While she lost her first ever match at Wimbledon in straight sets, Naomi Cavaday showed enough to suggest that she has a future inside the top 100 of the women's game. Indeed, midway through the second set Cavaday appeared capable of beating her experienced opponent, as she had break point opportunities for a 5-1 lead. Sadly a couple of backhand returns off second serves, crashed straight into the net allowing Sugiyama to hold, then break back, finally surging past a tiring Cavaday to take the match 6-4 7-5.
17 year old Cavaday has a somewhat unusual game, lefthanded she hits her forehand with heavy top spin in a style not unlike Raphael Nadal, though with a tendency to apply side spin as well, pulling the ball crosscourt. On the backhand side she uses two hands to strike flat, and at times fierce, groundtrokes.
But her main asset, and the weapon that will make her competitive against top 100 players, is her superb serve. Against Sugiyama Naomi chose to serve wide the majority of the time, kicking the serve on the deuce court, then slicing it wide on the advantage court. Applying serious amounts of spin on the ball, Naomi was able to trouble her opponent, winning cheap points from unreturned serves, and opening up the court for aggressive forehands into the space created by the angled serve. On this occasion she struggled to land the fast serve down the middle, though in time this too will be a real asset for her.
At her best Naomi finished the points as early as possible; fierce returns off second serves for outright winners from both forehand and backhand sides. However, once the rally gets beyond the first few shots she seems to lack a clear idea of how to construct the point to her advantage.
Her movement around the court is an area she'll need to improve and it was this that Sugiyama exploited to win the vast majority of the longer rallies, wrong-footing Naomi, or drawing her slightly out of position before hitting a winner. Cavaday's defensive play is still at junior level, with lobs falling short, slices barely reaching the net, and too many points lost without much of a fight.
Having come close to beating Melinda Czink in the final round of qualifying for Birmingham, then fought her way through a series of close matches during the wildcard playoff, Naomi has being playing way above her current ranking around the 500 mark, but it was always unrealistic to expect her to be able to beat a top 40 player who is comfortable on the grass. While she had spells of impressive play, her general level was closer to the standard you might expect to see in qualifying rather than the main draw.
Clearly there is still a lot of work to be done before she belongs at the top of the game but unlike some of the other top brits, Naomi possesses the weapons to compete at this level, she is not reliant on her opponent's errors to win the majority of her points; think of the tennis played by Mary Pierce or Lindsay Davenport, brutal rather beautiful, overpowering opponents before they have a chance to settle into the point.
It is not too difficult to imagine, in 3 or 4 years' time, Naomi ranked inside the top 50, playing muscular, first strike tennis, troubling opponents with her heavy spin serve plus well directed initial groundstroke combination, while adopting an aggressive approach to the return, dismissing weak second serves for winners, and firing fierce returns deep towards the server to see how well they cope with the extra pace.
