British Tennis Forum

Be daft to look a gift horse in the mouth. Money to be collected!

She finally takes a break point at the 6th attempt and then gets her first hold of the match.

2-3*

1-6 2-6

Even worse than I expected it to be. That's 7 now. I think she's made the doubles cut, so that's a decent pay day next week before moving onto the grass.

Looked barely engaged mostly - a few moments here and there where she seemed into the fight - but not even the usual hand wringing and emotional verbals we might see when behind usually. Strange display. Unemotional and detached.

-- Edited by Dallastone1 on Monday 19th of May 2025 04:28:43 PM

To use a football analogy, it feels like Harriet has lost the dressing room, if the dressing room was these message boards.

I know I am going to get panned for saying this, but I quite like Harriet's feisty and combative nature. The insult to the French player in her previous match was bang out of order, for sure, but I would far rather a player got annoyed and frustrated on court, when things aren't going well, than someone who meekly accepts that they are going to be beaten and politely shakes the other player's hand and seems unaffected or resigned to a loss or bad display.

I feel that Harriet is super-competitive and it is that edge that actually keeps her going. Her serve is so bad, but she normally keeps fighting for every point and often breaks opponents serves, which when her opponent is a lesser player, then quite often makes for see-saw matches and sometimes lesser players crack and give up when they keep breaking and being broken themselves, as they are confused as to what is happening.

Watching Harriet reminds me a lot of watching Dementieva - I always think there is more chance of Harriet winning a game when she is not serving.

Anyway I think if she loses her combative and feisty nature, she is done for - but I do agree with Coup, that being in front of a French crowd after her insults to her previous French opponent, must have been pretty embarrassing for her and probably contributed to this terrible result.

For me, unless she somehow can make her serve a lot better, she will never be a top player, as the top players she will come up against do not regularly get broken and so will hold most of their service games against her, and with Harriet's serve so bad, she is then going to lose a lot of service games. Anyway bad comments or not, Harriet is on a terrible run and needs friends, kindness and support right now - I know I will be vilified for saying that.

Disappointing!

Are these being shown on TV? I know it is TNT with the rights but are they showing the qualifiers?