week 34 - US Open, Women's Qualifying Singles, New York, USA - Hard

Jan · Hall of fame

I wondered why the score had frozen.

Jiwan · Club Coach

Now receiving a second medical time out whilst still sat down from the first? I assume thats a second injury? that is bad /good luck depending on which side you are on

Michael D · All-time great

So 1/4 with as favourable draws as you could get, except for Naiktha, but she still didn't face a seed. Sorry to hear Katie S was sick, provides some reason. Sad that Heather left her alter ego back in Vancouver, as Mariam goes through despite the end MTO.

QR1: Heather WATSON (GBR) [q8] 110 lost to Mariam BOLKVADZE (GEO) 201=CH 4-6 2-6
QR1: Naiktha BAINS (GBR) 235 lost to Jana CEPELOVA (SVK) 158 (CH:50 May 14) 3-6 1-6
QR1: Harriet DART (GBR) [q29] 144 def Jamie LOEB (USA) 278 (CH:132 Feb 18) 6-2 7-6 (3)
QR1: Katie SWAN (GBR) 230 lost to Katrina SCOTT (USA) 1049 (CH:1040 Aug 19) 15yrs (JCH:65 July 19) 3-6 3-6

QR2: Harriet DART (GBR) [q29] 144 vs Hailey BAPTISTE (USA) 268 (CH:267 5 Aug 19)

PaulM · Tennis legend

Thoroughly deserved win for Mariam. Worked hard, played well. Heather looked tired.

Very disappointing performance. A shadow of who we watched compete last week.

Jiwan · Club Coach

That last game was weird. Either way, Heather loses to the better player 4-6 2-6

Ace Ventura · Tennis legend

There can be (and are) explanations (Hev tired, Katie ill, Naiktha potentially out of her depth), but 1/4 with 3 favourites is still disappointing. Good luck to Harriet, she'll do well to repeat her AO heroics, as if she gets past Baptiste, then either potential FQR opponent will be very tough, but fingers crossed.

Just had a check and it's the lowest amount of (female) participants in a slam at this stage since RG 2017 where Hev lost in the FQR. Thought it might ahve been a bit longer.

Mervatron2 · Challenger qualifying

Very disappointing.

Katie looked quite disinterested and didn't have much fight so If she was ill that makes sense.

emmsie69 · Top national player

It appears there is some sickness bug about I think it was Shelby Rogers that had to retir after vomiting in her match. Unfortunate timing but onwards and upwards. Have to admit that Harriet is my fav of the young blondes, there's a lot of grit and tenacity about her, she just needs to find a way to add some power or compensate for the lack and she will move up towards top 50 IMO. She has the ability, just lacking some weight behind her shots IMO

seagull · Hall of fame

Dart needs to dramatically improve that second serve to get near Top 50. It's woeful

-- Edited by seagull on Wednesday 21st of August 2019 09:40:30 AM

Priesty · Challenger level

seagull wrote:
Dart needs to dramatically improve that second serve to get near Top 50. It's woeful

-- Edited by seagull on Wednesday 21st of August 2019 09:40:30 AM

Hear hear. It does little more than put the ball in play. Would love to see her in the top 100 though and playing regularly in the WTAs.

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

seagull wrote:
Dart needs to dramatically improve that second serve to get near Top 50. It's woeful

It's true but there are quite a lot of women with pretty weak second serves who do surprisingly well.

Ace Ventura · Tennis legend

Harriet is second on Court 11 tomorrow and is streamed. It probably will directly clash with Wardy though who is also second on a streamed court - they've certainly been good to Brit's, we've had 8 matches thus far, and every one of them have been streamed and only 5 of the courts are streamed.

Bit disappointing that all the women's matches today were over well before 9pm - I've enjoyed some late night viewing these past couple of nights, but I see there are 4 women's matches streamed 3rd on tomorrow (they were none today), including Katie's conqueror Katrina Scott against Kalinskaya, so that could be quite interesting.

Andy Parker · Club Coach

Scott v Kalinskaya is the one that jumped out at me too - I remember watching Elena Vesnina v Anna Blinkova late at Wimbledon three years ago in a fantastic see-sawing match; the crowd was obviously mostly Russians, and I was around the coaching staff and friends of Elena, and I got to talking about Russian prospects and she was mentioned as youth player that everyone was excited about, and clearly Scott is very talented and very young, so an intriguing Russia v USA young prospects match.

Like others I was very disappointed that we only got one out of four through - hopefully Harriet can do us proud tomorrow. It was sad to see Katie S lose to such a young opponent (must be terrible for her confidence) and very disappointing that Heather lost after her magnificent exploits in Vancouver. I did expect Naiktha to lose though, I must admit.

Ace Ventura · Tennis legend

Yeah, Kalinskaya does seem to be coming on a bit recently - qualifying for Wimbledon (where I remember CD liking what he/she was seeing) and reaching a WTA international semi final in her most recent event. As crazy as is sounds, while Russia do have about 10 players currently in the top 100, they are kind of missing that star performer at the moment, so maybe she could be that player to fill the void if she continues the way she is going. The fact that Jodie hammered her a few months ago in Bolton, but has since had her momentum halted makes it more miserable.

Here's the televised schedule tomorrow for anyone interested. All courts are 4pm starts:

Court 4
I. Shinikova (BUL) vs. S. Vickery (USA)
J. Ward (GBR) vs. M. Trungelliti (ARG)
B. Krejcikova (CZE) [16] vs. A. Muhammad (USA)

Court 6
N. Gombos (SVK) [13] vs. J. Menezes (BRA)
J. Domingues (POR) vs. E. Donskoy (RUS) [19]

Court 7
Z. Hives (AUS) vs. C. Dolehide (USA)
K. Majchrzak (POL) [4] vs. T. Robredo (ESP)
K. Scott (USA) vs. A. Kalinskaya (RUS) [17]

Court 11
M. Krueger (USA) vs. E. Gerasimov (BLR) [22]
H. Baptiste (USA) vs. H. Dart (GBR) [29]
R. Anderson (USA) vs. N. Gibbs (USA) [24]

Court 12
V. Lepchenko (USA) [11] vs. G. Garcia Perez (ESP)
N. Rubin (USA) vs. G. Garcia-Lopez (ESP)
C. McHale (USA) [4] vs. S. Peng (CHN)

Which will then set up 16 M and 16 W winner takes all FQR matches on Friday, although techinally there will inevitably be a few LL spots opening up for those tactically delaying their withdrawals to pocket the 50% prize fund, and also for poor Amanda Anisimova who withdrew due to the sudden death of her father and coach, must be awful for her. cry

-- Edited by Ace Ventura on Wednesday 21st of August 2019 10:18:25 PM