Heather's doubles under way. A break down and Zheng about to serve to stay in the first set. *2-5. She was the one to be broken .........

Jaggy1876 wrote:

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Kovinic has withdrawn with a back injury so yes Harriet will take her place.

Shes now had 2 LL spots and had a victory against an old bird who was injured but played on anyway.

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 I know it is the rules etc and it is good luck for her but really it is about time LL spots were restricted in number, so if you've already had one someone else should get it instead. She's hardly in the full draw on merit.

 

This is a wide open competiton and I think Heather should beat Harriet and frankly if she doesn't go deep into the tournament ought to be very disappointed.

I know why she wants to use her PRs and not drop down in the current situation, but she really needs to schedule some ITFs. Her big issue is that when she makes a bad mistake the next 2 or 3 points are write-offs, she doesn't seem to be able to dust it off and move on. *3-2 she makes a howler to go down 0-15 and basically gives up the next couple of points, and when she ballooned the return long on break point at 4-4* you knew that was the set, and frankly the match, done. She was never going to get back into it.

Her ball strike is so heavy and classy when it's on, she hit some absolute beauties today. Playing opponents who give her a bit more time on the ball, getting the wins, building the confidence, would just make it so much more comfortable when she gets back to this level in 6 monts, which I know she can do.

L16: H. Watson (GBR)/S. Zheng (CHN) CR149 (121+28) beat V. Gracheva (RUS)/K. Juvan(SLO) CR1085 (494+591) 2-6 6-1 [10-7]

It has been this way for most , not all , but most of our womens players for a long time. We have a history of fragility , lack of real fortitude. People will call me out , sorry, but its been that way for decades. And it is so annoying.

Partly why Fran is so refreshing.

dodrade wrote:

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 A real missed opportunity, will she still go to Miami or is the foot problem more serious?

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 I got the impression that it was just blisters (plural)

Ace Ventura wrote:

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Heather or Harriet will play Kuzmova in R2, after the Slovak ended a run of 9 straight defeats, and incredibly 18 straight sets to beat the American Wildcard Dolehide. 9 straight sets defeats stretching back to fake Cincy last year really is astonishing.

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 Some way to go to match Vince Spadea, and he turned it around pretty well

 

On September 13, 1999, Spadea achieved a top 20 ranking for the first time. However, from October 1999 to June 2000, Spadea suffered a record losing run of 21 losses in a row.^[3] His losing streak led the Associated Press to dub him "the Charlie Brown of tennis" .^[4] He ended the streak in the first round of 2000 Wimbledon with an opening round 63, 67, 63, 67, 97 win over 14th seed Greg Rusedski, in a five-set marathon, which lasted for nearly four hours. Spadea's world ranking fell as low as 237 on October 23, 2000.

Working hard on the Challenger Tour after his fall down the rankings, he successfully recovered and eventually won his only career ATP Tour singles title in Scottsdale, Arizona, where he defeated James Blake and Andy Roddick along the way in 2004. He continued his journey back up the world rankings and was back in the top 20 by late 2004, although US Davis Cup captain, Patrick McEnroe, declined to pick Spadea as his second singles player for the 2004 Davis Cup final against Spain, opting instead for the lower ranked Mardy Fish. Spadea achieved his career-high world ranking of 18 in February 2005.