Da Annika Beck mit 15 Jahren das Finale des 10K von Equeurdreville erreicht hat, hat sie denke ich mal schon einen eigenen Thread hier verdient . Sie dürfte damit die jüngste Spielerin seit langem sein, die das in so jungem Alter geschafft hat. Hier mal die Ergebnisse im Überblick:
Totally agree. Although Annika is still a young player I think she's at a dangerous point in her career where the early round exits can add up and her ranking plummets. She either needs a coaching change and/or a change in her mindset.
Annika should try to take the Simona Halep approach if she can. While I don't think Annika is necessarily as talented as Simona Halep they have some similarities. They're about the same height and weight, move pretty well (Simona is better), and are former junior grand slam champions. After a couple of years of mediocre results and the occasional deep run into a tournament, Simona built her confidence by winning some smaller tournaments with weaker fields and then translated it to the bigger events.
Annika is scheduled to play Bucharest next week which is a perfect example of one those smaller events that Simona won last summer (in fact I believe it is replacing the Budapest tournament Simona won). On paper, Annika is the 5th best player in the field and I think she will be seeded. She needs to take advantage of this field.
(1)Simona Halep (ROU) v Kristina Mladenovic (FRA)
Aleksandra Krunic (SRB) v Alexandra Panova (RUS)
Veronica Cepede Royg (PAR) v Cagla Buyukakcay (TUR)
Lara Arruabarrena (ESP) v (5) Annika Beck (GER)
Annika served for the first set at *5-3 but didn't manage to hold serve. But now she's returning for the first set, that's usually the better bet with her anyway.
Seems to be a while until she goes onto hard courts though, she's entered into Bastad next week, but nothing after that until Montreal (where she'll probably play Q). She could theoretically play the 100k in Vancouver the week before, entry list will be out this Thursday.