Weeks 22 & 23 - French Open (Roland-Garros) - Paris, France (clay) - main draw

flamingowings · All-time great

RE: Weeks 22 & 23 - French Open (Roland-Garros) - Paris, France (clay) - main draw

HarryGem · Club Coach

flamingowings wrote:
HarryGem wrote:
PaulM wrote:
It was better but still nowhere near good enough. She's looking like she might miss out on a seeding at Wimbledon unless she strings together some wins in Nottingham.
Agree. Shame really as she was playing quite well in the first set but once that was lost you just felt she wasn't going to come back and the second set seemed to go away from her pretty quickly.
Onto the grass. Jo has usually done ok at Nottingham but I'm not sure her Birmingham record is that good though the downgrading of this year's event will mean a lesser field for her to compete against so that may be a good thing.

I thought Heather was more disappointing to be honest. I always felt Jo had a tough draw but that was a match that Heather should be looking to win. I thought it exposed her lack of matches and I do wonder why she didn't enter any of the 250 clay events. I though her lack of match fitness/sharpness showed a bit towards the end of the match where she was breathing really quite heavily at the end of some rallies. Not a surprise given the lack of court time she's had this year I suppose.
Heather has a cold and "injury niggles" which hasn't helped her training

Thanks for the update. That would go some way to explain the deep heavy breathing then. Shame as this was a match I felt she could win.

HarryGem · Club Coach

junior wrote:
Fair points, being the highest paid female athlete in the world, a large part of that must come from Media. Some of the same media I've just read that has labelled her as "likes to be the center of attention"

A good example of the double standards that this case exemplifies.

Players need media, media need players. The rise of social media also has a role to play and whilst largely positive there are clear times when it is not. Then sponsors of players want a high profile social media prescence. I work in an industry where one of the first questions reaised is "what is there social media profile like?" ie how many followers on Twitter, Insragram etc etc.

The sad fact is that journalists wouldn't work hard and dig deep if their stories had no end user. So for a lot of this the answer lies with the fans.

TTMan · Intermediate Club Player

Gather Jo was questioned by the media about being too relaxed by the result. Same old, same old. They just don't get it that athlete's need coping mechanisms (which brings us back to Naomi's plight). The good news for us though, it sounds like Jo is still in the fight for a while yet.

Thought Jo's underlying performance in set 1 was encouraging, the Zavialoff effect starting to kick in, hopefully.

flamingowings · All-time great

TTMan wrote:
Gather Jo was questioned by the media about being too relaxed by the result. Same old, same old. They just don't get it that athlete's need coping mechanisms (which brings us back to Naomi's plight). The good news for us though, it sounds like Jo is still in the fight for a while yet.

Thought Jo's underlying performance in set 1 was encouraging, the Zavialoff effect starting to kick in, hopefully.

What does "too relaxed by the result" even mean? Because she wasn't in floods of tears she doesn't care, was that the thinking?

Andy Parker · Club Coach

Agree with everyone about the criticism of Jo being too relaxed being unfair. No matter how a player appears outwardly, no-one knows really what is going on in their head and whether appearing relaxed is just a coping strategy.

Ash Barty would be a perfect example - before she took a break from tennis because of the pressure she was under, the fact that she was not enjoying things and media intrusion, she appeared to be one of the most relaxed and chilled players on the tour - it was a seismic shock to everyone that she was feeling like that and it goes to show that we don't really have a clue what is going on in player's heads.

indiana · Tennis legend

All the best now to Naomi going forward.

Women's tennis certainly greatly benefits from her being on the scene. However it rightly didn't put up with her unilateral action.

It was that unilateral action, without apparently any real sort of dscussions that was wrong, and mixed messages from around her just added to questions and some cynicism. Though her initial lack of info on her mental health issues was understandable, and the sudden stopping of interviews maybe a result of being in a pretty bad place. But where were her team in all this re support and advice?

Tennis should ( and no doubt will ) continue to have interviews and PCs, and to my mind for both winners and losers, but at least some issues surrounding them are now out there and there should be discussions going forward, hopefully involving Naomi when she feels able and willing to contribute.

For tennis needs to grow and keep itself in the limelight ( and as said many players like media limelight on their terms ) and not cater just for these aficionados who are only interested in what happens on the tennis court.

-- Edited by indiana on Tuesday 1st of June 2021 10:41:13 AM

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

Yes, ridiculous, I agree - to flamingowing's comment

Meanwhile, the French nightmare continues - barely a win in R1 in either men or women......

And Ferro is into a third set and a break down against a qualifier....

(Harmony Tan's win hardly counts as she played Cornet).

The French press and fans are practically ready to jump off a cliff

ADD:

Actually, I'm watching Oceane Babel against Svitolina at the moment.

She has a LOT of work to do on technique BUT she's only born in 2004 - the same age as Matilda Mut - so she's plenty of time to do it.

ANd it's an interesting leftie, young game, from a tall girl, who's ranked over 1000 (!)

-- Edited by Coup Droit on Tuesday 1st of June 2021 11:12:52 AM

junior · Intermediate Club Player

British women lack character, I hope one day Rafa donates his brain to science

Andy Parker · Club Coach

In the storm of Osaka's withdrawal, I didn't post that Giorgi knocked out Martic - great result for her and she is one of the more dangerous floaters left. Jabeur overcame Putintseva this morning - tht was a very difficult first round match up for her and I was also impressed yesterday with the professionalism of Kenin to overcome a stiff challenge from Ostapenko. I am looking forward to Pliskova against Vekic later - potential for an upset and should be a good match.

