philwrig wrote:

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This is a shocker and Nigel's choice is clearly indefensible.
All of Anne's quotes prior to this match have basically said that she believes it will take a month before she is match tight and 100% comfortable with the knee.
Due to Nigel's close involvement with Anne in a coaching sense Anne was picked for this tie. She shouldn't have been and most certainly shouldn't have been chosen for this match.
Of course it was no certainty that Katie would have won either as Mayr might be one of those players that finds a bit extra when playing for their country.

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Yes, Phil, the incomprehension from folk here came very quickly even before the match started.

Particularly with the detail that you add here, Phil, I am very surprised that before the initial matches you said GB would probably have to take the risk of playing Anne in singles v Belarus.  It is as if Anne was played here with that in mind. However, with her not able to play v Bosnia and with the way the first series had gone possibly playing her against Belarus made even less sense than it ever might have done, and playing her here - well I would just love to hear why ??!

As jb288 suggests, Katie is hardly a huge liability anyway. But in comparison with such an evidently so far from 100% Anne she was surely a much better option always against either Austria or Belarus.

-- Edited by indiana on Thursday 4th of February 2010 06:18:11 PM

I thought that Anne could have been risked against Belarus given that I gave Katie little chance of beating Govortsova given her head to head record. I just thought that Anne must be say 80/90% fit to have remained a selection but clearly after this display she is not even that. But in a match like this were Katie did have a realistic chance of victory the risk to go with Anne was clearly daft.

Bally 3-5* (3 breaks to 2 - one set point saved in game 8)

I highly doubt the issue was with Anne's fitness, since she has undergone rigorous fitness testing - to expect someone to play top 100 tennis straight away under match conditions is surely the issue.

Bally 3-6 1-2*

Bally 3-6 2-5*