Arrrrrh thanks lambada it all makes sense now.
I just got this off the tennis first website.

Suzi was Director of Sport at Bolton Arena and has coached tennis players at every stage of the performance pathway, from 10U through to WTA Top 100 players. As Director of the Suzi Riley Sport Consultancy Company, Suzi has worked with the LTA, Tennis Australia and UK performance tennis academies. Suzi is an EMCC accredited mentor and a member of the Sport England Women in Coaching Task Force. Suzi is the coach of WTA player Amarni banks. Suzi grew up in Melbourne Australia, played NCAA Division 1 College Tennis at San Jose State University and is the mother of two boys starting their tennis journey.

She does look like Katie OBrien although my eyes are not the best any more.
Fair play to her sticking up for her player with Jezza

GAMEOVER wrote:

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Deucebag wrote:

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Why did I have a feeling this would get a response about Jeremy Bates (especially from CD ) when the intention was to try and find out who marnis coach was and if anybody knew her Australian connections.
Well just for the record, he didnt look very comfortable in the Marni vs Harriet match as Harriet was giving him quite a bit of stick during the match.
I remember cheering for him on the TV when I think he got to the last eight of Wimbledon. I vaguely remember something happening on a very important point like somebody sneezing , cheering or coughing in the crowd and then he double faulted. Or something like that (Was that you in the crowd by any chance CD?)
I cant remember exactly what happened as I was very young.

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 Jeremy Bates never reached the last 8 at Wimbledon. It was the last 16 match at Wimbledon 1992 where he had  a match point against Guy Forget and lost in 5 sets..

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 I think the point deucebag is making still stands the same though, whichever round he made. 

I saw Bates beating Thierry Champion in the third round that 1992 year at Wimbledon - he also made the fourth round in 1994 and lost again to Forget! Against Champion he played a brilliant attacking game, very entertaining and won in 5 sets that had the old Court One crowd on its feet for many parts of it. Whatever his manner now, he had a lot of fans that day , then again he was our only hope! And hed got a Wimbledon and Aussie Open mixed title before then, so had a lot of fans.

I wanted to pick up on the comment on Marni's wild cards that deucebag reported. Firstly, I hope "entitled" was paraphrasing and not the actual word used in the conversation. No player is entitled to a wild card; it should be earned through performance, demonstrating development potential or winning a pre-designated competition.

On the actual point though, I've heard that comment being made before about Marni getting wild cards (or lack of). It perplexed me as she doesn't need wild cards for most GB low level ITFs. But then you look at where she did go through qualifying last year and you begin to think there is something in it.

In GB events Marni went through qualifying in Bath W25 in Feb and the grass events at Surbiton and Ilkley. It was reported that she didn't originally have a WC for Shrewsbury and only got it when Anna no longer required it. And as she got a SE for Glasgow W60, we don't know if she would have had to go through qualifying there otherwise or was in line for a WC.

At Bath W25, Marni was 3rd qualifying seed and the WCs were given to Talia, Jasmine, Emily App and Danielle. It should be noted that Beth was a higher qualifying seed than Marni so may also had claim to a WC.

Even allowing for LTA policy is that 25k WCs are awarded to U21s to give an opportunity to compete at entry level with more weight given to National Academy and Men and Women Programme players and that there are many factors that go into deciding who gets WCs I find it hard to say all those awarded WCs had a better case than Marni would have had.

The LTA policy for W100 WCs is to give them to players to accelerate their progress towards the top 100 or with the highest chance of being successful with their WC.

Surbiton W100 Marni was 14th qualifying seed (Eliz was a higher q seed) with wild cards given ahead of her to Eden, Lily, Naiktha and Sonay. They were all ranked above Marni at the time, but many would say Marni has the potential to be ranked closer to the top 100 than some of them.

Ilkley W100 wild cards were Sonay, Isabelle (Junior national winner WC), Lily and Anna. I think these choices ahead of Marni are fair enough.

Shrewsbury W100, it was reported that Marni was to be in qualifying and only received a WC when Anna no longer required it. The other WCs were Isabelle, Fran and Katy. As much as I adore Katy and think her perseverance through her physical and mental injuries and what she gives back to the sport should be rewarded, to give her a WC ahead of Marni?

And there are WTA qualifying WCs that you'd expect someone of Marni's calibre to be in the mix for, which she didn't get.

So all in all, there is probably a case that Marni was hard done by in WC allocations for the few GB events she needed them.

L16: (WC) Kimberley Birrel & Olivia Gadecki (AUS/AUS) CR 344 (251+93) defeated Oksana Kalashnikova (GEO) & Maia Lumsden CR 115 (43+72) by 6-7(2) 6-1 [10-8]

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I wanted to pick up on the comment on Marni's wild cards that deucebag reported. Firstly, I hope "entitled" was paraphrasing and not the actual word used in the conversation. No player is entitled to a wild card; it should be earned through performance, demonstrating development potential or winning a pre-designated competition.

On the actual point though, I've heard that comment being made before about Marni getting wild cards (or lack of). It perplexed me as she doesn't need wild cards for most GB low level ITFs. But then you look at where she did go through qualifying last year and you begin to think there is something in it.

In GB events Marni went through qualifying in Bath W25 in Feb and the grass events at Surbiton and Ilkley. It was reported that she didn't originally have a WC for Shrewsbury and only got it when Anna no longer required it. And as she got a SE for Glasgow W60, we don't know if she would have had to go through qualifying there otherwise or was in line for a WC.

At Bath W25, Marni was 3rd qualifying seed and the WCs were given to Talia, Jasmine, Emily App and Danielle. It should be noted that Beth was a higher qualifying seed than Marni so may also had claim to a WC.

Even allowing for LTA policy is that 25k WCs are awarded to U21s to give an opportunity to compete at entry level with more weight given to National Academy and Men and Women Programme players and that there are many factors that go into deciding who gets WCs I find it hard to say all those awarded WCs had a better case than Marni would have had.

The LTA policy for W100 WCs is to give them to players to accelerate their progress towards the top 100 or with the highest chance of being successful with their WC.

Surbiton W100 Marni was 14th qualifying seed (Eliz was a higher q seed) with wild cards given ahead of her to Eden, Lily, Naiktha and Sonay. They were all ranked above Marni at the time, but many would say Marni has the potential to be ranked closer to the top 100 than some of them.

Ilkley W100 wild cards were Sonay, Isabelle (Junior national winner WC), Lily and Anna. I think these choices ahead of Marni are fair enough.

Shrewsbury W100, it was reported that Marni was to be in qualifying and only received a WC when Anna no longer required it. The other WCs were Isabelle, Fran and Katy. As much as I adore Katy and think her perseverance through her physical and mental injuries and what she gives back to the sport should be rewarded, to give her a WC ahead of Marni?

And there are WTA qualifying WCs that you'd expect someone of Marni's calibre to be in the mix for, which she didn't get.

So all in all, there is probably a case that Marni was hard done by in WC allocations for the few GB events she needed them.


Wow lambada you certainly do have a wealth information about this, most of this is well above my pay grade but its good to get a gist of how it all works.

PaulM wrote:

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Deucebag it's easier if you want to refer back to another posters comment to press the white "quote" button that appears at the top right of every post.

Otherwise it's quite difficult to separate where their post you have copied ends and yours begins

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 Thanks for that info PaulM. I have never understood before how to respond directly to someones comment.