Week 17 - WTA1000 - Madrid, Spain Clay

Sheddie · administrator

Week 17 - WTA1000 - Madrid, Spain Clay

Peter too · Tennis legend

Live rankings now has Katie at 38, Emma 47, Sonay 54 and Fran 123

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

Peter too wrote:
Live rankings now has Katie at 38, Emma 47, Sonay 54 and Fran 123

Great Britain - the clay court specialists biggrin

Spireman · Club Coach

Peter too wrote:
Live rankings now has Katie at 38, Emma 47, Sonay 54 and Fran 123

And Harriet at 116.

wales1994 · County player

I was there yesterday and saw both Emma and Fran's matches.

Lamens vs. Emma:
Lamens was far better than I expected big, consistent groundstrokes throughout. Emma didnt play particularly well overall, but she stepped up in the clutch moments. They were definitely evenly matched for most of the match. At the beginning, Emma hit a lot of errors that landed in the middle of the net, but those fluff-type shots became much less frequent toward the end. I get the feeling she needs these tough first rounds to warm up - hopefully she can raise her level against Kostyuk. Theyre 1-1 in their head-to-head, with Emma actually winning their last encounter at this same tournament in 2022. Hoping for a repeat!

Jones vs. Yastremska:
I arrived just in time for the start of the tiebreak in Jones match. Unsurprisingly, it was mostly played on Yastremskas racket - huge, risky winners or super loose errors. Fran played her usual gritty tennis, and that forehand can really look impressive on clay. She was grabbing at her shoulder quite a bit during the third set and looked pretty exhausted by the end.

Annoyingly, Yastremska took an extended toilet break after the second set - her coaches followed her. When she returned, she had a clearer game plan: still attack everything, but with more margin. Fran gave an incredible effort, but Yastremska is one of those players who, when shes hitting her spots, theres not much the opponent can do.

Still, a great showing from Fran! She had a lot of support from the crowd, which felt a little unfair on the Ukrainian, who was hitting some insane winners to only meagre applause.

Var · Satellite level

Nice to see Katie teaming up with Daria in the womens doubles.

B00thy · Intermediate Club Player

wales1994 wrote:
I was there yesterday and saw both Emma and Fran's matches.

Lamens vs. Emma:
Lamens was far better than I expected big, consistent groundstrokes throughout. Emma didnt play particularly well overall, but she stepped up in the clutch moments. They were definitely evenly matched for most of the match. At the beginning, Emma hit a lot of errors that landed in the middle of the net, but those fluff-type shots became much less frequent toward the end. I get the feeling she needs these tough first rounds to warm up - hopefully she can raise her level against Kostyuk. Theyre 1-1 in their head-to-head, with Emma actually winning their last encounter at this same tournament in 2022. Hoping for a repeat!

Jones vs. Yastremska:
I arrived just in time for the start of the tiebreak in Jones match. Unsurprisingly, it was mostly played on Yastremskas racket - huge, risky winners or super loose errors. Fran played her usual gritty tennis, and that forehand can really look impressive on clay. She was grabbing at her shoulder quite a bit during the third set and looked pretty exhausted by the end.

Annoyingly, Yastremska took an extended toilet break after the second set - her coaches followed her. When she returned, she had a clearer game plan: still attack everything, but with more margin. Fran gave an incredible effort, but Yastremska is one of those players who, when shes hitting her spots, theres not much the opponent can do.

Still, a great showing from Fran! She had a lot of support from the crowd, which felt a little unfair on the Ukrainian, who was hitting some insane winners to only meagre applause.

thanks - nice to get a court-side perspective

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

Thanks, wales1994 ! :)

Jan · Hall of fame

Yes, thanks for the report!

GAMEOVER · Satellite level

Sonay was ranked 298 a year ago . Amazing rise in the last year.

indiana · Tennis legend

GAMEOVER wrote:
Sonay was ranked 298 a year ago . Amazing rise in the last year.

It's great to see her continuing to push on up the rankings as I recall you were very keen to see, while one of two of us were suggesting that 2025 should maybe 'just' be a year of consolidation in the top 100.

Latest projected 30/06 pre Wimbledon rankings on OER, allowing for points due to be dropped between now and then, has Sonay projected as 49 ( Katie and Emma at 42 and 51 respectively ).

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

So thrilled for her

Can't have been easy seeing Emma's meteoric rise, when she and Sonay were pretty much two pegs in a basket at age 11 or 12, and then Sonay's medical problems

And she was such an interesting but quirky player as a teenager - and person - quite different from most of the others

Since settling with her boyfriend and the emphasis they put on weighttraining etc (given his background), she seems so much more solid, and happy, and fit

All the way, Sonay !

9vicman · Satellite level

This is a rhetorical question, but I wonder when the last time four British women beat a Top 100 ranked opponent in the same event.

9vicman · Satellite level

Coup Droit wrote:
So thrilled for her

Can't have been easy seeing Emma's meteoric rise, when she and Sonay were pretty much two pegs in a basket at age 11 or 12, and then Sonay's medical problems

And she was such an interesting but quirky player as a teenager - and person - quite different from most of the others

Since settling with her boyfriend and the emphasis they put on weighttraining etc (given his background), she seems so much more solid, and happy, and fit

All the way, Sonay !

I read that Sonay has split from her boyfriend, but no doubt they worked well together professionally.

indiana · Tennis legend

9vicman wrote:
This is a rhetorical question, but I wonder when the last time four British women beat a Top 100 ranked opponent in the same event.

I'm pretty certain it must be last year's Wimbledon when 5 managed it.

Tbf that was quite exceptional, even for Wimbledon, with Steven saying in the tournament thread that it was the first time in 37 years that we had 5 women into R2.

The 5 ( Katie B, Emma, Sonay, Harriet, and Lily ) all beat top 100 players in R1 and ended up with 9 top 100 wins in total ( including Harriet beating Katie in R2 ).

So I imagine that 'just' 4 is very rare and pretty amazing that it has happened on clay.