The first round women's matches are often one-sided. There is a big gap between the seeded players and the qualifiers - and between the regular main draw players and qualifiers too !
Yes, I'm not sure one-sided is such a surprise - not only with what the addict says above but there were also four (!) lucky losers - so that's another step in difference. But so many retirements certainly is...... weird....
In R2, though, the match between Alice Gillan and Sally Pethybridge has the potential to be very interesting.....
Curious to see Sophya Devas' name - only 16 but she hasn't been around for a while (injured? if so, best wishes) but a pretty promising player before she 'vanished from view'.
The last result in the women's shows a good win for youngster Giulia Lesa, who I rather like, over equal youngster, Brooke Black.
In the men, I had split loyalties in the Ryan Storie v Joel Pierleoni mathc so was never going to be really disappointed
But it went to a third-set TB
And Joel pipped it
So big congrats to him - the boy was playing lights out tennis before he left for the States - and commiserations to Ryan but great to see him back
My fave Scot here, Hamish Stewart, also won, so that's good (and Ewan Moore also boosted the Scottish wins)
A win, too, for Brandon Murphy (although two tight tiebreaks against Billy B)
Raffaello Papajcik got a LL spot and ended up playing his dubs partner, Felix Mischker (see Bob's Spanish tourny round-up), with Felix coming out on top
A good win for junior Louis Bowden over Tom Hands too
Summary of the winners
Ladies Singles Alicia Dudeney
Mens Singles Sean Hodkin
Ladies Doubles Dani Hack & Sally Pethybridge
Mens Doubles Alex Jhun & Brandon Murphy
Mixed Doubles Sally Pethybridge & Billy Blaydes
There's a G2 British Tour event this week at Bournemouth which, honestly, in the women's, looks more like a U16 GB nationals competition - I count 15 juniors in the main draw, and there are some names I don't recognise so may be more
In that way, it's actually way more interesting (to me) than a regular G2 - but I'm not sure this is what British Tour is really supposed to be (not knocking having a good event for our young juniors but are there really no older players who are interested???)
Girls:
Shamiso Ndoro (2008)
Heidi Crncan (2007)
Elizabeth Evans (2007)
Sophia Fredericks-Mckee (2007)
Ciara Moore (2007)
Sarah Copley (2007)
Lily Doherty (2007)
Maralie Raath (2006)
Tia Bonita Jakupovic-Kljako (2006)
Hima Fernando (2006)
Gabia Paskauskas (2006)
Anjali Kotecha (2005)
Amelia Tye (2005)
Emma Cohen (2005)
Louise Booker (2005)
...