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@El Loro posted 11/2/20

GB drawn away to Mexico (GB has generally been drawn away over the years rather then at home so as usual it's another away visit). Means that Mexico have the advantage of choice of venue and surfacs and a home crowd.

 

At present GB have a world ranking of 14 and Mexico 26. Tie is played 17 and 18 April. Winner goes through to the qualifiers round in 2021, loser drops back down to the respective Group 1 groups (those are the Americas, Asia/Oceania and Europe/Africa - as more countries play in the Europe/Africa group that group is split in two sub-groups).

Obviously that tie never took place. Announced today that the tie has been posponed until next February.

El Loro
@El Loro posted:

From 14-18 July is the Progress Tour Champtionships. Harriet Dart, Naomi Broady, Samantha Murray Sharan, Jodie Burrage and Emma Raducanu have already signed up. Johanna Konta isn't expected to be in this one. As with the other events this will be at the National Tennis Centre. Looks as if that's the new name for the Closed Women's Championships.

BBC to show this live on the BBC Sport website, app and Red Button daily. Besides the above, Heather Watson and Katie Boulter are involved.

The event will be played in a round-robin format, similar to the World Tour Finals, with 16 singles players split into two tiers - Premier event and Division 1 - before a knockout semi-final stage.

Eight teams will compete in the Premier doubles competition.

El Loro

This week's Progress Tour matches have started though Johanna Konta isn't involved and both Heather Watson and Harriet Dart have withdrawn due to injury. There are  the Premier players and the lower ranked Tier 1 players with separate tournaments with eight in each (two groups of four). Today, tomorrow and Thursday are played on a round robin basis. Top two from each group go through to semi-finals on Friday, with final on Saturday. Also doubles matches.

Singles

Premier

Group Elena Baltacha

Freya Christie, Maia Lumsden, Alicia Barnett, Katie Swan

Group Anne Keothavong

Alice Gillan, Katie Boulter, Emily Arbuthnott, Jodie-Anna Burrage

Division 1

Group Sam Smith

Erin Richardson, Olivia Nicholls, Danielle Daley, Victoria Allen

Group Annabel Croft

Sasha Hill, Nell Miller, Amelia Bissett, Esther Adeshina

Doubles

Group Jo Durle

Jodie Burrage & Freya Christie, Soumaya Anane & Alannah Griffin, Annabel Davis and Sally Pethybridge and Esther Adeshina & Sonay Kartal

Group Virginia Wade

Alicia Barnett & Olivia Nicholls, Danielle Daley & Nell Miller, Victoria Allen & Sasha Hill and Emily Arbuthnot & Anna Popescu.

The Sam Smith is Samantha Smith who was the British number one tennis player from 1996 to 1999, not the singer

El Loro

Katie Boulter had a straight forward win in her first match beating Alice Gillan 6-1, 6-4.
Katie Swan had to withdraw whilst playing due to an injury.

 

Not too surprising that players are getting injured with the lack of matches for a long time. That's the main reason for these tournaments this month - to enable players to get used to playing matches before the tennis season starts again.

El Loro

Alicia Barnett won the tie break tens title yesterday evening. It's fitting that she won as she was one of the main people in getting the Progress Tour Championships into being.

 

Tie break tens is the short form of tennis. No sets, just a tie break. Winner is the first to get ten points (or more) by a margin of at least two points. So the same as an oridinary tie break other than it's ten points rather than seven.

El Loro

Jodie-Anna Burrage was beaten in the final by Katie Boulter 6-3, 6-7, 2-6. It was only towards the end of the second set that Katie Boulter got the better of Jodie-Anna Burrage who had looked as if she was going to be the surprise winner. It's been a good week for Katie Boulter getting much needed match play. I don't think the tournament will get any ranking points but that was never the reason for it.

 

El Loro

Been too busy to take much notice of this week's Battle of the Brits which is a unique tournament. Sort of a combined Davis Cup and Fed Cup for British men and women. Unusual scoring system for games with a variety of points for men's singles and doubles, women's singles and doubles, and mixed doubles with different points from day to day with tomorrow's the highest for the week. Players in two teams, the "winner" is the first to 60 points. The two teams are currently on virtually the same total but which team wins isn't particularly important. The aim of the tournament is to provide some match play experience. The ATP and WTA tournaments may start in a few days time but no guarantee they'll take place.

 

As far as this week's tournament it's been encouraging for Heather Watson as this has been the first competitive matches she's played for a  long time. She's won all her four singles matches this week. Very obvious with Monday's match that she was really out of form  - the first game took 11 minutes largely due to her error strewn serving and a long time at deuce, advantage one player, back to deuce , back to advantage and going on for quite some time.

However, yesterday's match was much better and today she totally dominated the match winning 6-1, 6-0. Yes, she was playing against lower ranked players, but it was the way she was playing which is encouraging.

El Loro

Johanna Konta's ranking won't crash down as it normally would following her first round exit in the French Open. The rankings system has been revised in the short term due to so many tournaments having been cancelled, travel restrictions etc.

The WTA site has this:
"Under the revised system, a player’s ranking will be comprised of her best 16 results in singles and best 11 results in doubles based on the points earned between March 2019 through December 2020. A player’s ranking breakdown will include the "Better of 2019 and 2020" points earned at Tour-level and Grand Slam events. Further, a player may not count the same WTA Tour or Grand Slam level result twice in her ranking breakdown. Tour-level points added in 2020 will drop after the event is scheduled to be played again in 2021 or after 52 weeks, whichever is earlier."

So the 780 points Johanna got in 2019 for getting to the semi-final in France won't get replaced with the 10 points she would normally have got.

El Loro

There's to be another Battle of the Brits tournament from the 20th to 23rd at the National Tennis Centre in Roehampton on the same type of surface as the Australian Open (which has been delayed by 3 weeks).
Jame Murray, Dan Evans, Heather Watson, Andy Murray, Emma Raducanu, Cameron Norrie, Harriet Dart, Jay Clarke, Jodie Burrage and James Ward and 6 others will be playing.

El Loro

The Battle of the Brits tournament ended yesterday. Heather Watson won all 4 of her matches so was top. Harriet Dart didn't participate so Heather's opponents were all noticeably lower ranked. The results don't count towards rankings. The important thing about the tournament was to give the players the chance for some competitive matches ahead of next year.

El Loro

Katie Boulter is intending to be in the main draw of the Australian Open after using an injury-protected ranking to enter. Johanna Konta and Heather Watson would also be in the main draw. The Open is some weeks off so it's too soon to know if it will get cancelled further postponed and which players will decide not to go.

El Loro

Heather Watson is one of the 47 players who are confined to their hotel rooms for two weeks in Melbourne having been on the plane where a member of the flight crew and Sylvain Bruneau - coach of 2019 US Open champion Bianca Andreescu  tested positive. Those two people are staying in a separate "health" hotel.
Victoria Azarenka and Sloane Stephens are also reportedly another 2 of the 47.

Although gym equipment is being sent to each player, they will be at a disadvantage to other players as they will get fewer than 10 days on court practice.

El Loro

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