British Tennis Forum

the addict · Tennis legend

Week 24 - WTA500 HSBC Championships Queens Club, London - Grass

indiana · Tennis legend

Katie & Emma save 3 MPs at 2-6 *5-6 0-40 against the top seeds, but not the 4th MP / deuce point.

2-6 5-7

Hope they still had another enjoyable time though.

the addict · Tennis legend

QF- Lyudmyla Kitchenok (UKR) / Erin Routliffe (NZL) CR14 (11+3) [1] def Emma Raducanu (GBR) / Katie Boulter (GBR) UNR (UNR+476) 6-2 7-5

L16:- Tereza Mihalikova (SVK) / Olivia Nicholls (GBR) CR66 (34+32) lost to Ellen Perez (AUS) / Shuai Zhang (CHN) CR27 (15+12) [3] (3)6-7 (5)6-7

PaulM · Tennis legend

I do think Liv and Tereza would have been better playing Notts next week than going over to Berlin for the 500. Need to get some momentum going.

the addict · Tennis legend

PaulM wrote:
I do think Liv and Tereza would have been better playing Notts next week than going over to Berlin for the 500. Need to get some momentum going.

I agree. They are getting closer and closer to beating these top 20 players, but do need to get some wins before Wimbledon.

Neil Gee · County player

Sonay being overpowered in the first set against Anisimova. 1-6 first set 25 minutes.

Rich2310 · County player

Didn't expect Sonay to win today but what a year she is having and learning all the time.
Keep her head held high and onto Nottingham where I will be on Saturday.

Neil Gee · County player

Yes Rich Sonay made the American work more in the second set and was able to show some of her characteristic bottle but the gulf it couldn't be bridged today 6-1, 6-3.

Sheddie · administrator

So I just got back from a fun day at Queen's. Will share some thoughts on the day's matches in a bit.

I've been to the men's event in the past and in some ways today was more enjoyable as a fan - much shorter queue to get in, shorter queues for everything, and just generally less congested to get around, which makes a difference as it's a small intimate venue - Eastbourne feels way bigger for example.

On the flip side, it'll be interesting to see how the event fares in terms of its commercial viability. There were vast swathes of empty seats in some sections of Centre Court, I'd estimate that at least 30% of the tickets must have gone unsold.

The audience felt a little different as well - more diehard, knowledgeable tennis fans who really knew the game and had heard of all the players, while the men's week is far more chock-a-block with city bankers & their WAGS.

Yet at the same time, the crowd was markedly less vocal which made for a much more subdued atmosphere. It might be a little different with Emma and Katie tomorrow - and Sonay isn't as well known and also got thoroughly outplayed today. But people didn't get as into it.

There were also a lot of people with more than half an eye on the Boultercanu doubles score during the first match. Definitely quite strange that match wasn't put on Centre - might have helped create a bit more of a buzz.

Another thing - there were only 3 matches on Centre. During the men's week, I swear there's always 4 singles on Centre each day. One of the current nice things about the women's event is tickets are more readily available and much cheaper. I'm sure they will want to put prices up in future years, but they might have to add a bit more to the schedule - if today's first match (Navarro vs Haddad-Maia) hadn't gone three hours, we could have been all done and dusted by 5.30.

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

Love the reports - thanks to Sheddie and the addict and to everyone who takes the time to do them

indiana · Tennis legend

Yes, thanks very much.

Re the scheduling I see that tomorrow they actually do have all 4 of the day's L16 singles matches on Andy Murray Arena this time. I guess they have 3 Brits and the #1 seed to accomodate.

In order from noon: Katie, Heather, Emma, Qinwen Zheng.

the addict · Tennis legend

A couple of pics from yesterday

Sheddie · administrator

Some thoughts on the 3 matches I saw:

1. Navarro def Haddad-Maia 1-6, 7-6(4), 6-3

Haddad-Maia won't sleep particularly well tonight. For 2 hours, this match was basically in her hands and she could, and probably should have won it 6-1, 6-3. Navarro really didn't show up in the first set - it was quite obvious that it was her first match of the year on grass - she didn't look at all sure in her movement, in the bounces, and she was pretty much missing everything she tried - she kept trying but couldn't time a backhand slice for love or money. For most of the first two sets, she had such little confidence in her game that all her shots were pretty much just going up the centre of the court, and even then she was consistently missing her forehand.

