Scoreboard seems to have frozen on Alice's match. The momentum graph shows match point down, so I suppose that was the end.

Doubles underway on several courts.

One surprise result - Emily A x2 lost to Ali Collins and Joanna Garland in a MTB after being a set up.
Beth and Eden have just won 2&2

Alicia/Lee v the Pitaks is not before 8pm - so I'll round up the results later.

Michael D wrote:

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Coup Droit wrote:

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So the tiny bit of respite of doom and gloom when Beth won (against a qualifier) quickly all went pear-shaped..... :(

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Well, it's been quite an achievement CD don't under-estimate it - to go from 29 players to 3 in 2 days in a home tournament takes quite some doing  

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 Yes, absolutely 

We even only had one win out of three in Dublin too.

Thanks goodness the men have been holding up their end of the bargain far more honourably and producing some stand-out results.

Well if the weather is good at the start of next week, I'm planning on going on the Tuesday, so I can report on the black clouds !

Michael D wrote:

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Ace Ventura wrote:

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Coup Droit wrote:

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You're not wrong. It's a pretty weak field. And yet there's not been a single result, or even score, to get upbeat about yet.

(Angelica beating Mandy is interesting but hardly exciting in and of itself, considering that the hard court - in my view - is Mandy's worst surface - she's better on grass than hard)

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I know what you mean about Mandy, but I personally am taking it as a(n exciting) positive as I'm going to try and combine it with her demolition of Alice, then beating Freya in the final - so it's like a nice little portfolio of hard court wins she is building and adds to her reputation a bit, and to give us something, anything, to cling on to. 

What I will say is, her going off to Stanford in September (not that you can blame her), does kind of take the gloss off a bit as after next week, we'll probably not hear from her until next Summer where any points she has won will sharp fall off - unless she can get out a bit on the low ITF scene in the US or maybe come back for a couple of the W25s that we do put on here, but basically, I remember being quite encouraged when Eden Richardson beat Sophie Chang (ranked in the 200s) in Manchester W100 (albeit on grass) last year to qualify, but as far as I can tell, she's literally not played one pro match since, could be wrong there, but if not, then those points gained have been pretty pointless, at least in the short term - may help indirectly with confidence / ambition in the longer term.

 

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 Yes, you're right Ace, the Manchester 100k last June is the last time Eden has played in a pro tournament. Interesting there she beat Sophie Chang in QR2, then in the FQR her win was over Vic Allen in two easy sets. Then in the first round she lost to Beth Grey in two tighter sets.

I also wonder how much more we will hear of Angelica Blake in the near term once she's off to Stanford. Emily Arb our current Stanford rep has just lost her WTA ranking... 

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A couple of things you need to bear in mind about Angelica. Having some limited knowledge of her and her family she will not have taken the decision to switch nationalities lightly. Certainly not to gain a couple of wild cards which no doubt she could have got in the US had she stayed there for the summer. Im sure its a long term decision and no doubt there will have been discussions with the LTA about that. Hopefully in view of the promising start she has made in the UK they will help her. Chiswick hopefully. Grass court season next year for instance ? She does have genuine roots in Britain. 

The other thing is that I dont think she had played a tournament for months before the Nottingham one. To come back and immediately achieve strong results against players who have been in competitive mode while she hadnt is a little exceptional, no matter how she does against the number 1 seed tomorrow.  

Not everyone stays in college for the entire 4 years. Many players go for a year or two to set the foundation for their degrees then go out on the pro tour , putting the remainder of their college time on hold to complete it depending on how they do on tour. I have no idea if this is the plan for Angelica but she has the talent and is definitely a fighter. I guess Jamie Delgado wouldnt be interested in her unless he saw something. 

Whatever the situation I would be pretty confident that she can be a good addition to British tennis !  

The Pitaks get the final win in the dubs, 13-11 in the MTB

Pleased for them (although not a great day for Alicia....)

HarryGem wrote:

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Alice also out 7-5 in 2nd set.
What a grim day. Bad loss for Gabby and has Emily Appleton ever won a singles match at this level?
Only 3 out of 13 British women through and we were guaranteed 2 of those.

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I think that the one and only MD 25K match that Emily Appleton has won was here at Woking in 2015 as a 15 yo, 6-4 6-4 vs Beth Grey ( then Askew ). 

She did though in 2016 as a 16 yo win at a higher level against a Wimbledon semi finalist ! - OK, it was against the 1999 semi finalist, Alexandra Stevenson, aged 18 then and aged 35 and WR 631 at the time of their Surbiton 50K R1 match on grass in June 2016. Emily won 6-4 7-5.

Otherwise, yes, there has been a fair bit of discussion over time about Emily being unable to step up her level to win MD matches above 15K level. For whatever reasons she just hasn't pushed on in the last couple of years or so. 

-- Edited by indiana on Wednesday 31st of July 2019 10:27:50 PM