Talent Spotting

A lovely summer’s day, particularly when spent in the pleasant surroundings of the Edgbaston Priory Club. I popped over with Mrs B to watch the first round of qualifying for the Aegon Classic, and had a great day out. The weather makes a hell of a difference, and free admission also improves the mood.

We watched some fairly competitive games in the morning and early afternoon, before having a stroll across Edgbaston to Birmingham’s best ( and priciest ) fish and chip shop. On our return, we had a look at a few of the higher-ranked players practising, and arrived back at the courts in time to see Britain’s great hope, Laura Robson, play a tight three-setter against a decent Russian opponent, Nina Bratchikova. Robson lost the first set but came back to win. She hasn’t played much this year ( I presume she’s concentrating on GCSE’s ) but looked fairly solid for a sixteen year-old, with a good first serve to get her out of trouble when necessary. The other top junior, Heather Watson, has a wild card into the main draw so, with the draw as a whole looking stronger than the last couple of years, I’m hoping for another good day when we return on Tuesday.

There was a blatant courtsider in attendance ( East European, mid-size laptop, dongle ) presumably checking out his seating position for Monday. He was, however, also obvious to the WTA supervisor, who had a sharp word in his ear. He'll need to be a little cleverer than he was today.

I obviously like to check out all the players on show and pass on my inside knowledge to my loyal blog readers. From today’s play, the outstanding talent on show was clearly Heidi El Tabakh, the 23 year-old Egyptian-born Canadian. I’ve no idea if she’s any good at tennis………