although most of the usual suspects for Spanish Futures have headed off to the Algarve, there are four Brits here:
QR1: (q1) Morgan Phillips WR 578 beat Asim Jalilov (AZE) by 0 & 1 QR1: Zander Woodford-Smith UNR lost to Nicolas Pinones-Haltenhoff (CHI) UNR by 2 & 1 QR1: Alexander Ward UNR beat (q7) Gueorgui Roumenov-Payakov (BUL) WR 1009 by 6-3 4-6 6-2 QR1: Balraj Sohal UNR lost to Nicolas Sanchez (ESP) by 6-1 5-7 6-1
Great result for Alexander - wonder if he is any relation to James. His next opponent managed a double bagel in R1. Interesting to see some new names here too.
QR2: (q1) Morgan Phillips WR 578 v Nicolas Pinones-Haltenhoff (CHI) UNR QR2: Alexander Ward UNR v Timon Reichelt (GER) UNR
There is nobody else in Morgan's section with more than two ranking points.
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GB on a shirt, Davis Cup still gleaming, 79 years of hurt, never stopped us dreaming ... 29/11/2015 that dream came true!
Would expect Morgan to qualify here, and then hopefully go. His futures win in Italy last year must be coming off soon so he needs the points to maintain his ranking. I think?
That was a great result! Roumenov is brilliant on clay and the sort of hard courts they usually use in Spain. He'll take up a Spanish citizenship in the next few months from what I know.
Morgan fully justified his billing as top seed in the Terrasa 10K qualies with two emphatic victories today to reach the final qualifying round.
He wasted little time in first dispatching Chile's Nicholas Pinones-Haltenhoff 6-2, 6-2 and then breezing past Spain's Rodrigo Gomez Saigos 6-1, 6-2.
He now faces Spanish 15th seed Carlos Gonzalez-De Cueto, a player who only has 2 ranking points. In contrast to Morgan, the Spaniard has made hard work of reaching this stage, twice having to come through 3 setters.
Unfortunately Alex Ward lost 6-1, 6-1 in rd3 to Spain's Antonio Martin-Velez.
johnnylad wrote: Would expect Morgan to qualify here, and then hopefully go. His futures win in Italy last year must be coming off soon so he needs the points to maintain his ranking. I think?
Arka, do you know if James Ward has a bro?
It must feel good for Morgan to be back on the clay after that spell in the indoor tournaments in Britain.
His points from the Italy futures win don't come off till the end of May so he has plenty of time to build up his ranking until then.
Heehee. I got really annoyed that week. With Lopez at Queen's the case was different - he is at least capable of winning Challenger matches, this one was....
Excellent stuff from Morgan ! He breezed through the qualies without dropping more than 4 games ! Shouldn't be too fatigued for the serious stuff which starts today !
He's played Salva-Vidal once before, Morgan won 7-6(8), 6-3 in Spain at the end of 2005. However, Salva-Vidal enjoyed the better 2006 season, reaching 4 futures finals and also winning two weeks of the February satellite in Spain. He's started 2007 well, making the semis of a 10K at the start of February so will be tough.