Week 17 - WTA 1000 Madrid, Spain Clay

dodrade · Futures qualifying

RE: Week 17 - WTA 1000 Madrid, Spain Clay

HarryGem · Club Coach

Peter too wrote:
Q1: WATSON, Heather (GBR) 10 69 lost to VOEGELE, Stefanie (SUI) 127 3-6 3-6

R64: KONTA, Johanna (GBR) 15 18 (CH=4 2017) v PUTINTSEVA, Yulia (KAZ) 30 (CH=27 2017)

H2H is 3-1 to Jo, with her only loss at Roland Garros in 2018.

Heather is just off form right now and hasn't look too good this year. Like many players she's benefiting from historical points, which, on this year's showing, she would have struggled to defend. 128 from Hobart 2020 and 280 from Acapulco. Without those she would be struggling to make the top 100 and this is probably a more accurate reflection of where she is right now.

That's a very tough first round draw for Jo. I really wouldn't like to call it. Putintseva is such a highly strung player she can beat herself at times. But Jo has played so little tennis over the last 18 months and I'd probably make Putintseva slight favourite on clay.

Jo is another who is probably over ranked right now and the next few weeks are going to be very key to maintaining that ranking level with so many points to defend. I can't say I'm confident she will defend that many of them. But she's surprised me in the past so you never know.

LordBrownof · Futures level

I would love to know what Heather's career plan is right now. I'd like to see her really give it a proper final push - do something different like hire a new full time traveling coach or mix up her game by leaning into her volleys and drop shots and/or more aggressive on the cross-court backhand. Just feels like she's treaded water for the last few years, the odd few results without beating anyone of real note. Frustrating to watch.

If she's happy with where she is and her life etc then I'm all for it, but I don't get that sense from her on-court demeanor.

HarryGem · Club Coach

LordBrownof wrote:
I would love to know what Heather's career plan is right now. I'd like to see her really give it a proper final push - do something different like hire a new full time traveling coach or mix up her game by leaning into her volleys and drop shots and/or more aggressive on the cross-court backhand. Just feels like she's treaded water for the last few years, the odd few results without beating anyone of real note. Frustrating to watch.

If she's happy with where she is and her life etc then I'm all for it, but I don't get that sense from her on-court demeanor.

I think to be fair to her, she and a lot of other players of a similar age and ranking have basically just had 16 months of their career wrecked. It is bad enough if you are 22-25 but at least you have more years left to make it up. Heather will be 29 in a few weeks and though not old of course it isn't going to get any easier once she reaches 30.

I believe she's happy in her private life and wonder if the drive is really still there to continue playing and travelling, especially right now when things remain difficult.

dodrade · Futures qualifying

HarryGem wrote:
LordBrownof wrote:
I would love to know what Heather's career plan is right now. I'd like to see her really give it a proper final push - do something different like hire a new full time traveling coach or mix up her game by leaning into her volleys and drop shots and/or more aggressive on the cross-court backhand. Just feels like she's treaded water for the last few years, the odd few results without beating anyone of real note. Frustrating to watch.

If she's happy with where she is and her life etc then I'm all for it, but I don't get that sense from her on-court demeanor.
I think to be fair to her, she and a lot of other players of a similar age and ranking have basically just had 16 months of their career wrecked. It is bad enough if you are 22-25 but at least you have more years left to make it up. Heather will be 29 in a few weeks and though not old of course it isn't going to get any easier once she reaches 30.
I believe she's happy in her private life and wonder if the drive is really still there to continue playing and travelling, especially right now when things remain difficult.

She had a good win in Acapulco last year just before the pandemic hit but its been a struggle for her since, just one Quarter Final at ITF level in Dubai.

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

I see Jo has a first set break, serving 4-3. Is she playing well?

indiana · Tennis legend

Jo was broken back, broke again in a long game, and will serve for the first set.

