British Ladies Watch: ITF Tournaments (02 to 08 May 2011)

Ranking points gained this week:
Elena Baltacha 80pts
Laura Robson 32pts
Naomi Broady 24pts
Heather Watson 20pts
Emily WEBLEY-SMITH 18pts
Katie O'BRIEN 10pts


ITF $100k Open GDF Suez in Cagnes Sur Mer, France.
Ranking Points on Offer: W:150 F:110 SF:80 QF:40 R16:20/1 R32:1

Elena Baltacha (GBR) lost in the semi-final (80 pts):
She has never done better than the second round in such a clay court tournament.
R32 Elena Baltacha (91) beats Jill CRAYBAS (100) 6-4 1-6 6-2
R16 Elena Baltacha (91) beats Vesna DOLONTS (111) 6-3 3-6 6-3
QF Elena Baltacha (91) beats Kristina BARROIS (60) 5-7 6-4 6-4
SF Elena Baltacha (91) loses to Pauline Parmentier (124) 6-3 6-1

Heather Watson (GBR) lost in the second round (20 pts):
R32 Heather Watson (122) beats Valeria SAVINYKH (145) 6-4 6-2
R16 Heather Watson (122) loses to Maria-Elena CAMERIN (120) 1-6 7-6(7) 6-1

Anne Keothavong (GBR) lost in the first round (1 pt):
R32 Anne Keothavong (107) loses to Anna TATISHVILI (105) 6-3 6-4

BBC Report on Elena



ITF $50,000 Indian Harbour Beach, FL 2011
Ranking Points on Offer: W:70 F:50 SF:32 QF:18 R16:10/1 R32:1

Laura Robson* (GBR) lost in the semi-final (32 pts).
This is her fourth tournament back after being injured in the Hopman Cup at the start of the year.
R32 Laura ROBSON (269) beats Kimberly COUTS (339) 6-0 6-3
R16 Laura ROBSON (269) beats Aleksandrina NAYDENOVA (491) 6-3 6-2
QF Laura ROBSON (269) beats Maria-Fernanda ALVAREZ-TERAN (306) 6-4 7-5
SF Laura ROBSON (269) loses to Alison Riske (114) 46 64 61
Note: Laura picked up a right leg thigh strain in the second set of the quarter-final and this hampered her in the semi-final where she took a medical time out in the final set.

Melanie South (GBR) lost in the first round (1 pt):
R32 Melanie South (273) loses to Julia BOSERUP (302) 6-2 6-3

TOURNAMENT LINK
*A 17-year-old may play up to 16 professional events (WTA & ITF Women’s Circuit), WTA Championships (if she qualifies), plus Fed Cup.



ITF $50,000 Fukuoka Japan 2011
Ranking Points on Offer: W:70 F:50 SF:32 QF:18 R16:10/1 R32:1

Katie O'BRIEN (GBR) lost in second round (10 pts):
R32 Katie O'BRIEN (225) beats Ye-Ra LEE (288) 6-3 6-4
R16 Katie O'BRIEN (225) loses to Erika TAKAO (316) 7-6(1) 7-5

Emily WEBLEY-SMITH (GBR) lost in quarter-finals (18 pts):
R32 Emily Webley-Smith (271) beats Wen-Hsin HSU (250) 4-6 6-2 6-0
R16 Emily Webley-Smith (271) beats Miyu KATO (unranked) 6-2 6-7(6) 6-2
QF Emily Webley-Smith (271) lost to Kumiko IIJIMA (203) 6-2 6-7(4) 6-2



ITF $25,000 Bukhara, Uzbekistan 2011
Ranking Points on Offer: W:50 F:34 SF:24 QF:14 R16:8/1 R32:1

Naomi Broady (GBR) lost in semi-final (24 pts):
R32 Naomi Broady (274) beats Marina KACHAR (870) 6-4 6-7(5) 6-4
R16 Naomi Broady (274) beats Ekaterina YASHINA (620) 7-6(4) 7-5
QF Naomi Broady (274) beats Isabella HOLLAND (296) 5-3 Retired
SF Naomi Broady (274) loses to Nikola HOFMANOVA (282) 6-1 7-5

Lisa Whybourn (GBR) lost in first round due to injury* (1 pt):
R32 Lisa Whybourn (285) loses to Kateryna KOZLOVA (326) 4-6 6-1 3-0 Retired

*The 19 year old Lisa Whybourn went into this tournament carrying a knee injury but played as she was aiming to achieve a ranking within the top 250 to be eligible for consideration of a wildcard for Wimbledon. Unfortunately she pulled a leg muscle and will now miss the rest of the clay season. It is hoped she will be better for the grass season: Further information


Britons in top 300:
Rank. Players Name (age)
91. Elena Baltacha (27)
107. Anne Keothavong (27)
108: ==================Direct Entry to Slams threshold
122. Heather Watson (18)
225. Katie O'Brien (25)
231. Naomi Cavaday (retired from sport aged 22)
250: ==================WildCard to Slams eligibility threshold
269. Laura Robson (17)
271. Emily Webley-Smith (26)
273. Melanie South (25)
274. Naomi Broady (21)
285. Lisa Whybourn (19)

NEXT WEEKS PREVIEW

ps: If and when this tennis forum develops it may be useful to create a separate folder for the ladies game or maybe for the British players (separate to Murray).

Nore Staat wrote:ps: If and when this tennis forum develops it may be useful to create a separate folder for the ladies game or maybe for the British players (separate to Murray).

Hi Nore Staat,

I think this tennis forum is already developing very nicely and a sub forum for ladies tennis sounds ok to me.

