With so many of our players on the up during the grass season, I thought it might be helpful to map out their options during the period between Wimbledon & the US Open; there are quite a few choices available to our women this year, assuming they stick to hard courts. I've split them into rough groups (there is also a rather ragged Kazakh swing available, but presumably won't have much uptake). Feel free to point out any errors!
Emma will be a DE for the USO MD, as I think will Harriet, who may just be back in the top 100 after Wimbledon. As neither of the live ranking sites that provide forecasts are correct, can't quite say where she'll be, and of course players may add points between now and then that could change things. Heather, Boulter, Jodie, Lily and Sonay are comfortably in USO qualies. Swan may also be but will need to wait for withdrawals unless she can make further net gains to her points before end of July (40 Wimbledon q points dropping will see her fall down the rankings slightly). Fran unfortunately has a lot of points dropping over the coming weeks and is forecast to drop outside the top 300 by the USO qualies entry deadline
With that in mind Emma will play the high WTAs Harriet will probably play a mix of high and low WTAs - she does have 90pts to defend from Canada (her 2nd biggest counter). Heather and Boulter to play low WTAs - Heather won Vancouver when it was last played in 2019 as a 100K and still has 70 of those points counting to defend. Jodie, Lily, Sonay and Swan to play US ITFs, and maybe some 125s.
Don't know whether Beth will choose the GB 25s or look to progress elsewhere. Not sure what Fran will do given she prefers clay and will be coming back from injury. She should have a PR by late July if she doesn't return before then that would give her more options. Matilda hasn't played in GB this year yet and I doubt that is to change in the summer swing.
Other than that, I'd expect GB based players that aren't focusing on doubles and any from US college back for the summer to play the GB 25s and the Spain & Portugal based GB players to play the Spain Portugal 25s. Oh, and a certain Gilbraltarian to play clay
Emma announced that she was playing Washington a week or so ago. I have it in my head that she will decide to miss Wimbledon and make that her first tournament back.
Hopefully the GB 25ks will be a chance for Eden, Beth, Anna and Maia to really push on. With many of the best players absent in the US, and many Europeans sticking to clay, the fields shouldn't be too stacked. It would be fantastic if we could get to having 14 in the top 350 or even higher. (Matilda should get there too, if not via hard courts).
