Sarah Borwell Blog

Borwell blogs: Bringing home some Danish bacon
- Thu 27 Nov '08
- 3 Comments
Tennishead blogger Sarah Borwell writes after ending her season with the $100,000 ITF doubles title in Odense.

Slightly bizarrely, my doubles partner, Courtney Nagle, and I began 2008 in Kolding, Denmark, and ended the season as doubles champions 60km down the road in Odense. After a little confusion and many frustrations, we ended the week in a great position for the 2009 season and with yours truly at a new career-high ranking of No.108.

After two nights in a youth hostel, two singles matches at a completely different venue in Kolding and a driver who forgot to wear his glasses, we spent most of the time either in the middle of the road, bouncing off curbs or narrowly missing passing cars.

For the first time in my tennis career I truly believe I can reach the goals I set

Although the organisation was haphazard, and the staff spent most of the time chasing loose ends, it was difficult to fault their effort and impossible not to be cheered up by their smiles. Odense has aspirations to hold a WTA Tour event next year and in some respects, it could be possible. Housed in a massive arena, with Caroline Wozniacki as the Danish superstar who can put bums on seats, disco tunes blaring before each match and players entering like prizefighters, the locals loved their first glimpse of women’s tennis.

Along with bacon and Hans Christian Anderson (born in Odense), the Danes take great pride in the importance of their No.1 player Wozniacki. Extending her season a month longer than most of her top 20 contemporaries, the teenager was under pressure to deliver the goods in front of her home crowd. Given many local fans bought tickets with the presumption that Wozniacki would be the one holding up the trophy on Sunday, she handled it as if she were a lot older than just 18 – and delivered the goods too.

Wozniacki’s first match was against the girl I destroyed in the final round of the qualifying event; we both found the whole thing very amusing. However, like any good competitor, she was excited about the prospect of competing in front of a sell-out crowd against a world-class player. From the first round to the final, Wozniacki was never really tested, showing exactly why she has bagged three WTA Tour titles this year and risen 52 places on the WTA rankings to No.12 in the world.

During the week my own tennis made massive strides in terms of my doubles ranking and my awareness of what I’m good at and what needs improving. After qualifying for the singles main draw and making fourth seed Angelique Kerber work hard in the first round, I had a minor epiphany. After deciding to pursue only doubles midway through this year, when I’ve dabbled in singles I’ve played with a carefree abandonment. With this laid-back approach, I have been able to play the style of tennis my old coach Peter Russell had tried to instill in me.

What hit me in Odense was that I have a great singles game to do well, I have a huge serve, an aggressive forehand, I can volley and when I don’t care too much about the outcome I can hit my backhand pretty well too. However, this is only a small part of what makes a singles player successful. There are so many more attributes, which in singles I was lacking.

Mentally I needed to be stronger, I never truly believed in myself and when I cared about winning or losing, I was scared to miss. Some days the thought of hitting a backhand over the net simply didn’t compute, my arm would be heavy and some of my backhands would be so miscued they’d even bounce before the net! Physically my body couldn’t compete with the top girls day in day out, regardless of how much my trainer Jez Green tried to rebuild me. It was a slightly disconcerting realisation, but it also gave me added motivation to succeed in doubles.

Physically I am more capable of lasting and mentally, for the first time in my tennis career, I truly believe I can reach the goals I set. Courtney and I have been working hard, we have been chasing points, flying across the world to various tournaments, and finally it paid off.

We still have a long way to go, many more skills need to be learned, but we are both very willing to do that. We finished our year off with our first major tournament win and we did it in style, taking out two highly accomplished players. We set the goal of cracking the top 80 by the end of the year and with our title in Odense we are now knocking on the door of the top 100 and hope to push through early on in 2009.
Borwell blogs: Make mine a doubles!
- Tue 04 Nov '08
Doubles specialist Sarah Borwell wants to make her trade more appealing. Here’s how she would do it…

This time last year, I was No.480 in the WTA world doubles rankings, a year later I am closing in on the top 100 and direct entry into a grand slam. In my mind, it’s an impressive ranking rise, but a rise that’s been made harder by some of the WTA’s rules changes.

