paulisi wrote:

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CD - some of the future tours matches do have line judges, but it is not compulsory. I'm not sure what the situation is in Tipton.

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 Fair point, although they usually don;t have the full range (and, without being too mean, some are not quite top drawer). I don;t know about Tipton either - maybe A1 will tell us. (Although I still reckon you have to learn to live with the errors a bit, because, one way or another, there will be quite a few).

Bruce served for the set but got broken.

Marcus looks as though it's in hand.

Had chat with rob carter after he was happy way be played it was very close in the 3rd  and as I said before I think rob carter will make good progress up the rankings in 2014 

paulisi wrote:

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Nice to see George Morgan back playing and winning.

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Yes - I was aware he'd been having a tough year, but was amazed to find that was his first Futures match since June and his first Futures main draw win since he beat Tom Burn by retirement in early February. I remember a tweet mid-year saying it had been the toughest few months of his life and then he was out for about 3 months, so hopefully that means that whatever the problems were, they are now just about sorted.

I went to Tipton for a few hours today (from about half 12 to just after 3).

I saw Marcus cruise through the second set of his match against Kivanda, by his own admission he didn't play his greatest match but showed a few nice touches and was more than comfortable. Kivanda looked more of a defensive player but was trying to go for his shots more than he would normally because he was playing the top seed.

Considering it was is his first match in ages, Morgan looked in decent nick against Orton. He was clearly lacking match sharpness at times, but he displayed some flashes of very good play to suggest there could be a lot more to come. I would be surprised if he didn't make top 500 at least by the end of next year. Didn't know what to make of Orton!

I was surprised Samm Butler lost as he was in complete control at 6-2 3-1 after breaking after a very long game (and ATB hadn't held serve at that point) and he definitely looked a better play with an easy on the eye game with a heavy top spin forehand and a rather flatter backhand. ATB must have started to play a lot better after I stopped watching because he wasn't great at the start.

Oakley just about deserved the win against Dyce as he was the more solid player throughout the match. Dyce went on a three game spree at the end of the second set where he made every shot especially on the backhand side to break serve twice and win the set but rather gave away a break at the end of the match. Keelan was solid, powerful-ish serve, powerful-ish groundstrokes and came to the net to finish off points.

Meehan...I only saw the first 7 games, but from what I saw the guy has an absolutely massive serve probably the biggest I've seen at futures level. But his ground game is a problem. It's not so much the strokes but he has absolutely no idea how to construct a point. I saw no plan to try and win the point, he wasn't going for winners and he wasn't playing shots that would set him up for winners. The potential is definitely there, if he could develop say a big forehand to back up his serve he could quickly go places!! Also just before I left in the game he got broken at 3-3 one of the worst calls I've ever seen when he hit a serve that was at least 3 inches in either side of the line on break point and it was called out. He wasn't happy!

Those are the only matches I saw enough of to comment on!!

We all know that George is a very talented player and a junior grand slam winner & he also won a futures title at only 17!!!!  I know I always go on about doubles Which is a love of mine but with George's pedigree it would be great to see him find a regular doubles  partner . 

In saying that if he can recover his former confidence he still has potential in singles and Marcus & myself will not be taking anything for granted tomorrow he's a very dangerous and highly respected opponent .