Week 26 - Wimbledon Ladies Qualifying, Great Britain Grass

Peter too · Tennis legend

Week 26 - Wimbledon Ladies Qualifying

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

Wimbledon Ladies Qualifying

Bagel · Lower Club Player

So 3 wins out of 7. To be honest I am surprised there were that many as I only expected Lily to win. She was the only one there on rankings. In fact the other two winners were the next nearest to their opponents on rankings. I am puzzled as to why so many seemed to expect more to win. Players are ranked higher for a reason! I will be frankly astonished if any of the three proceed to the FQR!

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

Week 26 - Wimbledon Ladies Qualifying

Var · Pro player

Grachka wrote:
All over for Mimi, who was broken after another long game and Storm then held comfortably.

Storm Hunter AUS d. [WC] Mimi Xu GBR 7-5 6-4

[WC] Anna Brogan GBR 4-6 6-5* Victoria Jimenez Kasintseva AND
[WC] Hannah Klugman GBR 1-6 *3-3 Reka-Luca Jani HUN

2 sets but that was close. A bit more experience at senior levels and many of our juniors will be winning including Mimi.

the addict · Tennis legend

I watched the whole of Hannah's match. Jani was just too solid on defence and Hannah was perhaps a little too aggressive and missed a few balls. She played really well towards the end if the match - I think she was better on the day than Isabelle. A great prospect for the future. The match was watched by a huge crowd, the bank at the side was fairly full, but we were 3 or 4 deep along the path along the top.

indiana · Tennis legend

Bagel wrote:
So 3 wins out of 7. To be honest I am surprised there were that many as I only expected Lily to win. She was the only one there on rankings. In fact the other two winners were the next nearest to their opponents on rankings. I am puzzled as to why so many seemed to expect more to win. Players are ranked higher for a reason! I will be frankly astonished if any of the three proceed to the FQR!

I thought 3 was about par re my expectations this year.

As regards the rankings, these are of course 12 months rankings based on tournaments throughout the world, 90% not on grass. This is British women competing on grass at home and we have seen enough over the last 2 years for starters to see how often our players beat much higher ranked players, often very uncomfortable on grass, in these circumstances.

I'd say that some folk's predictions and the bookies' odds take account of that.

DavidC · Tennis legend

3 wins is I am sure better than average for QR1 (although the draws are also better than average in terms of number of seeds faced)

Tomorrow Anna is 4th on the Stadium court, Naiktha 3rd on court 15 (following Billy) and Lily 3rd on court 16

Jaggy1876 · Grand Slam Champion

Looking at all the mens and womens I cant see more than one or possibly 2 making the FQR, sadly like the others I dont see any of the women making it but you never know.

Nix · Futures level

the addict wrote:
I watched the whole of Hannah's match. Jani was just too solid on defence and Hannah was perhaps a little too aggressive and missed a few balls. She played really well towards the end if the match - I think she was better on the day than Isabelle. A great prospect for the future. The match was watched by a huge crowd, the bank at the side was fairly full, but we were 3 or 4 deep along the path along the top.

She also kept getting caught out by the drop shot and lob combo. So much so that she ended up trying it herself in the second set and won the point!

Isabelle started well but then had a horrid service game where she served two double faults and Ruse suddenly needed something from her bag which gave Isa more time to think about it! After that her serve fell apart a bit. But shell have learned a lot too. I dont think shell have played many other players who hit the ball so hard as her opponent did today.

Loved catching a bit of Anna who was in the court behind me. She looked so determined and focused against an opponent who was clearly v tough and used to winning! Great effort from Anna.