Four years ago a doubles pair could have gained direct entry into a slam with a lower ranking than they can today. Due to various rules tweaks, a partnership now needs to have, at the very minimum, a combined doubles world ranking of 160, which means that if you share a similar ranking you both need to be 80 or higher in the world.

Doubles has a heck of a lot going for it… the rallies are simply magnificent

The WTA decided the number of fans watching doubles was so low that changes had to be made. After much deliberation, one conclusion was that fans don’t know who the doubles players are, and without a strong affinity to them, have no desire to stay in their seat to cheer them on. I agree with that conclusion. There can’t be many people in the world that haven’t heard of world No.8 Venus Williams, but by contrast, not many folk on the street will have ever heard of the eighth-best doubles player on the planet, Kveta Peschke.

The solution that made the most sense to the doubles experts on tour was to market the players at the top of the doubles world rankings. Give them exposure and fans will connect with them and want to watch more doubles. Instead, in some ways, the WTA has made it even tougher for doubles specialists by allowing players to use their singles rankings to get into grand slam doubles events.

This all seems a little strange to me. Singles and doubles are very different entities, requiring different skills and knowledge, so why allow highly-ranked singles players to use their singles rankings to get into doubles events? Just because you’re a great singles player doesn’t mean you have the same aptitude on a doubles court and this clearly works the other way. The Bryan brothers, who are the best in the world at doubles, would struggle to survive with the world’s best on a singles court.

Doubles has a heck of a lot going for it – it’s a great game to watch, if played correctly. Personally, I don’t think you can beat watching the Bryan brothers at their best against the likes of Jonas Bjorkman and Leander Paes. The rallies are simply magnificent and the tactics used to out-smart the other pair make it all the more interesting.

Surely, tennis fans want to see doubles played by pairs that work on their games all year, who understand the tactics, who like to get to the net and volley and who actually want to win. Many of them don’t have singles careers to fall back on, they put everything into doubles and will do their utmost to succeed – and that makes for great tennis.

Instead, singles players are able to play doubles in the four most prestigious tournaments of the year. They may never choose to step on a doubles court for the rest of the year, but at the four slams they can use their singles rankings and compete.

The WTA changed the rules with the belief that more recognisable names playing doubles would make people watch, but the change hasn’t solved the problem, it simply lowers the standard of play in the early rounds of grand slam doubles draws. More importantly, the big five names in women’s tennis don’t play doubles. The Williams sisters are the only superstars that play; the likes of Maria Sharapova, Ana Ivanovic and Jelena Jankovic don’t often waste their time on doubles. Playing doubles is completely different to singles and should be marketed as such. Once the marketing is improved, I think the interest of spectators would grow and the numbers of fans watching would increase.

Marketing a wider proportion of the game’s singles players would help women’s tennis as well. Wimbledon this year was a good example of why more players need to be marketed. We saw early exits from some of the top seeds – Sharapova and Ivanovic for example – leaving some world-class players in the latter stages of the event that no one had heard of. A friend of mine who follows tennis when the grand slams are taking place made an interesting comment during the French Open, an observation I have unfortunately heard many times before. She asked where ‘this Safina’ had come from. Was she new to the tour? Er, no. This seems to be a major problem with tennis – some of the best players in the world are unrecognisable to the average tennis fan.

Me and a few other doubles specialists were discussing the rules last week at the Bell Challenge in Canada and we were all curious as to why people don’t stay to watch doubles. I would have thought more people would take an interest, because doubles is what the majority of recreational players play when they go for a hit at their local club. They could learn a lot from staying to watch a high quality doubles match.

So what is the real reason for the lack of interest? Is the game simply too boring and unwatchable? Or is it because the majority of fans don’t know the people playing? If this is the case, should doubles players be marketed or should singles players be able to use their singles rankings in the grand slams? Whatever the solution, the problem needs attention.

