Ace Ventura wrote:

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She plays doubles today in WTA Charleston, a week after playing doubles in WTA Bogota - played singles (W15) less than 7 weeks ago. I've no interest in doubles either, but when you're 31, ranked the wrong side of 500 (having seen better days), and losing early in W15 events, and W25 quals, but still with a circa 150 doubles rankings, then it makes sense to concentrate on the doubles IMO, and if she can sneak into singles quals draw as an alt / very low cut off, then that's a bonus.

She also got 46 of her 80 singles points between early May and mid June 2019, so she'd have a hell of a lot of work to do in the coming weeks just to maintain her (relatively) modest ranking, and her singles results have been on the slide for a long time now.

-- Edited by Ace Ventura on Wednesday 14th of April 2021 11:17:00 AM

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 Naomi and EWS seem to be in largely the same boat, although the latter has had a few decent singles results in recent weeks. It does seem quite a few players end up as doubles specialists by default rather than choice.

dodrade wrote:

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Ace Ventura wrote:

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She plays doubles today in WTA Charleston, a week after playing doubles in WTA Bogota - played singles (W15) less than 7 weeks ago. I've no interest in doubles either, but when you're 31, ranked the wrong side of 500 (having seen better days), and losing early in W15 events, and W25 quals, but still with a circa 150 doubles rankings, then it makes sense to concentrate on the doubles IMO, and if she can sneak into singles quals draw as an alt / very low cut off, then that's a bonus.

She also got 46 of her 80 singles points between early May and mid June 2019, so she'd have a hell of a lot of work to do in the coming weeks just to maintain her (relatively) modest ranking, and her singles results have been on the slide for a long time now.

-- Edited by Ace Ventura on Wednesday 14th of April 2021 11:17:00 AM

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 Naomi and EWS seem to be in largely the same boat, although the latter has had a few decent singles results in recent weeks. It does seem quite a few players end up as doubles specialists by default rather than choice.

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It's a little bit different because EWS is 37 in a couple of months, so 5 and a half years older. Plus she has never been higher than 240 in the singles, whereas people will still have memories of Naomi in the top 100 only a few years ago, so maybe more disappointment that the singles has gone downhill so much in a pretty short period of time, and I guess, still a tiny bit of hope that she could maybe get something going again, but yes, doubles can be a decent option for older players to stay in the sport, and to still play the bigger events that they might have in the past once the singles results start to go.

The fact remains that Naomi was a top 100 singles player who with her serve really functioning ( which it was consistently as one of the very best for a period ) could trouble top 50 players, and she is still only 31. Such a pity that that all drifted away in a relatively short time.

Coup Droit wrote:

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All went downhill, IMO, after she split from Andy Fitzpatrick

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 That remains on the face of it very strange indeed. They had something going there and it seemed almost as if Naomi stepped away. 

christ wrote:

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I wouldn't want to cast nasturtiums, but as the parent of children I would note the following: sometimes hard work pays dividends but is unpalatable. And it is easy to part with someone that makes you do unpalatable things. (e.g. homework, practice ...)

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 I feel that way when I read the claims of bullying behaviour in Sports.  It's so difficult because if you want to be the best, you have to go places physically that most people just aren't prepared to go and coaches are the ones that recognise that the core ability is there.  Very few people have both the talent and the drive to maximise the talent, the ones that do are the ones that win.