I'll pass this on : )

Solerina

Hi Solerina, on reflection I think a folder called "British Player Watch" would suit me (excluding Murray of course). We could see how we get on from there.

I'm rather starting to think Keothavong's had her time in the sunshine. OK, she was playing a relatively good player, but she's not really managed to string much together in terms of decent results recently. She's too good to go lower than the Top 150, but the heights of 2 years ago, where she seemed to be on the verge of storming the Top 50, don't look like they are going to come back.

I suppose we'll have to wait and see, but Baltacha and Keothavong are both in my views players who are good enough to hang around the 80 - 120 places, hit a good streak and they go a bit higher, but otherwise lack the consistency to go further. So for future success I think Watson is our chance for some decent appearances in big tournaments.

In terms of getting direct entry into Roland Garros I think the players have to be ranked at least 108 or higher. Normally there are 12 qualifiers and 8 wildcards.

If there are players with protected ranking then the highest ranked player getting direct entry would be ranked higher than 108. Anne Keothavong is on the cusp at 107 whereas Heather Watson needs to get some good results at 122.

Nore Staat wrote:ps: If and when this tennis forum develops it may be useful to create a separate folder for the ladies game or maybe for the British players (separate to Murray).

Definitely a good idea.

Out of interest btw - how did you find out tonight that Robson beat Naydenova? The only site I know to check on is the ITF and it doesn't tell you the result there yet. Or do u follow her on Twitter?

Nore Staat wrote:ps: If and when this tennis forum develops it may be useful to create a separate folder for the ladies game or maybe for the British players (separate to Murray).

Hi Nore Staat,

We've decided for now, to keep things as they are....at the moment we don't want anything to take the focus away from the main tennis forum.

Maybe we'll do something when, like you said, the forum has developed more..........we'll see how things go : )

thanks

Solerina

Priesty: I googled it and it was being discussed on mensforum tennis.

Solerina: Okay. I suspect this type of article won't be popular and so as it is being updated it will fall down the list and hence the motivation to keep this type of thread up may dwindle, but let's see what happens.

Nore - if you just plan on editing the lead post then we could make it a sticky for you so it stays at the top. Or you could just make a one line addition post to say it's updated which will bump it up again

Hi Davie, I had the idea of creating a new thread in each relevant week and then updating during the week - so that we could see how the girls were progressing as we head towards Roland Garros and Wimbledon. So it was more for information than perhaps regular discussion.

I wouldn't want it to "hog" the main thread when most will only be interested in the Mens top level matches. But maybe we should see how I get on. I'm not sure how long I will be able to keep it up but hopefully I will at least get an appropriate format for the article to reduce the amount of effort required.

In that case, it sounds like each weekly article should be "stickied" with earlier articles being "unstuck" as new ones appear.

We do similar things in the golf section for weekly tournaments on the USA and European tour and it works quite well. Your regular tennis mods have the capability to stick and unstick threads or if one gets overlooked you could just ask one of the admins to do it for you.

Threads for information or reference are always a good thing and deserve to be kept at the top of the thread list

Hi Davie: does that mean the thread will appear within the "announcement and sticky" section below the "yummymummy" article and when it becomes unstuck it will drop down to the "topic section". I think that would work out fine.

I have just sent my first personal message to Solerina. So I'll see how things work out.

Yep that's how it will work Nore - I think it will work fine too!

Can anyone tell me how to tidy up the links? The link tool doesn't seem to work when I tried to use it in this article - all I got is the following (for example):

[url=http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/Sport/Whybourns-wildcard-hopes-rocked-by-injury-04052011.htm ]test[/url]

Nore ... you click on the link icon and see two boxes. Paste your link in the top box, and use a word or phrase in the bottom box so this appears in your post. You will probably also need to choose a colour to highlight the word or phrase so that it stands out.

Hi Woofie, thanks. I did try the links tool (with the two boxes) but it didn't work as I just got the written text in the square brackets.

On a separate note Elena Baltacha is through to the semi-finals of the $100k ITF clay court tournament (and she hasn't previously reached a quarter-finals of such a tournament). I think this is deserving of a

Nore Staat wrote:I have just sent my first personal message to Solerina. So I'll see how things work out.

Thanks Nore....I have replied : )

Solerina

Nore Staat wrote:Can anyone tell me how to tidy up the links? The link tool doesn't seem to work when I tried to use it in this article - all I got is the following (for example):

[url=http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/Sport/Whybourns-wildcard-hopes-rocked-by-injury-04052011.htm ]test[/url]

In this particular case all you have done wrong is leave a space between the end of your url and ']'. Delete that space and you have your link, like so:

Code:

[url=http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/Sport/Whybourns-wildcard-hopes-rocked-by-injury-04052011.htm]test[/url]

= test

Thanks Stealth, very well spotted and explained!!

Laura has strained her right thigh - she had it strapped up in the second set. She is leading 6-3 4-4 against Alvarez-Terran but her movement seems restricted. I'm not sure whether she will be able to continue in this tournament.

5-5 in second set.

6-5 to Robson in second set. Alvarez to serve to go into a tie break.

Laura wins 6-3 7-5 but she limps towards the net to shake the hand of her opponent, limps back to her chair, gathers her stuff then limps off with no trainer/medic in sight. I hope she will get the right medical treatment / advice it would be a shame if the same thing happens to her as happened to Lisa Whybourn. It would be a surprise if she were able to make the next round fitness wise.

News through on my Twitter that Laura played her semi in Florida but lost 4-6,6-4,6-1 to Riske.

Hi Priesty, Laura took a medical time out in the third set for treatment of her strained right thigh. Her mobility was reduced and this likely contributed to her final set loss. Hopefully she will make a quick recovery. I don't think she is playing next week.