What do you think?
Borwell blogs: Quebec, part two
- Thu 30 Oct '08
The British doubles specialist checks in ahead of her next match at the Bell Challenge in Canada…

Tennishead blogger Sarah Borwell got off to a good start at the Bell Challenge in Quebec City on Monday when she and Courtney Nagle got past Sofia Arvidsson and Melinda Czink in straight sets. After a day off, the British-US pair have a tougher test on the cards on Wednesday when they face second seeds Anna-Lena Groenefeld and Vania King…

After asking for a Wednesday start but instead given a Monday match, we realised we really had to make Sunday count for us. Courtney and I are both feeling a little jaded, but we knew that we had to keep working hard and if we got a good draw that we really had to make the most of it. Bearing in mind that at our last four events we’ve lost to the eventual winners, we were surely due a decent draw!

We played Sofia Arvidsson, from Sweden, and Hungary’s Melinda Czink, which was the type of draw we were looking for. No disrespect to either of them, their singles rankings prove they’re quality players (Arvidsson is 58, Czink is 114), but they’re not doubles specialists so we always felt we had a good chance of victory.

After our thrashing last week in Luxembourg I was edgy. It’s hard not to be nervous and low in confidence after a heavy defeat. To make matters worse, I knew that our style matched up well against theirs and if we could play our game and not get dragged into playing theirs, we would stand a chance.

We didn’t play great, I think the need to win placed a great deal more pressure on us than we should have allowed, but in the end, after a few missed volleys and mistimed forehand slaps, we won fairly convincingly.

Although we didn’t play our game all the way through, when it counted and we needed to win the deuce points we made sure we were aggressive and moving forward. If we can remember that missing when doing the right thing is far better than being edgy and hanging back, we will win more than we lose.

I didn’t feel as though I volleyed too well, especially when Courtney was serving. This is an area of my game I really can’t wait to work on. It’s difficult at the moment because the priority is playing tournaments and chasing points, but it means picking up some bad habits and not getting the required coaching time we both need to improve.

However, I think we are both capable of competing at this level and although we have many things we can add to our game, that can wait for a few more weeks.

Yesterday we had a day off. This sometimes causes problems for us as we like to play day in day out, but with the way we’re both feeling and the with the need to work on things, a day of practice was what we needed ahead of facing the second seeds Groenefeld and King today.
Borwell blogs: Bell Challenge, Quebec
- Mon 27 Oct '08
Our blogger Sarah Borwell is back with her latest dispatch from Canada where she lines up at this week’s Bell Challenge.

There’s no rest for the wicked and this week Tennishead blogger and British doubles No.1 Sarah Borwell has jetted across the Atlantic for the last WTA Tour event of the regular season, the Bell Challenge in Quebec City, Canada. Borwell and partner Courtney Nagle are in action on Monday when they take on Swede Sofia Arvidsson and Melinda Czink from Hungary in the first round of the doubles…

After an amazingly disappointing trip to Luxembourg last week, losing for the fourth week running to the eventual champions, I find myself in Quebec, Canada.

To be honest, the only highlight of last week was watching talented British 14-year-old Laura Robson make her WTA Tour debut against a top 50 player, Iveta Benesova, and not only compete but push her close.

This WTA event was voted the best tournament of the year and I can understand why

I remember my first WTA event and I was so awestruck by the level of play that I really felt out of my depth. Although Laura was a little quieter around the players off court, she certainly didn’t show any unease on it.

In fact, to say it was her first WTA outing, she was even more outstanding than during her first senior ITF event in France, which was only a month or so ago.

A little tired and a little down after last week’s first round defeat (we lost to Sorana Cirstea and Marina Erakovic), Courtney and I know we have to keep pushing.

Many may laugh at our travel schedule – Canada this week, Poland next – but this is what you sometimes have to do when chasing ranking points.

It is hectic and it is demanding, but when you are so close to breaking the top 100, you have to give it your all.

We had set the goal of top 80 by January’s Australian Open, which was always going to be difficult, but if we fall short, it sets us up perfectly for the WTAs at the beginning of next year.

We are fourth on today against Arvidsson and Czink and I hope we won’t suffer a hangover from last week’s defeat. We must continue to learn from our losses and improve because of them.

