Pancho P wrote:

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Some uk pro league on bt sport next wk. I noticed that when flicking through my tv mag today. Sorry if thats history rather than news, ha.

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Its live on BT Sport all week, but hidden away behind the red button (when they remember to turn it on, which they didn't on Monday). They've recently been replaying the finals on a linear channel midweek the following week. Its also live on Tennis Channel international if you have a non-subscription version on your smart TV.

Katy back to practising on court. She posted on Instagram a brief clip "Maybe from the service box but 4 months without serves - feels good"

the addict wrote:

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Another Instagram from Katy today - captioned "Played a set today". I reckon it will still be a while before she competes again, but she's making progress.

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 She's still down as an alt for Nottingham, will probably withdraw but must feel she is close to a return

Thanks to PockyTastic for drawing attention to this podcast she featured on.

PockyTastic wrote:

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This may have already posted here/elsewhere but the Tennis in the UK podcast posted an interview with Katy yesterday where talks frankly about her injury issues over the last few years amongst other things: open.spotify.com/episode/4FVM9O38XEZjpo76ScN65d

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It's an interesting, sad, funny and enjoyable all at the same time listen.

I'm so sad to hear she was going to quit after spraining her ankle for the 2nd time this year in India. We have to thank her mum and Beth for talking her out of it. She talks through the long list of injuries she's had since 2019 - groin strain, abdomen strain, shoulder injury, another groin strain, ankle and hip tendonitis, ankle sprains and shoulder issues coming back.

She talks how the grass funds her year and has an interesting story on her Wimbledon WC that I hadn't heard before.

Have a listen. You won't regret it.

A really fun listen, and so honest. What's lovely about it is it tackles the individual psychology of sport at the main level - with no outside pressures of sponsors, LTA etc. This is just a girl who loves playing tennis, who knows she can get back to GS qualies but life and injuries have gotten in the way. It's also such a great insight into how one result or one minor injury at that level can disrupt a season/career.

We don't give these guys enough credit.

As I've said before, to me it's not a question of direct help by the LTA

No other federations that I know would be providing direct help to Katy Dunne or Emily WS either

BUT, in France, the FFT sit at the top of a thriving competitive tennis industry (well, it's slightly less thriving than it used to be but still pretty good).

There are hundreds and hundreds of big money tournaments every year (with prize pots of 5,000, say). Lots of really chunky ones. And zillions of smaller ones.

THere is team competition, which pays money (usually), but - more importantly for some - means that team members may well get free coaching, free rackets, free kit.... And that will be all year round.

Because there's all this, there's also zillions of kids, say, learning tennis as their normal after-school activity. So tons of opportunity for boosting your revenues with a bit of coaching or whatever.

So tennis players can have tennis as a career. It's not going to make you a fortune but you'll live, you'll be able to pay your medical insurance (which is cheap) and will entitle you to free physio for all your injuries. You go to the doctor, you get signed off for 6 or 12 seances of physio - it's the norm. If you qualify as being a 'high level sportsperson', you also can access the sports rehab places for free (i.e. based on your medical insurance, not FFT).

That's my gripe with the LTA (and the health system here for injuries), not really the fact that they don't give direct help to players who are outside their matrix (how you define the matrix is obviously questionable but there will always be players who are just outside it, no matter how you define it)

That sounds just the ticket to breed more champions as well as more participants on that journey, as opposed to the LTA who only give assistance to those on their "matrix", as you say CD.  That matrix is, as far as I can see, made up of players who come from wealthy families anyway and don't actually need the assistance.  Very sensible of the French.