Week 41 - ITF (W15) Antalya, Turkey - Clay

the addict · Tennis legend

RE: Week 41 - ITF (W15) Antalya, Turkey - Clay

Spireman · Club Coach

paulisi wrote:
She was a very good junior, but seemed to miss a lot of the junior season due to injury.
I saw her at the Wirral and she was a class above most of the juniors and she was highly rated then.

No surprise to me that the likes of Sonay and Anna Brogan have performed well after long absences on the senior ranks.

I agree, good to see. It was a pity there were no wimbledon qualifying wc playoff tournaments this year, for the likes of Sonay, Anna, and others including some of the American uni players who were too old to compete for the wc available to winner of u18 nationals. Especially I think as not all the qualifying wc were given out.

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

Poor Sonay got trounced in that first set.

1-6

And the score was fair.

The Spanish player was far more on the front foot, really pounded Sonay's backhand (which is nowhere near as good as her forehand) and played perfect clay court tennis (apart from her serve - pretty poor first serve percentage)

-- Edited by Coup Droit on Sunday 17th of October 2021 07:53:58 AM

Spireman · Club Coach

Second set looks exact opposite though!

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

Yeah - a slightly strange set.

Sonay got her forehand swinging a little more, and Rosa made a few errors, which was very welcome, but seemed to get her rattled far more than a few errors should.

In the end, very one-sided. But it shouldn't have been - if you were Rosa's coach, you would be tearing your hair out.

But Sonay must be feeling a lot better now

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

And Sonay lost the third set 3-6

It was 100% a match of momentum.

Sonay won the second easily, was 2-0 up in the third, looked like she was going to win the third game.

And then played a couple of loose shots, which you'd have thought would make no difference, but Rosa got her belief back when she won that game. And then it was close, but Rosa was on a roll and basically cruised to 5-2, playing better and better.

Credit to her coach too - he wasn't doing anything particularly clever (shouting bravo and allez is hardly rocket science) but I thought he made quite a difference when Rosa was down his end, and she really needed it. (Sonay, on the other hand, didn't seem to have anyone cheering for her - not that she needed it in the same way, I'd have said).

Great week for our player - a good final, even slightly weird as in a final of three parts.

As steven said yesterday, I think, it's three rounds further than she's ever got before.

Bravo, Sonay, all the same. And good luck next week.

Peter too · Tennis legend

F: KARTAL, Sonay (GBR) Q UNR/1128 lost to VICENS MAS, Rosa (ESP) 1 523/71 1-6 6-2 3-6

For a while there it looked as if she might be about to take a leaf from Emma's book by qualifying and then going on to take the title.

-- Edited by Peter too on Sunday 17th of October 2021 11:01:39 AM

dodrade · Futures qualifying

A good first week back on the tour, especially on clay. Hopefully she can catch up with Emma again before too long!

the addict · Tennis legend

dodrade wrote:
A good first week back on the tour, especially on clay. Hopefully she can catch up with Emma again before too long!

Well 7 points this week is a step in the right direction !

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

dodrade wrote:
A good first week back on the tour, especially on clay. Hopefully she can catch up with Emma again before too long!

Might be a little over optimistic smile

If she had Emma's extra inches, that would be a help.

However, it's lovely to go from unranked to ranked AND 15k finalist in one week - and age only 19.

And from the youtube interview I put up somewhere recently, she intends to go pro, be pro, no uni - so this is her time, over the next few years, to establish herself on the circuit.