Jamie just showed in that match that he is clutch and played the big points better than his lower ranked opponent. Hopefully he takes that sort of thing into his closer matches against higher ranked opponents.

Judging from those scorelines I suspect that the courts in Poitiers are super-fast. The French indoor futures are regarded as generally having much faster surfaces than elsewhere.

This levels the playing field as you can imagine...a player with only 1 ranking point but possessing a massive serve can give one of the top seeds a really close match because his serve will keep him in it and there'll be precious few rallies.

This looks like it was the case with the Bloomfield and Baker matches today....Benneteau slammed down 13 aces.

Full stats:

Bloomfield-Benneteau: Bloomfield hit 16 aces, served at 59%, won 85% 1st serve pts and 51% 2nd serve pts. He broke once in each set, only took 3/8 bps though so could have wrapped it up a lot quicker...only won 1/6 bps in set 1.

Benneteau hit 13 aces and 6 double faults so evidently really going for his serves. He got 72% 1st serves in, won 68% 1st serve pts and 58% 2nd serve pts. He took 2/4 bps.


Baker-Morel: Looking at the stats, Jamie was pretty lucky to come through this one and Morel will have been left wondering how on earth he didn't manage to win a set ! Morel had 9 bps, he only took 1 in the entire match. He missed 7 bps in the first set.

In comparison, Jamie only had 2 bps, both in the 2nd set and he took 1 one of them. Jamie's serving was excellent - 75% in and he won 69% 1st serve pts aswell as 54% 2nd serve pts so good serving stats.

Morel served at 59%, won 74% 1st serve pts and 56% 2nd serve pts so Jamie was rarely able to get into his service games.

Jamie can be sometimes at a bit of a disadvantage on really fast courts against a big server as he himself lacks a big serve. However, like Andy, he's usually an excellent returner and so can compensate that way.

Its Ouanna next for Bloomers and Sirriani for Baker.

Tsonga is through to the quarters

Bloomfield faces French qualifier Joselin Ouanna. Ouanna is ranked 631 and defeated Aussie Adam Feeney 6-4, 6-3 in rd1. He's been as high as 328 but a run of bad form saw him slip down the rankings. The win of Feeney was his first main draw victory since last September. He's beaten two British players this year, defeating Tom Rushby and Simon Childs in straight sets on indoor hard in January.

Baker now faces Aussie Joseph Sirianni who overcame an incredible serving barrage to defeat qualifier Luke Bourgeois in a 3rd set tiebreak in rd1. Bourgeois fired down 29 aces in that match but Sirianni held strong to win 6-7, 6-4, 7-6 in 2hrs 30min. He's no slouch in the serving department either, hitting 9 aces and wasn't broken once. 31 year old Sirianni is currently ranked 290 but he's been as high as 199 and a few years ago he defeated Max Mirnyi at the Australian Open. Like Baker, he's been in good form so far this year, reaching the semis of the Tasmania challenger at the start of February.

In the other half of the draw; the 2nd, 4th and 5th seeds all crashed out aswell as world junior no 1 Thiemo de Bakker. However, in the Bloomfield and Baker half, 3rd seed Jo-Wilfred Tsonga progressed through to the quarters with onimous ease, firing down 11 aces on the way to a 6-3, 6-4 rd2 win.

Big worry is Tsonga, imo he's the favourite to win this title.

Baker will have to really up his level to get past Sirianni on such fast courts

I expected him to walk through this match.

SIRIANNI bt BAKER 6/4 1/6 6/4

Bacanello and Tsonga the only seeds left