Mid-day Auckland Report (Baltacha-Dubois & Niculescu-Marino)

Heya, its Mana's partner Brett here. Jonny (Mana) is at the tennis and asked me to come on and write a couple of notes about the matches he has seen today.. so here goes... bare with me, my tennis knowledge is average at best!

So I think the first one is Baltacha v. Dubois (sp?)
Anyways reading off what Jonny has text me it goes something like this...
* Elena played great, confident and aggressive. Today Steph came up against a player who was willing to go for her shots and make them. Where her last two matches she has just sit back and let her opponents self destruct (Esp. Vakulenko). Late in the match when she did start becoming more assertive, she started making errors. Just got out played in every area.

Also a side note, Baltacha was pumping her fist and yelling "come on" after like every point won. He then says ala Ana (not sure what this means but I'm writing it anyway)

Then... Niculescu v. Marino... Again, reading off the brief email!
* The only thing that impresses me about her is her fighting spirit. Nothing about her game makes me think she can be a top player. I have seen three matches in a row now and she's just been getting through by fighting. Which these days is sometimes enough. Marino is so impressive. By far the best prospect to come out of Canada in a long time. Has a big game, both serve and off the ground. Although I wanted Monica to win, I felt the the game was on Marino's racquet. I really do think that with the right coaching and schedule, she can defo be Top 100 but RG and beyond. One to keep an eye on for sure.

Those are the two so far... but he is sure to send more through and since I don't have work to do I will be updating lol.

Thanks for taking the time to write up the report.:bounce:

Hopefully Mana is watching Kimiko right now on center court :cool:

Nice words for Marino :) Steph can indeed be outplayed against players like Baltacha who can just blast winners left and right.

Becca is indeed impressive :hearts:

That's the kind of result for Steph when a player is playing her best tennis and when she's not pumped up by the crowd, she tend to be a bit passive. I think someone should start a fanclub to travel all around the world with her :D..then she'd be top10 for sure :D :p

that's still a nice run for both of them :D