Week 3 - ITF (W25) Fujairah, UAE Hard

Peter too · Tennis legend

Week 3 - ITF (W25) Fujairah, UAE Hard

the addict · Tennis legend

Hazes was only 20th out of 23 alternates and is the easiest draw Naomi could have possibly got. Hazes hasn't played at tour level before, and has only played a handful of J4 and J5 events, with little success.

Andy Parker · Club Coach

Pleased to see Katie Swan playing again - she finished as the first alternate for the Aussie Open qualifying (with Maia fifth alternate) and it must have been incredibly annoying for her to sit it out and just miss out, especially as she was the first alternate for at least 24 hours before it started, with no-one pulling out after the draw was made.

Interesting to see Naomi is still playing singles - last year almost all her ranking tournaments were in doubles (ten of eleven matches played I think) and although she played the singles against the other Brits in our closed tournaments, I did wonder if that meant that she was finishing her career at singles and attempting to make a go of being a specialist doubles player. The time is ticking for her and she is one of the players most affected by Covid I think, as she had hit a terrible run of form beforehand and desperately needed match play and results to improve her ranking. Long term, I feel she will probably carve out a career in commentary and will remain a tennis name in the limelight - she always has something interesting to say, which helps a lot in that line of work.

flamingowings · All-time great

Andy - Naomi was injured prior to covid I think as well as the in general poor form.

DF · Tennis legend

Naomi won 6-1 6-1

PaulM · Tennis legend

I've always felt the fundamentals of Naomi's game could give her a very nice career at top level doubles, but understandably after she broke through in singles there was still a fight and desire to get back there. I think that's pretty unlikely now, and it depends on what she wants from her tennis, but I still think she could be a top 50 doubles player if she committed to that within 18 months.

dodrade · Futures qualifying

DF wrote:
Naomi won 6-1 6-1

Plays Naiktha in Q2, I think there's a pun in there somewhere! wink

-- Edited by dodrade on Sunday 17th of January 2021 11:16:59 AM

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

dodrade wrote:
DF wrote:
Naomi won 6-1 6-1
Plays Naiktha in Q2, I think there's a pun in there somewhere!

-- Edited by dodrade on Sunday 17th of January 2021 11:16:59 AM

One of the N.B.s will win but it will be no more than a side note once the main draw starts ...

Jan · Hall of fame

Will they get an "N.B." match scheduled time?

Andy Parker · Club Coach

flamingowings wrote:
Andy - Naomi was injured prior to covid I think as well as the in general poor form.

Yes she suffered injurie pre-Covid, but 6 of the 7 matches she played in 2020 were in doubles. her run of form in 2019 was mostly first round defeats and I felt that she just needed to get a run of results in a couple of tournaments to get her form and confidence back. Having such a long time out without playing regularly can't have done her any favours - when you do have a bad run, you need to keep playing as much as possible and get back to winning ways, and I still feel that she is potentially a much better player than her current ranking suggests, though I know most would disagree with me.