JonH comes home wrote:

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All due respect re Platenik - Im not sure he suddenly deserved to be held up as a coaching guru?! We know what he says in the press but is it him that made this difference? There must be some reason he was ditched quickly and similarly quickly by Lulu Sun.

Im not convinced by him at all.

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 Hope you are right JonH. On my part I think it is frustration in wasting that talent. I just hope in another two or three years we are not still writing the same posts on here about Emma. 

Var wrote:

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JonH comes home wrote:

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All due respect re Platenik - Im not sure he suddenly deserved to be held up as a coaching guru?! We know what he says in the press but is it him that made this difference? There must be some reason he was ditched quickly and similarly quickly by Lulu Sun.

Im not convinced by him at all.

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 Hope you are right JonH. On my part I think it is frustration in wasting that talent. I just hope in another two or three years we are not still writing the same posts on here about Emma. 

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 I mean, I want Emma to do well but Im dispassionate about her as Im not a fan other than shes a Brit and I support all the Brits. Like i enjoy seeing English teams like Chelsea do well in Europe, but Im not anywhere near a fan of Chelsea. 

So looking at it as a non fan, it feels to me she needs someone who is a wise ear, nearer her age, that she can trust. But who she is willing to listen to. It is interesting all the candidates seem to be men that keep popping up, maybe she needs a woman whos been on the tour recently, gets the challenges she faces and can support and mentor her? Not a Jo Konta but someone like a Jo Konta, recently retired but still gets it. Not Andy Murray, the glare of publicity and subsequent pressure would be too much for them both - car crash! 

But a younger, more recent player who gets the life she leads. 

 

Dont know - not anothrr middle aged bloke though who has a penchant for talking to the press. Not what she needs, IMO. 

dodrade wrote:

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Nice to see people here believing in Emma again. The talent that won her the US Open has always been in there and even more impressive to go the distance and come out on top against a player as fit as Navarro. Whether she has anything left in the tank for Kessler is another question although hiring Nakamura already seems to be paying off.

Mark Petchey also pictured on court with Emma in Miami, not sure whether he or Platenik are responsible for her improved serve this week. Unfortunately he's not really a option re: a full time coach.

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 Finally managed to catch up with the match. First up big well done to Emma. I think this is perhaps the first time outside of the BJK cup that she has really shown a fighting resilience against a top player. Some of her play was top notch and though she was also a bit below average at times I was pleased to see her come through adversity and fight back at the end to win. There is no doubt she has the talent to do well and she does seem, when she's on it, to be pretty clutch as they say.

As to whether there's anything left in the tank, I'd be disappointed if not. She has a day off now and she's supposed to be a fit young adult athlete. I'd also point out that Kessler could hardly walk at times in the last few games of her match and received on court treatment in her doubles match too.  However, she a good young player and has the  game to trouble Emma as she hits pretty big at times.

Rather than energy I'd be more worried about Emma's apparent blisters.  Not the first time she's had them.  Hopefully her feet can be taped and padded out if they really are the problem. I noticed she was putting ice on her thigh muscles during the sit downs too so let's hope there's nothing there.

However, I sort of feel we've been here before. We get one great result to be followed by a poor showing next time out. I do think the conditions suit her game better than say Indian Wells. Also Navarro is a good match for her. She's not a player who has the really big game that can just hit you off court and win a few games in a row really quickly. She's obviously vey good, tough to beat and was playing in her own country but I don't think she has the big weapons to really hurt players.

This is a great chance for Emma to progress, let's hope she can seize it.

One thing I noticed in Emma's first match was a return to the pattern of play that was a feature of her matches in the 2021 US Open win, four or five games that were level pegging or slightly behind and then a switch clicked and what I called the Raducanu roller got going and seemed unstoppable, she would reel off game after game. Against Ishi, she was level pegging at 2-2 and then the switch clicked and she reeled of nine games in a row.

No further for Liv and Tereza

L16:- (Alt) Ekaterina Alexandrova (***) / Peyton Stearns (USA) CR 169 (78+91) def Tereza Mihalikova (SVK) / Olivia Nicholls (GBR) CR 64 (33+31) 6-4 6-3

It was tight. Tons of break points for both players. But their opponents both hard hitters.