DavidC · Tennis legend

Since the question of what is typical for women's qualifying has been raised I have had a quick look at the drawsheets for the 10 years pre-Covid and Ukraine war (2010-2019). During that time I counted 18 British wins in QR1 (average 1.8) with the best being 4 in 2016. There have been just 3 Brits in that time period who made it to the FQR (Lisa Whybourn in 2010, Harriet Dart in 2016 losing 13-11 in the third and Sam Murray in 2019)

emmsie69 · Top national player

DavidC wrote:
Since the question of what is typical for women's qualifying has been raised I have had a quick look at the drawsheets for the 10 years pre-Covid and Ukraine war (2010-2019). During that time I counted 18 British wins in QR1 (average 1.8) with the best being 4 in 2016. There have been just 3 Brits in that time period who made it to the FQR (Lisa Whybourn in 2010, Harriet Dart in 2016 losing 13-11 in the third and Sam Murray in 2019)

Deleted, just read it properly

-- Edited by emmsie69 on Tuesday 27th of June 2023 06:45:07 PM

Shhh · Challenger level

Really enjoyed my first visit to Qualies today, a mini Wimbledon but in a park,.... very nice.

I moved around to see as many Brits as I could but managed full matches for Isabelle and Hannah and just over. Set of Xu. I was so impressed with all 3 youngsters, all have serious talent. At this level the quality shots which would usually win the points obviously comes back. Point after point, game after game and I think they found the relentless of it hard. What an experience for them all though, if they can continue to grow....the future looks quite bright with the GB Ladies

-- Edited by Shhh on Tuesday 27th of June 2023 06:53:01 PM

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

Agree with most of what others have said.

But this was my take on Hannah:

I don't think her team had prepared her for the match properly

Every time Jani hit a deep, hard top-spin shot to Hannah's forehand (i.e. a 'normal' shot) Hannah was basically fine. Gave as good as she got.
BUT Jani didn't do that. About 75% of her shots to Hannah's forehand were slices and chips, with a fair sprinkling of drop-shots thrown in.
I was watching some of the French National Veterans Championships last week and it honestly wasn't much different, the same point construction.
And it completely bamboozled Hannah
She was fine with occasional loopy shot (she's used to that in juniors, you get so much of it) but she didn't know what to do with the forehand slices, she got sucked into doing the same. And then getting frustrated because it wasn't what she wanted to be doing. And so trying to hit a top-spin one off them but they were just very low and she didn't really know how to do it. And the dropshots drove her mad - she was shouting at her box 'I don't know where to put the ball!'.
To me, that's down to her team - they must have known that someone with Jani's experience was going to mix it up, and play a lot of slice - it's the basic tactic to youngsters.
Hannah also had a lot of problem with balls in the air - which surprised me. Didn't back herself, got confused when to and when not to.
However, overall, it was a very good second set. A definite learning experience. She was quite at home, not outclassed. All good.

Of the other losses, Emily's was heartbreaking. She went more and more into herself. Her face was completely closed. And her tennis retreated into herself when it mattered too. Again, I do wonder if having a coach who screamed at her might have been more useful - you got the feeling she needed someone to shake her up and 'snap' her out of it. Jeremy Bates was watching her but he's always dead quiet so it's never going to be him. And Katie O'Brian was there for Emily too, but she keeps it very quiet too - just polite claps and very quiet 'well played's. I may well be wrong but I got the feeling she needed the Brazilian coach I was next to for a bit, someone who'd have screamed 'NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Em, vamos!!!!!!!!!!!!!!'

Isabelle's got away from her rather quickly, after the unfortunate game at the end of the first set. Mimi was playing decent tennis, I'd had 20p on her but don't hold it against her

Backhand slice is well dodgy but, overall, some very good power and speed.

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

Of the three wins, I didn't see Lily - I thought she had a good chance and was off seeing the young Czech starlets (very interesting). But congrats to Naiktha - what a time to bring your best tennis - hasn't won a pro match on grass all season and then smashes it
Emily App should take a lesson from how Naiktha comes to the net - she races in, full flight (sometimes too fast), but real speed and commitment and forward momentum (whereas Emily got caught a step short, and backing off, most of the time). She fought for it, and deserved it. And her opponent really did not look happy on grass. As one of the English coaches said, she looked like she was doing certain schemes of play because she'd been told that's what you're supposed to do on grass.
Anna's match was the icing on the cake. I'd actually had a sizeable (for me) flutter on Anna. The yound Andoran girl is not a grass player, she found junior Wimbledon a struggle, she skipped it last year, just doing clay RG juniors, she basically likes clay, end of. And Anna hung tough, and made her play, and took the ball on, and it was great to see.

Well done to our women. A very decent showing.