British Tennis Forum - Celebrating 20 Years!

HarryGem · Club Coach

Week 2 - WTA250 - Hobart, Australia Hard

the addict · Tennis legend

QF:- Emma Raducane (GBR) WR29 [1] lost to Taylah Preston (AUS) WR204 [WC] 2-6 4-6

Taylah is having a good Aussie season - remember those matches with Katie Swan ? She was ranked 259 in September and has been picking up points ever since.

Julia Carrot · All-time great

HarryGem wrote:
Julia Carrot wrote:
Painful so far.
Not sure that says enough really. Very poor performance though her opponent played well. Bad result.

Yeah, youre right. I actually only watched the second half of the second set, the rest I gleaned from the live commentary on her player forum on TF. She looked gassed at the sit down when I first joined and I wondered if she was feeling ill.

Julia Carrot · All-time great

HarryGem wrote:
How likely is it there will be another change in coach this season if things don't improve?

Looked disinterested I thought. Her game is too lightweight to cope with someone hitting the ball as her opponent did today. Hard to see her winning another tournament at the moment. Maybe a 250 on grass might be the best chance.

On the face of it I felt sorry for Roig - must have been painful for him too.

Var · Futures level

Julia Carrot wrote:
HarryGem wrote:
How likely is it there will be another change in coach this season if things don't improve?

Looked disinterested I thought. Her game is too lightweight to cope with someone hitting the ball as her opponent did today. Hard to see her winning another tournament at the moment. Maybe a 250 on grass might be the best chance.
On the face of it I felt sorry for Roig - must have been painful for him too.

I agree. I think that it can be Emmas ploy to get rid of a coach sometimes. Maybe a bit harsh but doesnt bode well for her AO prospects, particularly as Sabalenka is most probably waiting in Round 3.

9vicman · Futures level

I love this forum at times. At one moment, Emma's winning her second title, the next she's getting rid of her coach!

Blue_Belle · County player

The comments on reddit are brutal re: this match. Here we are quite restrained and British!!

emmsie69 · Masters Series Champion

9vicman wrote:
I love this forum at times. At one moment, Emma's winning her second title, the next she's getting rid of her coach!

Honestly I think people forget these are human beings with individual personalities. Some people throw rackets and have tantrums, some mutter obscenities at their coaches and some just go into themselves.

Sometimes, shock horror, people just aren't in the mood and Tennis players are no different to anyone else going to work for the day. I have people at my work that just decide not to bother coming in if they're 'not in the mood for it'

9vicman · Futures level

I guess Emma winning a few rounds or just playing a bad match isn't as sexy.

indiana · Tennis legend

the addict wrote:
QF:- Emma Raducane (GBR) WR29 [1] lost to Taylah Preston (AUS) WR204 [WC] 2-6 4-6

Taylah is having a good Aussie season - remember those matches with Katie Swan ? She was ranked 259 in September and has been picking up points ever since.

In relative terms that is still an absolutely awful result for Emma. Katie Swan's done great since she came back but matches against her should not be a barometer. I'd like to hear that there was some fitness or illness reason for it.

It is actually very unusual for Emma to lose to any player outside even the top 60. She did so only twice last year, once near the start and once at the end.

9vicman · Futures level

Preston's beaten Bouzas and Sramkova this week. She can play. But of course you'd expect Emma to win.

foobarbaz · Club Coach

indiana wrote:
the addict wrote:
QF:- Emma Raducane (GBR) WR29 [1] lost to Taylah Preston (AUS) WR204 [WC] 2-6 4-6

Taylah is having a good Aussie season - remember those matches with Katie Swan ? She was ranked 259 in September and has been picking up points ever since.
In relative terms that is still an absolutely awful result for Emma. Katie Swan's done great since she came back but matches against her should not be a barometer. I'd like to hear that there was some fitness or illness reason for it.
It is actually very unusual for Emma to lose to any player outside even the top 60. She did so only twice last year, once near the start and once at the end.

