Boys & Girls: J100 Loughborough, GB - indoor hard (Week 12)

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

Boys & Girls: J100 Loughborough, GB - indoor hard (Week 12)

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

Girls:

After a rather disappointing event last week, this is Mika's chance to shine.

And she won her first round easily this time, over Sarah Copley.

The other 2008-ers fared less well - Leticia lost, unsurprisingly, agains the top seed. Mia and Georgiana lost easily.

Well done to FLora and Maria Ustic for beating foreign opposition.

Everything in general, though, went according to ranking - no upsets - I would have expected Ciara Moore to do better than 2 & 1 against a qualifier but I don't actually know the qualifier, to be fair, she might be falsely ranked.

TW18 · Lower Club Player

Coup Droit wrote:
Girls:

After a rather disappointing event last week, this is Mika's chance to shine.

And she won her first round easily this time, over Sarah Copley.

The other 2008-ers fared less well - Leticia lost, unsurprisingly, agains the top seed. Mia and Georgiana lost easily.

Well done to FLora and Maria Ustic for beating foreign opposition.

Everything in general, though, went according to ranking - no upsets - I would have expected Ciara Moore to do better than 2 & 1 against a qualifier but I don't actually know the qualifier, to be fair, she might be falsely ranked.

I too would have expected Ciara to have gone further - such a great player.

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

I saw Ciara play live recently - I wouldn't say 'great' but she's very efficient - she makes it look quite easy. However, not a great result here, that's for sure

In the boys, congrats to Luke Hooper who beat the 8th seed from Switzerland

And Henry Jefferson (6) was beaten by Ilias - so big well done to Ilias

Mark Ceban also pushed the 3rd seed to three sets

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

Well, both the top seeds in the girls have lost here - the Dutch girl and our Hannah Read
Mika won her match though

And we're left with:

Jaqui Ogunwale v Maria Ustic
Flora Johnson v Erin Pearce
Nela Jandova (CZE) v Given Roach
Britt du Pree (NED) v Mika Stojsavljevic

Mika is 2008-born, Flora and Maria are 2007, Erin 2006, and Given and Jaqui are 2005.

In the boys, equal disaster for top seed, as Phoenix gets knocked out - but huge congrats to our Oliver Hague for so doing

Second seed, Hugo C, survived a scare though

So QFs are:

Oliver Hague v Matteo Sciahbasi (ITA)
Ben Gusic Wan v Henry Bernet (SUI)
UKR v NED
Hugo Coquelin v Luke Hooper

twentytoone · Lower Club Player

Rather disappointing for phoenix but Im sure hell bounce back!

paulisi · Tennis legend

Three GB girls into semi finals - Mika, Flora and Maria.

paulisi · Tennis legend

Three GB boys in the semi finals - Ben GW, Oliver and Luke

dodrade · Satellite level

Wasn't sure where to put this but Nick Cavaday is leaving Loughborough.

https://archive.ph/CDYHP

Both Briggs and Mike Dickson in the Mail very critical of the Academy system which seems harsh given the talent that trains there. Is Bonding still attending?

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

I 'liked' this sentence from Dickson:

"Unfortunately and scarcely believably there remains nobody on the main board of the LTA with any experience of elite tennis to properly question the executive."

www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/tennis/article-11894597/Emma-Raducanu-vows-play-Great-Britain-soon-despite-backing-Billie-Jean-King-Cup.html

It is no defence of a system to say 'but there's a couple of real talents there'

It would be truly remarkable if the academies had fostered ZERO decent players

The question is how many talents (compared with the 'normal' route) and at what cost.

And i don't think that saying 'we've given four years of the most expensive training the country has to to offer to players like Given Roach, Hugo Coquelin, Luca Pow' etc is really going to make a good argument

PS I've also posted these two posts in the National Academies thread - it might get a bit lost here

-- Edited by Coup Droit on Saturday 25th of March 2023 08:25:01 AM

DavidC · Tennis legend

We are guaranteed a winner in the girls singles smile . In the boys Ben is the first through to the final

Girls SF

Maria Ustic d. Flora Johnson 6-3 6-3
(8) Mika Stojsavljevic d. (6) Nela Jandova (CZE) 4-6 6-4 6-4

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

Does anything know much about Maria Ustic?

I only ask because I was really suprised to look at her results sheet and see that she have never played outside of the UK. Not once !

Contrast that to Flora, say, who has Qatar, South Africa, Belgium etc on her points breakdown.

I wondered, naturally, if that meant Maria's family are not that well off? She has no LTA support? Or maybe they believe schooling is more important and will only let her play UK events?

Either way, that's a very good scrap and win by Mika

And well done to Maria for a wonderful tournament, and counting - it's going to be a very big boost to her ranking

Spireman · Strong Club Player

She won Loughborough g2 brit tour before Christmas. I half watched part of one of her matches, quite tall with a decent serve from what I remember. Refreshing that someone can do their matches in UK and do well, I think some travel too much and unnecessarily at too young an age.

DavidC · Tennis legend

Luke was unable to make it an all British boys final. In doubles Henry/Phoenix and Hannah/Hannah make the final but Daniela/Mika lost out

Boys SF

(4) Benjamin Gusic Wan d. Oliver Hague 6-4 6-1
Nikita Bilozertsev (UKR) d. Luke Hooper 6-2 6-2

TW18 · Lower Club Player

Coup Droit wrote:
Does anything know much about Maria Ustic?

I only ask because I was really suprised to look at her results sheet and see that she have never played outside of the UK. Not once !

Contrast that to Flora, say, who has Qatar, South Africa, Belgium etc on her points breakdown.

I wondered, naturally, if that meant Maria's family are not that well off? She has no LTA support? Or maybe they believe schooling is more important and will only let her play UK events?

Either way, that's a very good scrap and win by Mika

And well done to Maria for a wonderful tournament, and counting - it's going to be a very big boost to her ranking

Maria's family are very well off! Tennis court at home. She's been on the circuit since around aged 5. Very good player. I'm surprised she has no LTA support but to my mind, all this LTA support is a nonsense at such a young age....one day so and so beats so and so and the next tournament, it's vice versa. Up and down. Look at Hep. She's back again, it seems. We've got lots of talent out there and they're not being "supported" by the LTA. Narrowing the field too quickly. Too much, too young as well.