Week 4 - ITF ($25K) - Sunrise, USA (Clay)

indiana · Tennis legend

Week 4 - ITF ($25K) - Sunrise, USA (Clay)

philwrig · Hall of fame

She wasn't serving underarm, but she was coming off the back of a 3 hour match yesterday when she'd only played a couple of matches in 4 months. Anyway it's pure speculation, but when you're tired often the 1st thing to go is the power on the serve. And Laura doesn't have a great history of backing up very long gruelling matches successfully.

Grachka · County player

Where did the underarm thing come from?

philwrig · Hall of fame

It was tongue in cheek, and I'm now regretting I wrote it !

Peter too · Tennis legend

I thought Ruse might prove a challenge at this stage as she was JWR 7, so overall a pretty good effort and a step up from earlier matches. Maybe next week Judy can help to retune Laura's game and particularly her service. It would be good to see her win a $25K before moving up again.

AliBlahBlah · All-time great

philwrig wrote:
It was tongue in cheek, and I'm now regretting I wrote it !

Ah! You swine!
I was searching Twitter and even Tennis Forum (shudder), trying to find confirmation!

Jan · Hall of fame

philwrig wrote:
It was tongue in cheek, and I'm now regretting I wrote it !

Quite right too.

Really had me worried!

indiana · Tennis legend

philwrig wrote:
It was tongue in cheek, and I'm now regretting I wrote it !

Grrr

Priesty · Challenger level

I think the board now needs to decide on a suitable punishment wink

tony_orient · ATP qualifying

I wasn't expecting Laura to win that one though obviously a shame she couldn't find a way to do anything on serve in the third set when she was breaking easily enough.
I would expect she had some sort of minor injury or just stiffness affecting her serve after such a long match yesterday. Even if she is physically fit that's not the same as being match fit.

She was better this week than last week and the keys things are she stays fit and improves each week.

paulisi · Tennis legend

I was hoping Laura would drop down to 10K's - after Fed Cup and come back to UK and play Sunderland and Wirral like Katie Swan, but that doesn't seem to be the plan.(I'm sure there would be plenty of media interest and decent publicity would get spectators turning up)

She would probably get into the main draw and it would be a confidence booster and competitive towards the end of the week.

I'm not sure of the relevant for Laura playing 25K qualifiers in front of one man and his dog anyway when she is known for picking up her game on the big occasion.

insomniacfolder · Challenger level

Perhaps Laura doesn't want media interest? I wouldn't blame her.
I have been thinking that Johanna's exploits might be a huge blessing for Laura, as the spotlight diverts elsewhere as another player has superseded her achievements, and so she is no longer the 'last great hope'. Hopefully that would leave her with more time and freedom to just quietly go about building her career again.

However, to judge by these pages, where 3 matches in qualies at a $25K generated about 2/3 of the interest of all the exploits of all of our players in Hobart combined, then perhaps that's a forlorn hope.

Mervatron · Masters Series Champion

Well she's back on court and won 2 matches. What she needs now is to stay healthy and win more and more. Things will fall into place and the ranking will come.

She needs time. Effectively she's had almost 2 years off. It might take that long for her to get back to where she was.

indiana · Tennis legend

insomniacfolder wrote:
Perhaps Laura doesn't want media interest? I wouldn't blame her.
I have been thinking that Johanna's exploits might be a huge blessing for Laura, as the spotlight diverts elsewhere as another player has superseded her achievements, and so she is no longer the 'last great hope'. Hopefully that would leave her with more time and freedom to just quietly go about building her career again.

However, to judge by these pages, where 3 matches in qualies at a $25K generated about 2/3 of the interest of all the exploits of all of our players in Hobart combined, then perhaps that's a forlorn hope.

There's something about Laura, I guess all bundled up somehow in her early breakthrough, her game, her personality, an exasperation with her at times, and the comeback efforts, but I continue to be hugely interested in her, clearly just like many others and I was right in there for the 25K qualifying and for just about any other, no, I wouldn't have had anything like that interest. I don't see that as wrong and I don't think I am for instance some sheep. It is what it is Thinking further a very big part is probably that big game - it's what she could be / might be, still so relatively young, and in some style.

I do personally have slightly further interests in following British tennis than Laura ( and Andy ! - who was my main big interest before this forum gave me such a generally welcome bigger interest ), as no doubt others who were in that thread ( from recollection some big general tennis followers ). I am sure folk just make their individual choices and these include who they choose to follow and how much.

If Laura was still in that 25K I would have more interest in ithat than Naomi in her 50K , others maybe differ. I am interested, I follow and can't just shut off that interest I suspect such interest she generates is about the least of Laura's concerns.

-- Edited by indiana on Wednesday 27th of January 2016 05:38:17 PM

vohor · Grand Slam Champion

Think Hobart was skewed by the weather problems too.

Funnily enough on another forum when parallel threads were running for Laura and Heather (some 6 or 7 years ago now) it was Heather who was getting double the reads compared to Laura.

It must be said, though, that Laura's big weapons (when firing) still give her top 20 potential and lovers of GB tennis will be naturally particularly curious to see how this latest comeback goes.