With Olivia no doubt champing at the bit while she works her way back to tournament fitness, it is Liz Thomas and Naomi Broady who've been flying the British flag to good effect in Glasgow this week.

Liz had a disappointing run at the end of 2008 but has fully justified her Wild Card into Glasgow reaching the singles quarter final with an excellent 6-3 6-4 win today over the second seed world ranked 376.
It's the world 411 next up; good luck, Liz!

Naomi has justified her #7 seeding () and faces the number 3 seed next.

If Liz and Naomi both win their quarters they'll meet in the semi, which is a shame, but would ensure a British finalist! Here's hoping!

Wrexham next week promises to be a real Brit-fest with Naomi Cavaday being parachuted in today as a Wild Card to be the likely top seed just ousting Mandy Elliot from that berth and with Anna Smith also scheduled to play Brits would be the top three seeds. Let's hope Brits can lift both these titles to get 2009 off to a rousing start!

Sadly, British interest came to an end in Glasgow today.
Liz ran her opponent close 6-4 7-5 and will take lots of positives forward to next week in Wrexham.
In her singles quarter-final, Naomi ran the third seed close in the first set but went down 7-5 6-1; and there was more disappointment in her doubles semi with Jade Curtis, being edged out by the narrowest of margins 8-10 in the tie-break set.

The Wrexham sign-in deadline for the qualies is 6pm Sunday with two rounds of qualifying on Monday and Tuesday before the Main Draw starts on Wednesday. Sticking my neck out, I'm predicting a title win for team GB next week!

My hopes of a Brit Girl win at Wrexham this week took a downturn when Anne Kremer of Luxemburg, former world #18, appeared from nowhere to enter the qualies ; and again when the first round draw bunched 5 Brits in the bottom quarter and of the 11 Brits only 3 in the top half, including Liz Thomas and Natasha Khan drawn against each other !

Liz v Tash proved to be a humdinger ! Liz took the first set 6-3 and the second went to a tie-break. Tash edged it 9-7 and then won it in the third 6-3. Tash's chances of progressing deep into the tournament were enhanced when Kremer, having won through qualifying and been duly installed as top seed in the main draw, withdrew to be replaced by a lucky loser.

At the bottom of the draw, second (and now top!) seed Naomi Cavaday's first outing for over 3 months saw her win impressively 6-4 6-1 against Johanna Konta (currently of Australia but who, it is widely understood, wants to switch to having GB after her name as soon as it can be arranged). Jade Curtis is the other seed in her quarter. As #8 seed, she saw off Lisa Whybourn for the loss of only one game although Lisa can be proud of her efforts at Wrexham having overcome two qualie seeds on Monday and Tuesday.

The very best GB result from the qualies was Olivia Smith beating the #3 qseed on Tuesday ; she then ran the world 520 very close in the first round proper today but was edged out 7-5 in the third.

It seems Kremer's withdrawal may have been a wrist injury which is bad luck for her ahead of Fed Cup duty a fortnight hence.

The top half of the draw is now bereft of Brit Girls, sadly, despite a valiant effort by Tash against her 6th seeded opponent. It would have been a very nice scalp but Tash went down 7-5 6-3.

Only 2 Brits in the bottom half with Jade disappointed to lose in 3 sets to her lower ranked opponent.

Mandy, seeded 3, surprisingly dropped the first set but stormed through the next 2 for the loss of only one further game ; on course for a semi-final showdown with Naomi, seeded 2, who breezed past her Czech opponent 2&1 .

It was a bad day at the office for Mandy today being ousted from both the singles and doubles.
Whilst Naomi did progress to the singles semi, albeit only 9-7 in the 3rd set tie-break, her opponent tomorrow will be Schaul of Luxemburg, world 411, who beat Mandy 3&2.

Top seeded in the doubles with Jade Curtis, Mandy went down 7-6 6-3 to Dani Brown and Liz Thomas who now take on the second seeds in the final. Good luck, girls!

Sadly there'll be no Brit Girl title holders this week either with Naomi Cavaday losing her semi 2&0 and Liz and Dani losing their doubles final by the desperately close margin of 6-2 3-6 9-11.

The tour comes back to Britain in a fortnight's time for the Sutton 25k but in the meantime many of the Brit Girls are popping over to France for the Grenoble 10k.