We have a chance to do well this week and as long as we continue to put the work in we will be repaid for our determination. Hopefully we can win today, it would mean a few more points and also a few more days in Quebec City!

This WTA event was voted the best tournament of the year and I can understand why. The hotel is wonderful and set in a beautiful part of the city. The food at the tennis site is first class and plentiful, which is pretty much all a tennis player asks for!

Sometimes I wish I’d decided to concentrate on doubles a long time ago, instead of playing smaller singles events. Rather than sleeping in cheap Mexican hotels, I could have been living it up in style. Long may it continue!

Sarah is sponsored by Montenegro International Property Management
Borwell blogs from the Dolomites
- Thu 16 Oct '08
Doubles specialist Sarah Borwell writes from a $100K ITF in Italy after a satisfying first round victory on Wednesday.

Sarah Borwell is the British No.1 with a WTA doubles world ranking of No.135. The 29-year-old and her regular tour partner Courtney Nagle from the USA have set their sights on achieving doubles rankings high enough to qualify for the main draw in January’s Australian Open. This week finds them at the $100,000 ITF in Ortisei, in the Italian Dolomite mountains…

After an early morning flight, a two-hour train journey, and a near death experience in a van, we made it to the beautiful town of Ortisei. I have been playing many tournaments lately, trying to chase the points needed to qualify for the Australian Open, and because of that I had been feeling emotionally jaded.

We stayed calm throughout and in the end made our opposition look decidedly average

My tiredness was soon wiped out, though, because I had one of those, ‘wow I am so happy to be alive’ moments when we arrived here. The views from my top-floor room are simply breathtaking. Looking out from my sun-drenched balcony onto the Dolomite mountains, watching the ski lifts traverse the slopes and hearing only the sound of cowbells, I’ve been overwhelmed by the beauty. Naturally, I’ve called everyone I know to tell them about how lucky I am as a tennis player to be able to see sights like this – it’s always good to rub it in!

After a quick lunch of chicken and bread that I had while standing with the locals watching a festival, I sadly realised I had to go and practice. Like any job, sometimes tennis is just a job and the last thing I wanted to do was leave the busy, fun-filled town centre to go and run myself into the ground on a tennis court.

The club isn’t quite as spectacular as its surroundings, with only three orange, carpet courts which play so fast that even the talented Anne Keothavong managed to take out three people in the space of 10 minutes with late forehands!

Courtney and I had a tough draw, which isn’t unusual as I always seem to be dealt the trickiest draws going. However, this isn’t always a bad thing – we want to be top 50 in the world and in order to get there we have to be capable of beating anyone.

After losing in the semis at the Barnstaple $50,000 ITF last week, despite being 7-3 up in the deciding super tiebreak, we had a long heart-to-heart about where we both feel we are failing and how we can improve. We realised that many of our matches are lost simply because of our mental instability or communication problems and that we needed to rectify this immediately.

Thankfully we did exactly that and the win we had last night over the very good pairing of 6ft 3” world No.70 Akgul Amanmuradova from Uzbekistan and Belarussian Darya Kustova proved we are capable of turning matches around by staying calm and communicating with each other.

We lost the first set 6-0, without doing too much wrong, but trying to play our style of tennis, which didn’t match up very well. We were serving and volleying, trying to approach the net, which simply gave our opposition a target and they picked us apart. In the past, we probably would have become annoyed and shut down mentally, but last night we sat and spoke about the problems and worked out a way to change it. We stayed calm throughout and in the end made our opposition look decidedly average as our new game style focused on their weaknesses.

It has certainly been a good start to the week and an added boost of confidence for the tough match we have tonight against the number one seeds – Ukraine’s Mariya Koryttseva and Kazakhstan’s Yaroslava Shvedova, who are 48 and 41 in the world doubles rankings respectively.

If we can stay calm and talk our way through the problems, I don’t see why we can’t continue in the same way and hopefully pick up the points needed to crack the top 100 and book our tickets to the 2009 Australian Open.

Sarah is sponsored by Montenegro International Property Management