Week 5 - WTA 500 ($565K) - Melbourne Gippsland, Australia Hard

Babfive · Satellite level

RE: Week 5 - WTA 500 ($565K) - Melbourne Gippsland, Australia Hard

emmsie69 · Top national player

Thanks Indiana for pointing out those odds, that's a couple of lattes to celebrate. Very strong result from Katie.

the addict · Tennis legend

Great results to wake up to ! And my Bet365 account looks good too !

55 points takes Katie ever closer to the top 300 - around 314 on live rankings now

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

Wow, good results over night for the womens side and fabulous from Katie!

Great !

ROSAMUND · Futures level

Woke up to great results today. Brilliant Katie.

Jan · Hall of fame

Wow!!! Amazing!!! Very well done both

BBC sports just reported Jo's result but totally failed to mention Katie.

ROSAMUND · Futures level

Katie next plays Osaka who beat Cornet. Jo plays Begu. Jo and Begu had been playing on the main tour for many years with never meetiing. They met in Rome for the first time last year and are meeting again here.

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

Tennis abstract has Begu as a short favourite versus Jo, not sure why but tight either way.

emmsie69 · Top national player

If I was Katie I'd be really happy to be playing Osaka, 3 matches the week before AO is plenty and playing someone of Osakas cailbre will give her a good idea of where she is at right now.

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

emmsie69 wrote:
If I was Katie I'd be really happy to be playing Osaka, 3 matches the week before AO is plenty and playing someone of Osakas cailbre will give her a good idea of where she is at right now.

Definitely, fascinating match up.

ROSAMUND · Futures level

This is the first time Katie has won 2 matches in the main draw of a WTA tournament.

ROSAMUND · Futures level

If I Could Serve Id Have Been A Contender wrote:
ROSAMUND wrote:
Jo plays Bernarda Pera next. Pera leads 2-1 including 2018 Australian Open. All 3 meetings were in 2018.
A match of two halves by Ms. Konta's upcoming opponent. Pera was a set and a break down, with break-points against her to go a double break down. to her young, Aussie, wild-card opponent. But then the Pera forehand found it's range and that was that.
It seems a bad match up for the Brit. If the Pera from the first half of today shows up, Konta should have a good chance to overcome her banana skin, assuming she doesn't start equally slowly herself. If Konta allows the American to get into her groove, it could be trouble. Best for Konta to get it done in two short sets (as, er, I guess it always is).

On another note: Any Kaia Kanepi followers will surely applaud the amazing conditioning work the Estonian appears to have done absenting matches. She almost looks like a powerlifter now, such that I didn't recognise her at first. I'd say the best shape of her career by several orders of magnitude. Perhaps that will help her resist the frequent injuries that have plagued her career. If so she may cause even more upsets over top players, combining greater mobility and resilience with all that power.

Well Kaia Kanepi followers will be pleased to see she beat Sabalenka in 3 sets.Sabalenka was on a long winning streak,. Sabalenka is a top ten player who is yet to reach a quarter final in a Grand Slam.

PaulM · Tennis legend

Lovely wins for both!

ROSAMUND · Futures level

Jan wrote:
Wow!!! Amazing!!! Very well done both
BBC sports just reported Jo's result but totally failed to mention Katie.

Well BBC Radio5 Sport at 8.30 reported Katie' s win with a brief interview whereas Jo's result was never mentioned.

the addict · Tennis legend

There's a write-up on the BBC Sports web page now - earlier in the day than I expected, as they always seem to be at least half a day behind events !