Emma retires

Left thigh was the injury - her movement got progressively worse. A real shame as she had her where she wanted her

Yeah the fitness issues are all resolveable with a proper good fitness and strength pre season block.

Good week nonetheless.

Didn't like Emma's performance even when she was winning. 2nd serve return was awful. Reluctant to attack even when given the opportunity. Ostapenko either won or lost the vast majority of points. Want to see Emma take control of more of the points against the big hitters. Of course they will dominate their own 1st serve points but she should do more the rest of the time.

Unfortunate injury when chasing Ostapenko's volley winner for 0-30 at *2-1 in the 2nd set.

I do worry Emma is another feature of the very poor strength and conditioning set up that still exists at the NTC, especially on the womens side. Too many trainers have been through the doors there with gym PT style attitudes and backgrounds, programmes that aren't actually shaped for the unique demands of tennis and lead to strains and injuries. Some of the stuff you see videos of the girls doing in the gym there strike me as quite odd for a tennis programme, placing huge loads on hips and shoulders and elbows, especially in a short break between events mid-season. Sports are different from each other, and different from general gym training, and I don't think the LTA do enough to get that specialist approach right other than in a few solo cases (who then tend to get pinched to travel or spend most time with a particular player - isn't that effectively what JoKo did with Gill Myburgh, she ended up as Jos trainer rather than an LTA one?).

We've talked about this for years (remember when we had a run of girls all getting stress fractures I think it was in there) and it's interesting some of the male players have specifically raised it as an issue as a weakness in the set-up in recentish times. It was even mentioned during Laver Cup commentary.

-- Edited by PaulM on Saturday 24th of September 2022 09:16:00 AM

What a pity for Emma. But generally a very encouraging week with a few things coming together in more positive play. Far from perfect so the inevitable "awful"s and "horrible"s will still appear in some appraisals. But I'm quite positive about where she is just now other than this further injury concern

On the injuries / nighles subject and the need for much more strength and conditioning work,, I read an interesting article in Wednesday's Metro

Emma is quoted:

"Last week I struggled with my legs, just doing a lot of training.

The rest of this year is trying to bulk up physically for the next year so I'm training a lot. Before the match today (.I assume her R1 match here ) I did 90 minutes on the court.

I'm trying to get myself in good shape. That comes sometimes with small niggles. I know it's for a greater benefit so.I've bought into that process. I've definitely done a lot more hours since starting with Dmitry. That's something he and other people in my team think is necessary., myself included. Just getting more robust.

Also not trying to over-complicate things, he's helping with that. Sometimes I'm over-thinking it. He's trying to help me be more easy-going."

So the physical training programme is certainy in full swing though the off-season will be the really important stage, so I do hope she doesn't compromise going into these weeks fully ready to go by playing in the meantime if it's at some  real risk. If she is to play another 2 or 3 weeks this year maybe just concentrate on the tennis before the big off-season  physical.programme?

While this process continues along with competition, to expect really top technical play as well, given just so may hours in the day to do physical or technical work, is probably expecting too much..

She's still veey early on a hopefully long journey rather than a sprint. Again, I feel pretty positive.