I agree with TA, the recent record that Swan has over Preston (2 wins, and a close loss in another final where the back was playing up) is a fair indicator of where Raducanu's game is at right now. Perhaps if folk didn't find an excuse for every loss, it would place less pressure on Raducanu's young shoulders.

Add the choice of GBR team captain Tim Henman to play Swan instead of Raducanu in the United Cup first tie vs. Japan, when he will have had the opportunity to see how both were playing in the prep week beforehand.

All this talk about Emma, when the one that has been short-changed yet again is Swan. Giving former world #1 Naomi Osaka a stern test, then taking the 1st set off the world #75 before losing in 3 sets a week later, and having beaten both Preston and Emerson Jones (both given a leg-up into the A0 main draw), and having thrashed a number of the Aussies who were given AO Qualifiers wildcards, only for Swan to then be frozen out, not only from AO Main Draw, but the AO Qualie's too. Then for a 45yr old to be handed the last Main Draw wildcard! There ain't no fairness in this tennis lark.

indiana · Tennis legend

I.think the choice of Katie in the United Cup had rather a lot to do with Emma's foot injury and how ready she was and Tim said she was very close but not quite ready for match one. It was good then to see Katie perform so well against Osaka, certainty in that first TB set.

Absolutely honestly, I was delighted to see Katie back and competing so well and winning good matches in the Australian ITFs and how she has started this year. But I just said it as I saw it in my previous post - losing to Taylah Preston is not where Emma should be at all and a real concern.

One can certainly argue that it is a real pity that the Slams, including Wimbledon, are so biased towards home players for WCs, with clearly stronger players being overlooked. But that is where we are, and in truth Katie being overlooked for an Aus Open Q WC would have come as no surprise to I suspect most people.

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

foobarbaz wrote:
indiana wrote:
the addict wrote:
QF:- Emma Raducane (GBR) WR29 [1] lost to Taylah Preston (AUS) WR204 [WC] 2-6 4-6

Taylah is having a good Aussie season - remember those matches with Katie Swan ? She was ranked 259 in September and has been picking up points ever since.
In relative terms that is still an absolutely awful result for Emma. Katie Swan's done great since she came back but matches against her should not be a barometer. I'd like to hear that there was some fitness or illness reason for it.
It is actually very unusual for Emma to lose to any player outside even the top 60. She did so only twice last year, once near the start and once at the end.
I agree with TA, the recent record that Swan has over Preston (2 wins, and a close loss in another final where the back was playing up) is a fair indicator of where Raducanu's game is at right now. Perhaps if folk didn't find an excuse for every loss, it would place less pressure on Raducanu's young shoulders.
Add the choice of GBR team captain Tim Henman to play Swan instead of Raducanu in the United Cup first tie vs. Japan, when he will have had the opportunity to see how both were playing in the prep week beforehand.
All this talk about Emma, when the one that has been short-changed yet again is Swan. Giving former world #1 Naomi Osaka a stern test, then taking the 1st set off the world #75 before losing in 3 sets a week later, and having beaten both Preston and Emerson Jones (both given a leg-up into the A0 main draw), and having thrashed a number of the Aussies who were given AO Qualifiers wildcards, only for Swan to then be frozen out, not only from AO Main Draw, but the AO Qualie's too. Then for a 45yr old to be handed the last Main Draw wildcard! There ain't no fairness in this tennis lark.

Raducanu gets zero on her pressures from this forum - I doubt she even knows it exists, let alone has ever read a single sentence

Swan didn't get a wildcard because she didn't have the relevant ranking on the relevant day, she's not Australian (yet?), and not a multiple Grand Slam winner that the crowd want to see - wildcards are not about 'fairness', that's why they're 'wild' cards

Peter too · Tennis legend

If Taylah Preston beats the 3rd seed Iva Jovic in the SF then it would be reasonable to think that Taylah's play might have had something to do with Emma's loss. Taylah has so far beaten the 5th seed in R1, a player ranked 130 places above her in the rankings in R2 and the top seed in the QF. 18 year old Iva Jovic WR30 is the last seed left in the tournament who would have been a very real challenge for Emma.