Week 34 - US Open women's qualies

murray_2k9 · Challenger qualifying

RE: Week 34 - US Open women's qualies

murray_2k9 · Challenger qualifying

philwrig wrote:

Observations from yesterday and predictions for today:

First of all my prediction of three losses worked a treat so of course I would be shocked if either Laura or Katie win a set today.

Difficult to evaluate Laura's performance from yesterday. By all accounts Dokic was very poor and if you subtract the net ace/double fault points from both players points yesterday the total points won by each player was very similar. One certainty though is that Laura produced easily her best service performance to date on a hard court 11 aces/ 4 double faults. This is also backed up by eye witness accounts from TF who said her service placement was impressive. It also appears that she was mentally pumped for this match something which Laura can struggle with at times.

Her match today IMO is 50/50 as Manasieva is a very consistent top 100-150 player, only outclassed when moving up a grade. She qualified last year and according to reports was impressive yesterday. Laura therefore will need to play at least as well as yesterday to get the win.

Cav just very disappointing nothing else to add. I have discussed Cav's pitfalls on numerous occasions before and I don't think I need to repeat myself again now.

KOB produced the performance of the day for me taking out arguably the best player in her section with a bit of comfort.

I was quite confident Katie could qualify until I saw the H2H against Savchuk. The last encounter being played when Katie was in the form of her life, but the win is still possible but I would have to make Savchuk the favourite.

-- Edited by philwrig on Friday 27th of August 2010 12:33:17 PM

Manasieva has less top 150 wins this year than Laura by my calculations, and only top 100 win so I feel Laura is capable of producing better tennis than the women Manasieva is beating to maintain her ranking. Even if I were being harsh on Laura I would still make her the 60-40 fave.

steven · Tennis legend

I've extended the above table back to 1990 (since the start of the 1990s, Clare Wood in 1990 and 1992 and Sam Smith in 1997 are the only GB women to qualify for the US Open and they won a round in the main draw each time) as follows:

USOQ	Brits in	Out	Out	Out	Quali-	Brits in the FQR
Year	USO Q	QR1	QR2	FQR	-fiers	(bold if qualified)

2009	5	1	2	2		Elena Baltacha, Laura Robson
2008	4	1	1	2		Elena Baltacha, Melanie South
2007	5	3		2		Naomi Cavaday, Anne Keothavong
2006	4	4
2005	2	2
2004	2	1	1
2003	3	2		1		Anne Keothavong
2002	3	2	1
2001	5	3	2
2000	4	1	2	1		Louise Latimer
1999	6	5	1
1998	7	4	3
1997	4	2	1	1	1	Sam Smith (reached R2 in MD)
1996	2	2
1995	1	1
1994	1	1
1993	1	1
1992	2	2			1	Clare Wood (reached R2 in MD)
1991	2		1	1		Sarah Loosemore
1990	2		2		1	Clare Wood (reached R2 in MD)

TOTAL	65	38	17	10	3
	100%	58%	26%	15%	5%

I'll keep it updated at http://www.freewebs.com/britishtennis/gbtop25f/usoq_wta.htm

philwrig · Hall of fame

murray_2k9 wrote:

philwrig wrote:

Observations from yesterday and predictions for today:

First of all my prediction of three losses worked a treat so of course I would be shocked if either Laura or Katie win a set today.

Difficult to evaluate Laura's performance from yesterday. By all accounts Dokic was very poor and if you subtract the net ace/double fault points from both players points yesterday the total points won by each player was very similar. One certainty though is that Laura produced easily her best service performance to date on a hard court 11 aces/ 4 double faults. This is also backed up by eye witness accounts from TF who said her service placement was impressive. It also appears that she was mentally pumped for this match something which Laura can struggle with at times.

Her match today IMO is 50/50 as Manasieva is a very consistent top 100-150 player, only outclassed when moving up a grade. She qualified last year and according to reports was impressive yesterday. Laura therefore will need to play at least as well as yesterday to get the win.

Cav just very disappointing nothing else to add. I have discussed Cav's pitfalls on numerous occasions before and I don't think I need to repeat myself again now.

KOB produced the performance of the day for me taking out arguably the best player in her section with a bit of comfort.

I was quite confident Katie could qualify until I saw the H2H against Savchuk. The last encounter being played when Katie was in the form of her life, but the win is still possible but I would have to make Savchuk the favourite.

-- Edited by philwrig on Friday 27th of August 2010 12:33:17 PM

Manasieva has less top 150 wins this year than Laura by my calculations, and only top 100 win so I feel Laura is capable of producing better tennis than the women Manasieva is beating to maintain her ranking. Even if I were being harsh on Laura I would still make her the 60-40 fave.

Average bookies odds are 58-42 favourite Laura and 47-53 underdog KOB.
I do think its on Laura's racket though, so we'll see.

murray_2k9 · Challenger qualifying

Interesting, I agree with the bookies though.

A report on TF states that Cavaday was going for too much, and has a lot of raw power but was just over hitting. Sounds like she was nervous or under confident which she really needs to get over since she should be in slam qualies consistently now looking to push on a bit.

He also calls her backhand amazing and claims she was hitting stunning shots, forcing Cohen to keep away from it. Sad that Cavaday seems to be playing like a junior but somewhat nice to know she played pretty well and was showing the talent that got us all excited.

Hope she can reel it in, thats clearly the trick for breaking the top 150. She has the game to do it though IMO, that much is clear

djlovesyou · Strong Club Player

Laura on court now.

Starts with a hold.

wolf · Tennis legend

Laura 4-1*

djlovesyou · Strong Club Player

Great start.

Julia Carrot · All-time great

Just joined in: Laura seems to be winning despite her 1st serve having deserted her today. Hope she finds it soon though. (It was same at Wimbledon - served fantastic against Jankovic but never quite so good in subsequent (junior) matches)

johnnylad · Tennis legend

6-3 1-0

Osomec · Junior player

Currently Laura is winning 60% of points on her second serve, the same as on her first serve, so her low first service percentage is making little or no difference. And she is winning 59% of points receiving.

-- Edited by Osomec on Friday 27th of August 2010 05:05:30 PM

Julia Carrot · All-time great

Osomec wrote:

Currently Laura is winning 60% of points on her second serve, the same as on her first serve, so her low first service percentage is making little or no difference. And she is winning 59% of points receiving.

-- Edited by Osomec on Friday 27th of August 2010 05:05:30 PM

True, but not something she can get away with against stronger players? Anyhow she seems to be striving for a bagel in the second set at the moment so I can only 'salute' her really !!!

Osomec · Junior player

Of course not, but I like her habit of playing better against better players, so long as she does enough to beat the weaker players. Though her opponent in this match has a higher ranking than she has.

PockyTastic · Futures level

Looking at the Cavaday match I'm not surprised to gear that she was overhitting. From the two matches I have seen Cohen play it would seem that the American relies on loopy moonballs and all out defensive play. Johanna Konta was able to hit through Cohen on green clay in the spring, but that was due to her hitting more precise winners than errors, a fine line that Naomi presumably came down on the wrong side of sadly...

murray_2k9 · Challenger qualifying

Agreed about Cav. Congrats to Laura on another win, as I expected!