gmca

Thanks for the update. Good luck for the season ahead.

A bit too early to say this I think. She was out for almost a year in the 2023 season, and has been slowly trying to build this year. Winning 3 matches in a row at Wimbledon was as good as she's done this year, and the 2 matches prior to yesterday, plus a few other wins she's had suggest she's getting towards being a force in the women's game. It's a question of her building towards coping physically and mentally to be able to sustain a run all the way in the slams. The next couple of years should give us a clearer picture.

Cheers, must get an eye test soon.

So we're at the start of finding a new manager. I would imagine that's going to take a good couple of weeks at least. I see no date for applications was on the official website message. I assume there's no one within the club looking at recruiting new players (DY would have been in contact with some no doubt). Our out of contract players are in a bit of limbo too I'd have thought. I wouldn't expect them to hang about if another team comes in with a decent offer. We could be in for a serious rebuild, perhaps having missed out on the better players we might have attracted. It'll all come out in the wash. Meantime I'm going to swallow a few happy pills.

Might have been the same guy I saw joining the roundabout at the Craigs far too fast, then started blaring his horn because he had to slow down for the sensible drivers who wouldn't have seen him coming when they joined the roundabout. Frigging maniac.

He did reach the semis, beaten by Wilhelm Bungert IIRC. Might have been the following year when the open era started, partly as a realistic response to the Wimbledon boycott.

Couldn't think of anyone other than those mentioned by specsaver and myself. On reflection, thought it might have been Jeremy Bates. John Lloyd did have a fairly long career right enough, so fair play to him. Thanks for giving me a sleepless night

Murray, Henman, Ruzedski, Mottram, Mark Cox, Roger Taylor are 6 I think from memory of their singles careers at the time (I am that old). Don't think the Lloyds would have had enough singles wins, though John in particular had a good doubles record. Can't think of a 7th atm. Hopefully come to me in my sleep!

Well done to GB's women's team, beating France on clay to qualify for the finals in Seville later this year. Katie Boulter was ragdolled in the first rubber yesterday, but came back today and won convincingly. Emma Raducanu was utter class in both her rubbers. Real signs that she has a good chance of fulfilling her potential if she can get a good run without injuries.

As the title of the thread suggests, this may well come down to which teams have the bottle for the fight. If Annan get even closer to the teams above, I fancy them and ourselves to have the best chance of escaping, mainly because of the managers and the attitude both teams have shown last season and this. They seem to never give up. I worry a bit for Queens, based on what their fans are saying. If the players aren't really playing for Bartley, they could be found wanting when it matters most. Not sure about Kelty. Defeat next week at Annan, on top of their current bad run, could be enough to affect their run in. Having said all that, I've felt for a while that 1 bad week for Annan, where they lose and the others win would leave them with too much to do. Think it'll come down to a point or so here and there at the end of the day.

Well done to Katie Boulter on winning her first WTA 500 event. She has been gradually improving her ranking, and now sits in the top 30. Saw bits of her matches, and she pretty much blew some good players away. Good luck to her going forward.

Think the loan player(s) coming in depended on the parent club getting players in before the loans were released. Darren said something about a domino situation. I took that to mean the loan(s) were agreed, but could fall through if circumstances worked against us. Putting 2 & 2 together, I wonder if the players coming in on trial might be in case the loans fall through.

Yeah, noisiest b*****ds in the world. We know you're there, we can fucking see you, ya big worthless tossers.

Into the final now. They seem to have generally got to about the quarter final or last 16 stage in the bigger tournaments this year, so good to see them getting further this time.

We really were crap in the league last season right enough. Only won it by a few points.