Haddad-Maia on the other hand looked perfectly adapted to the grass - could see why she made second week of Wimbledon two years ago. Some glorious touches around the forecourt, especially at the net, which drew appreciative murmurs from the crowd, combined with a serve which was consistently clocking close to 120mph. However in set 2, she started to have spells where she went a little awol, as she does, which let Navarro into the match, and we began to see some signs of the American's world-class double hander.

Haddad-Maia had a match point on the Navarro serve, I think at 5-4, and finally Navarro came alive. First drop shot of the match, then anticipated where Haddad-Maia's whipped backhand was going, and flicked a forehand pass down the line.

Still it looked like the Brazilian's match to lose. She was 4-2 up in the tiebreak, and then the entire contest turned on a moment of fate. Someone in the crowd had a medical scare (I couldn't see from where we were sitting, but maybe heatstroke). Anyway it caused quite a commotion, and the match was paused for a good 15-20 minutes with the players basically just left waiting at the back of the court. In the meantime, Haddad-Maia totally lost her composure and on the resumption basically gifted Navarro 5 straight points (2 double faults and 3 cheap unforced errors), Navarro barely had to hit a ball and it was suddenly 1 set all.

The Brazilian left the court, composed herself and made the decider a contest, but unfortunately for her, it was now a different Navarro on court, more like the one who did so well on the grass last year. Things were finally starting to click, especially her problematic forehand, and she was just too obdurate and resilient in the final set.

A strange match, but at close to 3 hours, a bit of an epic

Deucebag · Intermediate Club Player

I really like the reports coming in from Queens. Please keep it up.
Does anybody know when was the last time we had three players inside the top 50 WTA?

Sheddie · administrator

2. Anisimova def Kartal 6-1, 6-3

I felt a bit for Sonay as everyone left the court after the marathon first match, as tends to happen, so she began this one in an even more flat, empty stadium (it wasn't exactly a buzzing atmosphere to begin with) which probably didn't help her.

Even more problematically, Anisimova just came out straight in the zone, stroking backhand winners left, right and centre. She basically did a bit of a Sabalenka to Sonay, relentlessly going after her serve and anything which wasn't a full length, not letting her settle at all.

I don't think Sonay has quite figured out a strategy for playing power hitters of this quality, she was continuously rocked back on her heels by the power of the Anisimova groundstrokes and never got the chance to start constructing the points and using her forehand as she'd like. Instead, she actually ended up making more errors because she was being pushed out of her comfort zone, and felt the need to try and take more risks and play less percentage shots.

It was all over quite quickly in barely an hour, but as she said afterwards, still another excellent week for her with the win over Kasatkina.

3. Keys def Zakharova 6-3, 6-2

Have to admit, I'd never heard of Zakharova before, but I could see how she came through qualies and beat Vekic. Decent grass game, hits a deep, flat ball and squats down close to the ground to hit her shots, which helps with the low bounces.|

She's also a very quirky player in all kinds of ways. Very odd service motion - she kind of does an extra hop as the ball goes up, before she jumps to hit it. It looks like the kind of thing you'd see at my local club, but hey, it works! Plus after literally every shot she misses, she repeats the aberrant shot with an extra feisty swipe of the air - she did it so many times, it started to raise giggles from the crowd.
And despite having a game for grass, she simply couldn't stay upright. She must have hit the deck about 6 times, none of which seemed to remotely bother her at all - she even celebrated one passing shot winner lying flat on her back.

It made for quite a contrast, the Russian at one end, a blur of limbs, quirky movements and an elaborate grunt that I didn't mention, and the cool, composed Keys. Like Navarro, she took a while to make friends with the grass, she was 3-1 down early on and kept gazing at the court, then her team, seemingly in disbelief at some of the bounces. But then she started landing those percussive forehands, while showing off her surprisingly effective defensive game - her defensive slices on both the forehand and backhand side keep really low and got her back into numerous points.

After a few games it became a gunfight of flat hitting, and Zakharova was always going to find herself just short of ammunition against one of the biggest hitters on the tour. But an entertaining game. Keys has never gone past the quarters at Wimbledon - with the year she's having so far, I feel that could change in a few weeks time