Week 43 - ITF ($100K) - Poitiers, France Hard

Stircrazy · Tennis legend

RE: Week 43 - ITF ($100K) - Poitiers, France Hard

ROCK3 · Lower Club Player

Match to the Japanese

Julia Carrot · All-time great

And 'quick as a flash', she takes it

Stircrazy · Tennis legend

Bally's luck finally ran out: she lost the final by 6-7(3) 4-6. No doubt the people responsible for running the site will be "over the moon"! furious At least the winner was Kimiko... wink

Julia Carrot · All-time great

I guess to say 'good effort' may sound a little patronising, but I'm sure it was a very good effort on Bally's part.

steven · Tennis legend

Nino: "2 true warriors out there 2day. Showed some of the youngsters the toughness that is needed in this business. Respect"

alex03maccy · Grand Slam Champion

Overall, a very solid for Elena I think. At the start of the year I think I, like a few others, suspected quite a drop in her ranking at the end of the year due to such a terrific season last year but the fact on Monday, she should get back into the Top 50 is a great testament to her and hopefully next year she will kick on past her career high and I personally would like to see her reach the 3rd round of a slam, if not at 2.

Helen40 · Grand Slam Champion

And there's still next week.

steven · Tennis legend

I think Elena's season is now done (of the GB top 4, only Anne and Hev are playing next week) but yes, Elena is going to have done very well to end the year at around 50, higher than last year and the first British woman to end consecutive years in the 50s or better since the 1980s

The one thing that is very noticeable about her ranking though is that her six 100+ points scores (which make up more than half of her total) have come from R1 wins at all 4 slams (a tremendous feat, but she has undoubtedly been lucky to avoid seeds in R1 of every slam this year - a player at her level would expect to face one or two seeds in R1 at slams each year) and two ITFs - she has had limited success in other WTA tour events and less really notable wins (i.e. against significantly higher-ranked players) than last year, Görges in Dallas being the only one that immediately comes to mind.

I think it is fair to say that she's a very solid top 75 player now (which is a big achievement in itself) and I don't think she is too far off causing a couple of upsets and becoming a solid top 50 player, but the way the ranking system works, if she reached R3 in two slams next year but got dire draws in the other two and went out in R1, she'd end up with less points from slams than ths year, despite what might well have been a better set of performances overall!

indiana · Tennis legend

steven wrote:
if she reached R3 in two slams next year but got dire draws in the other two and went out in R1, she'd end up with less points from slams than ths year, despite what might well have been a better set of performances overall!

Yep, that is indeed the case in the crazy world of WTA points. Indeed if Bally again won 4 Slam matches by reaching R4 ( L16 ) and R2 with two R1 exits she'd get less points than winning four R1s and exiting at the R2 stage.

100 for reaching R2, 160 - R3, 280 - R4 - c'mon ! disbelief

I have read a supposed justification for the relatively extremely generous 40 points for winning the Slam first qualifying round that it encourages qualifying ranked players to turn up, but they surely don't need a disproportionate incentive to turn up to R1 if they are ranked high enough to get into the main draw.

So, yes, Bally has benefitted there, and benefitted generally in that she went almost right through the year without meeting a seed in R1 of any WTA ( finally met one in each of her last two WTAs ), carrying on an amazing run from half way through last year. That and the fact that the appropriate seeds almost always tended to get through their R1, ready to face Bally in R2, contributed largely to her high number of Slam / WTA exits in R2. As Steven says, a pity she couldn't pull out more R2 shocks and progress further.

All that said, it has been a very solid year for Bally, but hopefully next year she can go deeper in Slams and WTAs, by either draws opening up or better still really significant wins.

-- Edited by indiana on Monday 31st of October 2011 02:36:45 PM