Week 41 - Womens ITF (25K) - Traralgon, Australia

DavidC · Tennis legend

RE: Week 41 - Womens ITF (25K) - Traralgon, Australia

DJ · County player

Happycynic wrote:

Should push Naomi into the top 500 for the first time.

If you care to check the 'Official British Successes' thread, Greg, you'll see that Naomi moved into the top 500 on September 22nd, and is now at 495.

smile

Smidster · Challenger level

Brilliant day down under

Melanie SOUTH (GBR) (1) def Ling ZHANG (HKG) 6-4 6-3
Naomi BROADY (GBR) def I-Hsuan HWANG (TPE) (6) 6-3 6-3
Isabella HOLLAND (AUS) lost to Emily WEBLEY-SMITH (GBR) 6-4 6-4

(1) Melanie South (GBR) v Naomi Broady GBR
Emily Webley-Smith (GBR) v (7) Yurika Sema (JPN)

Happycynic · Pro player

DJ wrote:

Happycynic wrote:

Should push Naomi into the top 500 for the first time.

If you care to check the 'Official British Successes' thread, Greg, you'll see that Naomi moved into the top 500 on September 22nd, and is now at 495.

I should know better than to use the WTA and ITF. They are often a wee bit out of date......

Happycynic · Pro player

Great stuff. Very pleased, especially for Naomi and Emily.

kundalini · Specialist Reporter + Intermediate Club Player

Nice to see Naomi Broady getting wins on a surface other than grass. She seems to have talent but has room to grow in other aspects of the game. If she can get a few wins over the next couple of weeks that would take her inside 450, and perhaps towards 400.

Mel playing a series of 25K events in Aus is slightly alarming unless they are using these tournaments to work on her game. In this event there are a couple of other players ranked inside 200 but for the next two events Mel is the only player ranked inside 250! I guess she should defend her autumn points from last year.

scottie1 · Futures level

Emily should be inside top 200 if fir has the talent but so many injuries!

DavidC · Tennis legend

That is excellent from Naomi and Emily in particular. For Naomi it is her first 25K QF outside the UK whilst for Em it is her first 25K QF for nearly 3 years. She is on a roll (even so I didn't expect her to beat Holland) with 9 consecutive wins since arriving down under, losing only 1 set (in the AMT final last week). Another win will guarantee a Brit finalist.

I share Kundalini's concern about Mel's schedule - something I have criticised Anne for in the past.. Mel is very short of experience in coping with top challenger/fringe Tour players, and she won't get any here during the next 2 weeks. Since she has recently played a raft of Tour qualifiers a couple of 25Ks might be ok to rebuild confidence, but it is disappointing that she opted to stay for a third one here rather than continue with her original first choice of a 100K event in Chinese Taipei

Smidster · Challenger level

Mel beat Naomi
Emily lost

Happycynic · Pro player

Ah well, at least if Mel is going to play 25Ks, it is good she does well in them (though better not at Naomi's expense where possible!).

I can sort of see how after some tour qualies she might want to drop down. But it is a big drop. Lets hope the confidence comes back from it, and she develops a confidence playing in Australia enough to benefit in the New Year WTAs/AO.

kundalini · Specialist Reporter + Intermediate Club Player

Mel won 1-6 7-6(2) 6-4 which is a shocking win from her perspective and very unfortunate for Naomi Broady. I really hope Mel goes on to win this event so she can pick up 25 points, which would help her a little bit towards the top 100. But on that form it is hard to imagine her even making the final.

When I've seen Mel play this season, she looked like a player with top 100 potential so long as she could tighten up her game a bit. She didn't strike me as someone who was going to surge inside the top 100 in the next few months. So the key thing to improve her standard of play and perhaps this tour of Aus will help her with that.

I'm sure Naomi Broady would have preferred the extra points but coming so close to winning against a top 150 player (outside of the grass) should give her plenty of confidence that she can take into the rest of this season. I notice that Naomi managed to win the first set against Jessica Moore (ranked 144) 6-1 before losing 1-6 1-6, showing that when she's on form, Naomi has got a lot, but it has to be said that she can fall to pieces rather too easily on occasion.

There is an article in the Times by Neil Harman on the Broady family and their problems with the LTA. Apparently their dad is self-funding both Naomi and her brother at the moment. Clearly there will be real urgency to get Naomi to the point she can earn enough from the tour to make a living for herself, as soon as possible.

-- Edited by kundalini at 12:06, 2008-10-10

Drew · Oct 10, 2008

Only seen Naomi play once and she lost the match mentally before the games and points caught up with her. That was 2 years ago. To be honest she got into such a strop with the officials and her self all her opponent had to do was get the ball back over the net. Maybe she just had a bad day at the office. She seems to have progressed steadily and hopefully is a real prospect to come. Wish her all the best.

jamatthews · Strong Club Player

kundalini wrote:

Mel won 1-6 7-6(2) 6-4 which is a shocking win from her perspective

Not really. She'd already had a tight 3 set match with Broady on hardcourt this year, so this one was always likely to be tight too.

ForeverDelayed · Grand Slam Champion

Just looking back at the notes I made on the Broady/South match at Surbiton and it seems as if the same thing that was true then could be the same now.

Looking at Broady I said that she has a huge forehand and serve, and her backhand can be brilliant as well, but she only makes about 1 out of 5 of them, while her volleys at times were so bad it was untrue, which could be a real problem the way she plays, as if she can get the strike in, it would help to be able to finish the point off at the net.

The other thing I said about her is that she struggles when she has to defend, and if she didn't get the first strike in during a rally, the only way she'd win a point was if the opponent made an unforced error, so if she goes off the boil for a while during a match, then she does look like she'll struggle, and consistancy needs to be improved, but she has a lot of talent.

Strange to see Mel playing in these weaker events, but I guess as long as she wins them then it's time well spent, as I guess she may be thinking she can get towards the top 100 with a couple of titles here, and maybe work on her consistency against weaker players.

Mervatron · Masters Series Champion

Maybe she is just going for a string of wins to get super confiden then kick start 2009 with a series of WTA events.

Anne was doing the same thing last year before she got injured and Casey Dellaqua did it before she was top 100.