I think that is great Fran is in the GB team and hopefully will play for GB in the future, if not now.  It will probably be a better recognition of and statement about her ability than her career high, given that she finds it difficult to play a full schedule.   I am sure playing for GB is worth risking an injury for - when she looks back on her career, I'm sure it will make more difference to her than to have a career high of, say 20 points higher.

I would imagine that the main reason that Fran has been selected is for practice purposes

Liam sometimes used to get taken along as the token 'lefty' (pre-Cam) because otherwise the players would have no lefty to practice against

And the same for Fran. If you don't have any natural clay courters in your group, then you're not going to be able to practice against a ball at the right height, with the right amount of top-spin etc

And that makes it difficult for the player, and really difficult for the coach

But Fran hits a classic, perfect clay court ball, and is reasonably tall.

Now, it's true that Garcia doesn't, particularly. But Parry has more of a clay court shape on her shots. As does Burel.

But, given Diane Parry will face Katie Boulter (and Caroline Garcia will play Emma Raducanu), first off, I can imagine Katie will have been practicing a fair bit against Fran

I would be so excited for this tie if it were on hard court. Sadly, I feel we''ll struggle to win a match. Looking at this as more of an opportunity to improve on clay for the future.

I'd actually love to see Fran given a go but I don't think Anne is the type to make that call.

LordBrownof wrote:

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I would be so excited for this tie if it were on hard court. Sadly, I feel we''ll struggle to win a match. Looking at this as more of an opportunity to improve on clay for the future.

I'd actually love to see Fran given a go but I don't think Anne is the type to make that call.

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 I'm not Anne's biggest fan but I certainly hope that while the match is live she makes her calls purely on who she considers most likely to get wins. Kinda important part of the job.

Though, as you suggest  we could well be 0-3 down after the #1 vs #1 match. So yes maybe an opportunity for Fran to play then.

indiana wrote:

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LordBrownof wrote:

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I would be so excited for this tie if it were on hard court. Sadly, I feel we''ll struggle to win a match. Looking at this as more of an opportunity to improve on clay for the future.

I'd actually love to see Fran given a go but I don't think Anne is the type to make that call.

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 I'm not Anne's biggest fan but I certainly hope that while the match is live she makes her calls purely on who she considers most likely to get wins. Kinda important part of the job.

Though, as you suggest  we could well be 0-3 down after the #1 vs #1 match. So yes maybe an opportunity for Fran to play then.

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If its 3-0 then doubles is played instead of the 4th singles match.

adz1983 wrote:

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Peter too wrote:

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Katie Boulter (GBR) 28 (CH=27 2024) v PARRY, Diane (FRA) 49 =CH
They have played twice before with Katie winning 4 & 0 and 4 & 2 but both were on hard courts.

Emma Raducanu 302 (CH=10 2022) v GARCIA, Caroline (FRA) 23 (CH=4 2018)
They have played twice before with Emma winning 3 & 3 at Wimbledon and losing in three at Indian Wells.

I guess our best chance is for two wins against Parry plus the doubles.

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 Think the Emma v. Garcia results happened the other way round

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Thanks, now corrected. 

Spireman wrote:

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We will see what happens but seems to me they should play Fran in singles for her clay court ability. Problem is that would mean leaving Emma out (I assume), and that would be difficult with her profile, CH, GS winner etc. Rankings at the moment don't help much due to her injuries but even if she was say 80, or 150, it feels like they need some sort of unofficial surfaced based ranking to work on. I wonder if they play practice games, short sets or tiebreaks against each other as this might help with selection?

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Well, Emma is the pick for day 1 along with Katie.

Though surely it would only be difficult not to pick Emma due to her profile etc if you had a very weak captain! Again, I assume our starters have actually been selected just on judgement of the most likely to win.

So I assume that it is indeed based mainly on how they all look in practice in the days leading up to the tie, not necessarily staging actual matches against each other though that could be part but making a judgement. Should not be down to any sort of clay rankings ( which would be fairly historical anyway, with no recent clay matches for all bar Fran ) because we have a captain - put in position to judge and select.