Emily is playing now. A break up in the 1st *4-3.
3 of the games Em has won have been to love. 2 of the games she has lost have been long games with multiple deuces.
Whoohoo, congrats to Emily, lovely to see her get through this successfully and take those early 5 pts (now 6). After those tight early games mentioned, the second set went by much quicker
And just to note.. if my celebrating a first round win so, seems excessive, Emily's top counter currently is only 7 points, and then she has just one other 6 pointer.. so if she can manage one more win here it will be her current top counter. She is due to meet the 6th seed, but currently same is a set down to an opponent in the low 500s.
R16: Emily WEBLEY-SMITH (GBR) [Q] 582 vs Ao GAI (CHN) 507 (CH:466 May 16)
And they have more history than I expected.
H2H Emily 2-1
2015 $50,000 Zhuhai CHN Hard 32 WEBLEY-SMITH 3-6 4-6
2014 $10,000 Sharm El Sheikh EGY Hard 16 GAI 4-6 7-6(3) 6-4
2014 $10,000 Sharm El Sheikh EGY Hard 16 WEBLEY-SMITH 5-7 6-1 3-6
Great win for Emily and Rutuja and helps to reclaim some of that 50 coming off next week. Two more wins this week and Emily will be back where she started this week in two weeks time... Next up pair have a very similar overall ranking to Emily and Rutuja.
Em's partner Rutuja was a strong dubs player in US college, playing for Texas A&M
Since she is only 22, I assume then that this is her first full season as a pro out of college. And indeed she is currently at CHs for both singles and doubles, both in the 400s, so it would seem is presently upwardly mobile. A great looking partner for Emily then. Even if her doubles ranking is still higher than Emily's it seems likely that it won't be for long. Hope they have at least two further matches together this week...