The updated table is posted here (on britishtennis.net)
Commentary in the morning.

The updated table is posted here (on britishtennis.net)

Only Sluiter manages to qualify in Miami. Capdeville joins Boggo, Luzzi and Zverev on the plane home.

In Rabat, Patience beat Brzezicki and overtakes Alex Alex down to 146 Guez advances; Gil is knocked out .

Tomorrow, in Miami, Sluiter plays Kuerten; In Rabat, Fraile plays Silva; Patience plays El Aarej; Guez plays Junquera.

Christophe Rochus has no chance!

Kuznetzov goes out to Starace, so that is one less threat for Boggo to worry about

Boggo has done remarkably well to keep his ranking around 150 and move up a few spots over the last month and a half without actually winning any matches and gaining any real ranking points.

Count Zero wrote:

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thing is FD this time last year he was injured and didnt play any events. He has 1 'free' week left, which is the Tallahasse challenger, last year his 1st event back from injury where he lost in the 1st round. He then got to 3 successive qf's (although he was still carrying the injury). then he has another poinst break (save 9) till newport. also last year he missed the 2 grass challengers due to DC where over the 2 years b4 he has done really well, i think he has 2 wins and a final there.

the lack of defensive points may have been why he tried this hard court swing rather than play the indoor challengers where i am sure he ould have picked up regualr points

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I suppose so, but the fact that hardly any players from behind have come past him and gained any points is a bit surprising.

I had sort of forgotten about the injury he had last year, so with him not having any points to defend, I suppose he decided to go for the hard court season and go for the big points (and he should have got them, but he just didnt take his chances in any of his matches... should have beaten Capdeville, Dlouhy, Jenkins and Lopez, and would have qualified for 4 main draws if he had)

Then again, the 3 QF's he has to defend in a row shouldn't be too difficult looking at the entry lists (would expect him to defend them all in 1 tournament, and possibly win back to back challengers, as there is no-one to stop him really doing so)

Maybe the better option would have been to gain the easy points from the indoor challengers and move up the rankings, knowing that he would have more a cushion to fall back on if things didn't go well later in the year

I'd expect him to start moving back up the rankings soon, with nothing to defend in the clay season (he can surely win a round or 2 in challengers), and then the grass season as well where he should do well in the challengers, as well as Newport and the UK events (he has to get a draw against a non-grass court specialist soon), and then maybe go back to ATP qualifying/direct entry in the summer

Count Zero wrote:

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yeah i agree recently it feels like a host of chances missed, havign said that i am not suprised he didnt go for the eash challengers, he seems to have deciced last autumn (mons/bangkok time) to push for the harder events he could, going for the big challengers etc.

clay will be interesting, his hard court game seems to have imprvoed, so hopefully this will translate into a better clay game too.

the thing i am going to miss is live scores! have to so unsed to it, will be a pain waiting for ch draw sheets to load up

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Some of the american challengers do have a live score service, so I guess we have to hope that these have one

He has got some good results on clay, so he can obviously play on it, but I get the feeling that he doesn't want to play on clay unless it is absolutely necessary

Count Zero wrote:

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alex 's problem on clay i think stems from lack of stamina, he finds it (or used to anyway) difficult to beat moonballers, which is the easiest shot in the world in clay, and of course used more often b the worse players (and better players when needed, like andy did in IW).

hopefully as he is fitter and stronger now his results will improve.


would be great to find live scores, some of the us challengers that i remember are worse than the uk ones and thats saying something!

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I keep getting emails from Radiotennis.com saying they are doing live coverage of these american tournaments, and they seem to do something with some of the challengers, so they may be covering Valencia/Tallahasee

Clay probably is his weakest surface, but he should have qualified for the French last year (5-2 in the final set and lost 7-5), and then would have faced Dick Norman for a spot in the main draw, and with a decent draw he should win a few matches at least