With events starting a few days after Christmas, it’s time to get the 2014 Tennis thread rolling. The opening title obviously refers to Brits with a chance of achieving things in the season’s opening Slam.
In fact, 2014 began at little early for a couple of Brits, as Naomi Broady and Tara Moore opened their campaigns up in a ITF $50k event in Ankara. Both had decent returns, Moore reaching the QF and Broady the SF. Both will move up the rankings at little, which in Broady’s case takes her back inside the top 250.
Nothing going on this week, unsurprisingly. Only two minor events happening in the world, both Futures level or equivalent in Turkey. Everyone has gone home/to Miami for Christmas, and then is flying off straight afterwards to get their prep for the Aussie Open underway. Or possibly the other way around in Tara Moore’s case, seeing as she has significant family roots in Hong Kong and is playing an ITF $25k event there starting on 30th Dec.
As for the others, I’m guessing its somewhere in the antipodes for most, but A.Murray and Robson aside, all will have to work through qualifying.
Let’s start with the easy bit;
Andy Murray is playing just one event, in Doha from 30th Dec.
Laura Robson has got tournaments in both weeks going in, Auckland from 30th Dec and then Hobart from 6th Jan. In both cases she is playing an International event in preference to a Premier one, which is a change in emphasis that I completely support. Despite not quite making a seeding for either based on the current entry lists, she will be a bigger fish as a consequence, with the added pressure that brings, pressure she needs to start dealing with better.
As for the others, that needs a bit more digging.
Of the rest of the Men, all have passed up the Challenger Tour events in Brazil or New Caledonia in the w/c 30th Dec. Dan Evans and Daniel Cox have both entered and are comfortably above the cut line for Aussie Open qualifying. So presumably, they are putting themselves up for qualifying in one of the three ATP events in Australasia in the previous week. Edmund Corrie has also put himself down for Aussie Open qualifying, but he is currently quite low on the alternates list. He might get in. I guess he has made the trip in that case, and so, like Evans and Cox, will be after a qualifying tournament for next week. James Ward’s name is absent from the Aussie Open qualifying entry list I saw, so one guesses he has passed on a return down under so soon after his last (Ward finished 2013 playing a number of Challenger level events in Australia).
Regarding the Women, as already mentioned Tara Moore is playing in Hong Kong next week. One guesses Jo Konta and Heather Watson will have picked a WTA event to try and qualify for next week. Likewise Samantha Murray and Naomi Broady, though both were initially down to join Moore in Hong Kong and have since altered their plans. I haven’t seen an entry list for the Women’s Qualifying for the Aussie, but would assume that all have put their names down. Konta and Watson are certainties to get in, Moore a probable, Murray on the edge and Broady starting to be unlikely. It doesn’t help that the Women’s Qualifying section is only a 96-person draw, as opposed to the 128-person in the Men’s Qualies.
In fact, 2014 began at little early for a couple of Brits, as Naomi Broady and Tara Moore opened their campaigns up in a ITF $50k event in Ankara. Both had decent returns, Moore reaching the QF and Broady the SF. Both will move up the rankings at little, which in Broady’s case takes her back inside the top 250.
Nothing going on this week, unsurprisingly. Only two minor events happening in the world, both Futures level or equivalent in Turkey. Everyone has gone home/to Miami for Christmas, and then is flying off straight afterwards to get their prep for the Aussie Open underway. Or possibly the other way around in Tara Moore’s case, seeing as she has significant family roots in Hong Kong and is playing an ITF $25k event there starting on 30th Dec.
As for the others, I’m guessing its somewhere in the antipodes for most, but A.Murray and Robson aside, all will have to work through qualifying.
Let’s start with the easy bit;
Andy Murray is playing just one event, in Doha from 30th Dec.
Laura Robson has got tournaments in both weeks going in, Auckland from 30th Dec and then Hobart from 6th Jan. In both cases she is playing an International event in preference to a Premier one, which is a change in emphasis that I completely support. Despite not quite making a seeding for either based on the current entry lists, she will be a bigger fish as a consequence, with the added pressure that brings, pressure she needs to start dealing with better.
As for the others, that needs a bit more digging.
Of the rest of the Men, all have passed up the Challenger Tour events in Brazil or New Caledonia in the w/c 30th Dec. Dan Evans and Daniel Cox have both entered and are comfortably above the cut line for Aussie Open qualifying. So presumably, they are putting themselves up for qualifying in one of the three ATP events in Australasia in the previous week. Edmund Corrie has also put himself down for Aussie Open qualifying, but he is currently quite low on the alternates list. He might get in. I guess he has made the trip in that case, and so, like Evans and Cox, will be after a qualifying tournament for next week. James Ward’s name is absent from the Aussie Open qualifying entry list I saw, so one guesses he has passed on a return down under so soon after his last (Ward finished 2013 playing a number of Challenger level events in Australia).
Regarding the Women, as already mentioned Tara Moore is playing in Hong Kong next week. One guesses Jo Konta and Heather Watson will have picked a WTA event to try and qualify for next week. Likewise Samantha Murray and Naomi Broady, though both were initially down to join Moore in Hong Kong and have since altered their plans. I haven’t seen an entry list for the Women’s Qualifying for the Aussie, but would assume that all have put their names down. Konta and Watson are certainties to get in, Moore a probable, Murray on the edge and Broady starting to be unlikely. It doesn’t help that the Women’s Qualifying section is only a 96-person draw, as opposed to the 128-person in the Men’s Qualies.
Comment