*5-4

indiana · Tennis legend

Served it out to 30

6-4

Jan · Hall of fame

Comparing score on flashscores and wta site is interesting! They have same score but different player serving...
Meanwhile, Jo is serving for the match, I think. Come on!!

Jan · Hall of fame

At least they both agree that Jo won 6-4 6-2! Well done Jo

-- Edited by Jan on Thursday 29th of April 2021 12:21:37 PM

PaulM · Tennis legend

Wow, very pleasantly surprised by that win. Well done Jo.

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

That is a welcome score and win for JoKo, well done to her!

LordBrownof · Futures level

dodrade wrote:
HarryGem wrote:
LordBrownof wrote:
I would love to know what Heather's career plan is right now. I'd like to see her really give it a proper final push - do something different like hire a new full time traveling coach or mix up her game by leaning into her volleys and drop shots and/or more aggressive on the cross-court backhand. Just feels like she's treaded water for the last few years, the odd few results without beating anyone of real note. Frustrating to watch.

If she's happy with where she is and her life etc then I'm all for it, but I don't get that sense from her on-court demeanor.
I think to be fair to her, she and a lot of other players of a similar age and ranking have basically just had 16 months of their career wrecked. It is bad enough if you are 22-25 but at least you have more years left to make it up. Heather will be 29 in a few weeks and though not old of course it isn't going to get any easier once she reaches 30.
I believe she's happy in her private life and wonder if the drive is really still there to continue playing and travelling, especially right now when things remain difficult.
She had a good win in Acapulco last year just before the pandemic hit but its been a struggle for her since, just one Quarter Final at ITF level in Dubai.

Her last 10 wins -

WR - 432, 70, 262, 85, 232, 189, 128, 87, 494, 192 (inclusive of Acapulco)

I've always been a champion of Heather but if she even wants to stay in the top 100, something needs to change.

Ace Ventura · Tennis legend

There's no doubt her form has largely been extremely poor since the start of Covid, but I think she had a really solid 6 months or so either side of Christmas 2019. Good wins over top 50 players Kudermetova and Linette in WTA Tianjin, Qiang as well, but she was badly out of sorts, so I kind of took that win with a pinch of salt at the time. A couple of wins over Ferro during the 2020 Aussie summer, and wins over Tiechmann and Mertens in that period as well, so that's a lot of good, solid wins in a relatively short period of time, the lesser Pliskova (Jan 2020) as well if you want to include another top 65 win, all of which just fell short of her last 10 wins reference above.

Acapulco was by no means the strongest WTA run you'll see, but two of those wins were against promising teens - Leylah Fernandez and Wang Xiyu, 2 matches where Heather was the pre match betting underdog, despite all those previously referenced solid top 60 type wins. Most will know about Fernandez, but Xiyu was still just 18 at the time, and already had an impressive 9 top 100 tour wins in the bag at that time, so both were solid wins IMO.

I agree she has seemed to tread water for a while, and a 7 or 8 match losing streak at any given time isn't uncommon. I had kind of got used to her exiting events early, getting the odd win at a slam, and having the odd SF, F, W run at a WTA 250 event to maintain a top 100 ranking, it's just that 3 of those (Tianjin, Hobart, and Acapulco) came in relatively quick succession, and she could really do with another of those soon, although saying that, those 3 events will stay on her record for at least another 5 months.

Of course we'd all want better for her, and it would be nice if there were genuine chances of her reaching a L16 or so at a slam, but at her age and stage of career (she's a pretty old 28/29), as long as she's happy, as a fan, I'd be fine for her to keep her pattern of the last few years for another 2 or 3, picking up those slam paychecks, boosting our top 100 numbers, and being regularly available to watch on Prime, even if it is a one and done for a lot of events, ha. Hopefully she'll get something going in time for, or during, the grass.

Samson · Lower Club Player

Small steps for Jo, I thought she looked rusty but I think that was to be expected. A lot of errors but some really aggressive play with some nice point construction. Had too much power for Putinseva. Definitely some good things to build on in the next match.