Week 17 - WTA ($220K) - Estoril, Portugal, Red Clay

DavidC · Tennis legend

RE: Week 17 - WTA ($220K) - Estoril, Portugal, Red Clay

goldfish · Futures qualifying

Well, she fights hard but this was just a bit too much to conquer. Hard luck Heather.

DavidC · Tennis legend

Tamira gets matchpoint at 30-40 - taken

GSM Paszek 6-0 6-3

There may be a chance of an LL depending on the other FQR results. I suspect that Heather has a lot of learning on red clay before she beats top 100 players who grew up on the surface.

PaulM · Tennis legend

Fought hard but not good enough today unfortunately. Shame she couldn't have taken a few more of her chances, particularly in the second set.

Still a good couple of wins this week, although it realistically spells the end of any hopes of Wimbledon direct acceptance with main draw lists published 6 weeks before the start of the tournament :(

indiana · Tennis legend

Looks as if Heather did at least again learn and improve as the match went on, but does look as if how to play good players on red clay is still generally very much a learning process.

Maybe be a question of hoping for good draws and eeking out as much as she can wins and poinswise in the clay season. Though if things click more and she does do well that will be great.

Pity she couldn't take some BPs in the second set to just see if a turnaround might have been possible, but overall she was well beaten.

philwrig · Hall of fame

Winning on red clay is much is much harder than doing so on the green stuff.
It will never be her best surface because as David says those players who have grown up on the surface have a significant advantage.

Julia Carrot · All-time great

Nice article by Hannah Wilkes (Aka Newballsplease) on Heather after her 1st qualie match against Sprem.

http://www.tennis.com/articles/templates/features.aspx?articleid=11627&zoneid=9

(There was also a much less flattering match report on TF, that I read yesterday, but fortunately I can't locate that now wink ).