British Tennis Forum - Celebrating 20 Years!

Andy Parker wrote:

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Like others are saying, why enter the doubles when you seem to have back issues and are coming back from injury. It feels completely mad - Okamura is an experienced player at 29 and with a ranking of 214, will give Katie a stern test. Why play the doubles and tire yourself out - I'm completely gobsmacked as to why she would enter the doubles at this stage of her comeback. If she loses to Okamura, it will look like an even more rash decision. Keeping my fingers crossed, but not hopeful of the next one. Still she did well to come through the marathon today - I was seeing updates on the live scores and would you believe, the first three games of the second set took 43 minutes. That must be close to a record.

-- Edited by Andy Parker on Wednesday 6th of August 2025 10:04:28 PM

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 I don't think she was wrong to enter the doubles. She's far enough into her comeback now to know whether she has had an issue with the original back injury recurring.

I see the logic behind playing, particularly after last week where she had to play 2 matches in one day. Entering the doubles is a good way to get her body conditioned to manage 2 matches. I don't think anyone could foresee a 1st round match against a qualifier at a W35 taking 3 hours.

Anyway she lost the doubles (thank goodness) so onwards and upwards.  A win today after yesterdays marathon will be another insight into where she is physically.

I'm with emmsie69, though we're all on the same side really It's a balance between getting quickly accustomed to the courts and conditions at a new tournament, and not exhausting energy for the primary goal. The 1st Rnd match proved to be tough, and imho that was exactly what Swan would have wanted. However, it might just as easily been a lot more comfortable, in which case an extra doubles match would likely be beneficial. It all seems to have turned out well and Katie got to partner a youngster, Olivia Berardi, playing her first pro-level match (nice photo on Instagram).

For whatever reason I see from the 11/08 entries thread that Katie has pulled out of next week's Canadian W50.

foobarbaz wrote:

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Swan 2nd up on court 15 which is being livestreamed on the ITF website.

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 Thanks to the link to the live stream - not a good start for Katie though, 0-3 at present.

Six games in a row for Katie - takes the first set 6-3

Having only started watching the 2nd set it's difficult to understand how she lost the first 3 games