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

This is Ace's comment from the qualis thread (which I misled him into posting on! Sorry!

)

"It's not been so bad on the women's side thus far. Garcia apparently looked good yesterday, Ferro through, and Kiki M still to play. I personally think Tan beating (31 year old) Cornet in a 43-57 type (betting) match is probably more exciting for the average fan too - I'm not really sure of the British equivalent, maybe Harriet beating Heather at Wimbledon, but Harmony is more than two years younger than Harriet, has been in really good form this year, so could maybe get herself into the top 100 in the next 6-12 months, whereas Alize will probably be retired within 2 years.

The other WCs haven't really done great (results wise, although some went to 3 sets), but bar maybe Burel, most were up against it. Mind, young Babel is currently 3-1 up on Svitolina in the second set there (having lost the first). Turning into that one now.

Edit - 4-1. Are you watching LTA / AELTC biggrin

Another Edit - it's only 1+ years between Tan and Dart."

Ace Ventura · Tennis legend

The only thing with Vekic is she hasn't played since that Brady AO match where she was visibly hampered, particularly when the cameras went on to her backstage and she was holding her knee, plus clay has never really been her surface, but then Pliskova, bar getting to that Rome final, has largely been unconvincing this season, so it is an intriguing one. I'll be tuning into that one.

Speaking of Pliskova, the lesser one, she is a set and a break against one of the more in form players this season in Krejcikova who is 12th in the race, and was a 6/1 underdog at some bookies. Not over yet mind. And possibly going to be broken here...

Ace Ventura · Tennis legend

Coup Droit wrote:
This is Ace's comment from the qualis thread (which I misled him into posting on! Sorry! )

"It's not been so bad on the women's side thus far. Garcia apparently looked good yesterday, Ferro through, and Kiki M still to play. I personally think Tan beating (31 year old) Cornet in a 43-57 type (betting) match is probably more exciting for the average fan too - I'm not really sure of the British equivalent, maybe Harriet beating Heather at Wimbledon, but Harmony is more than two years younger than Harriet, has been in really good form this year, so could maybe get herself into the top 100 in the next 6-12 months, whereas Alize will probably be retired within 2 years.

The other WCs haven't really done great (results wise, although some went to 3 sets), but bar maybe Burel, most were up against it. Mind, young Babel is currently 3-1 up on Svitolina in the second set there (having lost the first). Turning into that one now.

Edit - 4-1. Are you watching LTA / AELTC biggrin

Another Edit - it's only 1+ years between Tan and Dart."

biggrin biggrin

Haha, You massively confused me there. I literally pressed post on that above passage, and saw all this 'Edit' 'another edit' 'Tan' 'Dart', and was thinking I'd posted in the different section again.

GAMEOVER · Satellite level

HarryGem wrote:
PaulM wrote:
It was better but still nowhere near good enough. She's looking like she might miss out on a seeding at Wimbledon unless she strings together some wins in Nottingham.
Agree. Shame really as she was playing quite well in the first set but once that was lost you just felt she wasn't going to come back and the second set seemed to go away from her pretty quickly.
Onto the grass. Jo has usually done ok at Nottingham but I'm not sure her Birmingham record is that good though the downgrading of this year's event will mean a lesser field for her to compete against so that may be a good thing.

I thought Heather was more disappointing to be honest. I always felt Jo had a tough draw but that was a match that Heather should be looking to win. I thought it exposed her lack of matches and I do wonder why she didn't enter any of the 250 clay events. I though her lack of match fitness/sharpness showed a bit towards the end of the match where she was breathing really quite heavily at the end of some rallies. Not a surprise given the lack of court time she's had this year I suppose.

If you look at Jo's record at Nottingham and Birmingham from 2015 onwards when she first played in the French Open her record at Nottingham is far better than Birmingham. At Birmingham she won 1 match in 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2019. Lost in the 1st round 2018 but it was to Petra Kvitova. However at Nottingham in 2015 she was a quarter finalist. In 2016 when it was considered this could be the site of her first WTA title she lost in the 2nd round to Saisai Zheng who she had beaten in the AO on route to the semi finals. However in 2017 she reached the final losing a close match to Donna Vekic. The result was reversed at Wimbledon with Jo coming out top. Her last appearance was in 2018 losing the final to Ash Barty and having a dispute with the umpire in the process. However past performance is not necessarily a guide to present prospects.

HarryGem · Club Coach

flamingowings wrote:
TTMan wrote:
Gather Jo was questioned by the media about being too relaxed by the result. Same old, same old. They just don't get it that athlete's need coping mechanisms (which brings us back to Naomi's plight). The good news for us though, it sounds like Jo is still in the fight for a while yet.

Thought Jo's underlying performance in set 1 was encouraging, the Zavialoff effect starting to kick in, hopefully.
What does "too relaxed by the result" even mean? Because she wasn't in floods of tears she doesn't care, was that the thinking?

Who knows. We have some fairly inept journalists though. Will try to track down the press conference. Will be online somewhere.

On a completely off topic Does Golubic have the most attractive back hand in the women's game? And