GBF3 - Barnstaple - 2007.

Salmon · Tennis legend

RE: GBF3 - Barnstaple - 2007.

steven · Tennis legend

Simon wrote:

This is the 3rd of 22 15K events in GB this year. So far we have had only one person in the main draw excluding qualifiers and Wild cards (Lee Childs in F1). I can't understand why the LTA are not providing tournaments where our players could win some points rather than giving away all the prize money to overseas players. Some 10K events and even a 25K satellite would give those ranked 500 to 900 more of a chance. At the mo many are forced to travel abroad to try to pick up ranking points which surely is wrong?!

Satellites have indeed gone (probably a good thing, since any of our players who did well in them always seemed to seize up when they came round to having to defend a big Satellite points haul a year later) and in the LTA's defence (not a phrase I use often!), they probably couldn't have predicted that we'd have a sudden lack of players in the 300-600 range, i.e. the range that is most likely to get direct entry to 15Ks.

The only players we currently have in that range are:

Martin Lee - retired
Big Arv - retired
Aucks - playing qualifying for bigger tournaments because he's playing in the doubles there
Lee Childs - not sure where he's got to (injured?)
Jamie Delgado - injured
Colin Fleming - temporarily (?) retired
Morgan Phillips - just missed out on a DA this week (but got a WC), but usually plays in Spain or Italy!

However, I do think a mix of 10Ks and 15Ks (or maybe even 10Ks and 15K+H's) would have been a better plan, and I think some of us were saying that even before we had the benefit of hindsight.

Welcome to the board btw.

-- Edited by steven at 23:56, 2007-02-13

johnnylad · Tennis legend

2nd rd:

Dieter Kindlmann (Ger) bt Purav Raja (Ind) 3-6 6-1 6-2

Stephane Robert (Fra) bt Rasmus Norby (Den) 6-1 6-1

Julian Reister (Ger) bt Philip Marx (Ger) 7-5 6-1

Ludwig Pellerin (Fra) bt Lars Uebel (Ger) 7-5 7-6 (7-3)

Aisam Qureshi (Ind) bt David Brewer (Gbr) 7-5 6-3

All hopes now rest on Matt Smith!

Akhenaten · Pro player

Alas. British Barnstaple hopes are over...

Torsten Popp (Ger) bt Matthew Smith (Gbr) 4-6 7-5 6-3

johnnylad · Tennis legend

Doubles

May/Grambow won 6-3 6-3

Rushby/Kennaugh bt Irwin/Alllinson 7-5 6-7(5) 7-6(6) Epic!

johnnylad · Tennis legend

Akhenaten wrote:

Alas. British Barnstaple hopes are over...

Torsten Popp (Ger) bt Matthew Smith (Gbr) 4-6 7-5 6-3

To think At one stage it must have read Smith 6-4 5-5......

....if only

imoen · Admin: Moderator+Tennis Legend

johnnylad wrote:

Rushby/Kennaugh bt Irwin/Alllinson 7-5 6-7(5) 7-6(6) Epic!

I'm confused, are they not using the final set champions tiebreak this week? (still looks to have been a great and close match)

Shame we've lost all British interest in the second round of yet another 15K but I don't think we should be too dispondent as part of the reason is our higher ranked players (Mackin, Marry and Baker in particular) are going for the challenger qualies instead of the safe futures (and moving even higher up the rankings as well) which is something to be encouraged in my opinion.

johnnylad · Tennis legend

May/Grambow bt Popp/Klier(4) 6-2 3-6 6-3

Andy/Tom lost to Qureshi/Robert (2) 6-2 6-3