British Tennis Forum - Celebrating 20 Years!

Emma's service didn't seem to be there today, it may be because she felt she needed to do more with her 1st serves and instead kept missing them. She needed to get Rybakina moving but too often the ball ended up going to the middle. She rarely got a chance to play as we know she can.

I don't mind Emma losing as long as she gives it 100% and I feel that she did that today. Okay her shoulders slumped, her body language was down (and if I picked up on that then Rybakina must have and took encouragement from it) but Emma was still giving every serve full effort no matter how wayward her tennis was going she was still trying and I can live with that. It's when she turns up looking like she's just not in the mood and doesn't want to be there that it pisses me off - but to be fair to Emma she hasn't done that for awhile now.

Var wrote:

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Not good enough today. Maybe a bit more competition in the early stages might have helped? Not sure but back to the drawing board. My only worry with Emma is that Rybakina and Swiatek seem able to dismantle her game with ease. I am not sure if it is psychological?
logical?

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I don't think back to the drawing board at all. 

Emma's clearly been working well with the new coach. Keep on working with him, keep on improving.

indiana wrote:

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christ wrote:

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It really is a lot easier to win a Grand Slam if the highest player that you have to play is ranked 12. These top tenners are tricky.

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 Top 10 players have in general still been rather too good for Emma, though she is a bit unlucky in draws in that 10 of the 13 top 20 players she has played this year have been top 10, with some clearly at the sharp end of that top 10. 

She is 1 win / 9 losses against top 10 but actually 2 wins / 1 loss against 11 to 20. Would be good to see how she  competes if she can play rather more players in that 2nd range.

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 She has demonstrated very effectively that she can win the US Open if that is the quality of opposition. (Belinda Bencic 12, Maria Sakkari 18, next highest Sara Sorribes Tormo 41)

In the big picture, the curious thing, I thought, was the role of Rybakina's dodgy coach

As far as I'm concerned, he basically won the match

He never shut up, the constant barrage of encouragement and advice kept Elena's nose to the grindstone

At the end furhter from him, or occasionally when he shut up, her form dipped - almost instantly

And then he'd crank it up - like a manic fitness coach

Now, it was all utlra positive coaching, none of the nasty stuff he's been accused of)

And I was asking myself: is allowing coaching like this going too far, Elena is bascially being carried along?
Or, is this wonderful, becuase thanks to allowing the coaching, Elena is playing lights out tennis and it's so much better than watching a player implode?

Overall, I came down with the second answer (but with slight reservations)

And, yes, for me, no reason for a crisis for Emma fans. I expected her to lose, as above, I thought the people claiming she'd played so much better than Elena in the previous round weren't taking into account the big difference in the level of their relative opponents and it's easy to look amazing on 'easy' balls. Emma was outplayed, in spades, and needs to work on her speed of footwork (as before and as always), Elena (for a tall girl) was remarkably speedy at adjusting for heavy balls whereas Emma wasn't.

But she got outplayed by someone playing exceptionally well. And if Emma looked a little battered and seemed to give up slightly in the second set, it's a shame but it's not a crisis.

JonH comes home wrote:

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My biggest concern with coaching is that it becomes a not level playing field. The higher up the game you go, the more you can afford a coach and a good coach. Or a coach that is more vocal and less quiet.

A challenger level player may not afford one at all or have one that isnt as good in so many ways.

It should be all about the player in individual events - team events are team events and that is fine - but I personally would never allow any coaching.

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 But of course it's not a level playing field 

Having good coaching off the court is equally important and that's not a level playing field

Having the NTC, with physios, and food nutritionists, and amazing machines to track body movements, and whatever, is available to some, and not others

There's no reason to suddenly focus on one thing and ignore all the rest

And, after all, any one can have a 'noisy' coach - I'd go and be one for the price of an airline ticket ! (Just in case anyone's reading this, I can be very noisy, French-style ) 

And, the 'good tennis' argument is also important

-- Edited by Coup Droit on Saturday 30th of August 2025 07:09:16 AM