Week 17 - WTA1000 - Madrid, Spain Clay

Peter too · Tennis legend

Week 17 - WTA1000 - Madrid, Spain Clay

B00thy · Intermediate Club Player

Peter too wrote:
Q1: Harriet Dart (GBR) [19] WR110 v Varvara Lepchenko (USA) WR120
Lepchenko is now 38 years old with a career high of 19 in 2012

Q1: Francesca Jones (GBR) WR134 v Laura Siegenund (GER) [13] WR95
Sigmund is now 37 with a career high of 27 from 2016, they met in Bogota in 2024 with Laura winning in three.

Not the easiest couple of qualifying matches

seagull · Hall of fame

Not great main draw.
Emma v Lamens
Sonay v Cristian
Katie v Siniakova

the addict · Tennis legend

R1:- Suzan Lamens (NED) WR69 v Emma Raducanu (GBR) WR47
Winner to play Marta Kostyuk (UKR) WR25 [24]

R1:- Jaqueline Cristian (ROU) WR66 v Sonay Kartal (GBR) WR59
Winner to play Elina Svitolina (UKR) WR18 [17]

R1:- Katie Boulter (GBR) WR40 v Katerina Siniakova (CZE) WR56
winner to play Jasmine Paolini (ITA) WR6 [6]

The round one matches aren't too bad, but the second round is tough

Priesty · Challenger level

I expect Varvara will be aware of the need to have a good prematch bath and wear strong deodorant... wink

Peter too · Tennis legend

the addict wrote:
R1:- Suzan Lamens (NED) WR69 v Emma Raducanu (GBR) WR47
Winner to play Marta Kostyuk (UKR) WR25 [24]

R1:- Jaqueline Cristian (ROU) WR66 v Sonay Kartal (GBR) WR59
Winner to play Elina Svitolina (UKR) WR18 [17]

R1:- Katie Boulter (GBR) WR40 v Katerina Siniakova (CZE) WR56
winner to play Jasmine Paolini (ITA) WR6 [6]

The round one matches aren't too bad, but the second round is tough

Emma looks as if she got the best draw. If she follows on from Miami she wouldn't meet top seed Sabalenka until the QF and wouldn't meet her nemesis, Swiatek until the final.

seagull · Hall of fame

I admire your optimism!

Peter too · Tennis legend

seagull wrote:
I admire your optimism!

I am not saying she will make it, I was just relieved to see any possible meetings against the top two later in the draw, particularly Swiatek who Emma has now played 4 times without winning a set and lost heavily at their last meeting.

GBJ · County player

Priesty wrote:
I expect Varvara will be aware of the need to have a good prematch bath and wear strong deodorant...

No-one is likely to actually do anything cos it would be such a distraction but it must be tempting to take a can of deodorant onto court or offer Harriet a nose peg or something just for fun

GBJ · County player

Kostyuk down to 36 in live rankings today

indiana · Tennis legend

GBJ wrote:
Kostyuk down to 36 in live rankings today

Ah, I was thinking you meant the post Madrid 05/05 rankings which would have no doubt meant she had a rather good Madrid last year.

But I see that the 21/04 official rankings are not out yet and that you mean the 21/04 live rankings, where she is dropping WTA 500 Stuttgart RU points from last year. She then lost her first match in Madrid to Mayar Sherif.

9vicman · Satellite level

Lamens is on form. Unbeaten in BJKC and a semifinalist in Rouen last week. Let's see how Emma adapts to clay - I do think last season she showed she could play on the dirt.

PaulM · Tennis legend

Harriet was broken to lose the first set 6-4

She then went 1-5* down in the second and has saved a match point to get back to *4-5, but will be an effort to hold again.

RJH1962 · Strong Club Player

Now a tie break

PaulM · Tennis legend

Which she actually plays very well to win 7-3.

Doing a lot of good things, just the surface means her slightly lesser weight of shot results in the ball not being put away when she's on top, and Lepchenko is able to get back into the rallies more often than not. And while Lepchenko is not exactly a power player, she's still able to do enough off Harriet's serve to get her out of position and expose the movement on clay.

-- Edited by PaulM on Monday 21st of April 2025 12:06:55 PM