indiana wrote:

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Coup Droit wrote:

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From the WTA Insider twitter feed:

Paula Badosa: "In WTA anything can happen. The level has improved a lot. Yesterday I was watching tennis. I saw an insane match. Then you see the ranking. It was a girl [ranked] 120. She played like Top 10 level.

The player in question?

Harriet Dart.

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 And that was before Harriet played Kaia. Paula Badosa recognises talent 

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Following on from kundalini's point, it's one of the great things about tennis - although there are certain key qualities that definitely help, there's also room for a real wide range - small players, tenacious ones, ones who have great feel but little power, ones with great power off the baseline but for some reason can't serve, those with amazing timing and reflexes (who would be playing ping pong, if it paid more), the amazingly quick scuttlers.......

There's a LOT of different things in the mix   

Stayed up to watch Harriet and was so impressed! Never seen her hit with such confidence, actively moving Kanepi side to side. Kaia looked spent by set 2, and started spraying errors. But Harriet hit a number of aces (which is insane with her serve) and quite a few nice winners. She always makes her opponent play 1-2 balls more, but some of the angles she gets are lovely. She also doesn't seem scared of a huge heavy ball, I always just think of her as someone who will get blitzed off court by big hitters, but she can really redirect the pace well nowadays.

So happy for her, she's a tenacious player and really seems to give her all to matches / training. Great result for her.

Harriet 

Soo self-assured 

Happy that people are seeing Harriets strengths, always thought she was under valued on here but a bit more power and she would be pushing top 20. She has great movement and constructs her points well. I'll miss her in GS qualifying though.

Worth remembering that Harriet is 'famous' in GB tennis circles for saying (and we believe her) that she is practically always in bed by 9 pm, that she doesn't drink alcohol (except a mouthful of champagne on special occasions) etc etc

Her dedication is second to none.

And, yes, with the fans above, it's great to see how she's come on - and, as an aside, as one of my 500-200-100 bets at age 16/17 or so, and having been a mega fan since Surbiton 2015, it'll also be a very big kerching moment in a week's time, so ta, Harriet NB Didn't go for top 20 though - but wouldn't that be grand ? 

-- Edited by Coup Droit on Monday 14th of March 2022 10:29:45 AM

Julia Carrot wrote:

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Coup Droit wrote:

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Russell Fuller
@russellcfuller
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10h
As first diagnosed by Dr @WTA_insider during @BBCSport commentary, Emma Raducanu says she has been struggling with a stiff back the last few days. Just gotta get stronger, she says, but thinks shell be fine for Miami.

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 That's good to hear, 'cos in the press interview of her previous match she said Miami was 50:50.  

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 Emma has also said that the back issue ( a product she thinks of the stop/start nature of recent months ) was effecting her ability to serve all out and therefore fewer cheap points and having to work more to try and hold serve. And as has been previously noted it was pretty visible how much had come off her serve vs Martic.

She does need to get stronger as she says and I hope she can stay fit enough to put in the work required.

In all the circumstances her play here and her play in the Aus Open when she had to revert to forehand slicing has to my mind been fairly impressive, irrespective of overall results.