i asked alex about saifn, bascily its something that lundi put together. i think they were considering playing dubs at the FO but due to the bad weather didnt or soemthig like that.

my blog of the day 1 of qualies:

turned up at ten to 10, found out it wasnt open yet, went for a wander came back still not open. hmm.

Josh then came over and introduced himself and eventually about half an hour late they let us in.
Met some people outside who were friends will bozoljac and told them that i though bozo would have no troubs qualifying....

We decided to go and watch goodall v tsonga 1st hoping for a good battle. unfortunately for josh tsonga was obviously in a rush and started with a blistering pace, to make matters worse josh's forehand just wasnt cutting it. the 1st set was over very fast. the next 2 sets were closer, but you never really had the feeling Josh was going to pull through. a pretty quick match in all. and one that was to set the tone in the brits vs foreigners front. impressive by josh was whacking a bal way out of court and hitting a building on the other side of the road, although i think he was later out done by vemic who almost put a ball into orbit at one point!

Also to make matters worse i had forgotten to charge my camera!! which promptly died during the goodall match, although i did coax 1 more photo out of it.

i cant remember the exact order of things next. went for a bit of a wander to watch some of the pros training. (henman was hitting with roddick) Before heading back to the main match courts. dropped in on bozo's match to discover that he lost the 1st 6-1! oops. he put up more of a fight in the end but was outclassed by Sa 61 62. Another friend of mine also turned up to watch. also saw Marray see off Brewer.

Unfortunately couldnt really watch slabs match as it was on a court without good viewing. went and saw evans v ward (who was wearing one those horrible hrbaty tops!) also watching were several brit tennis coaches inc big arvs, man is that guy tall!

Settled down to see what 2nd rd matches we could find. To our surprise jim may walked out on court v kuznetsov! in a tight serve orientated match may eventually managed to take the opening set on a TB. At this point i had spotted boggo practicing over the other side so dragged everyone over to watch! He was hitting with delic and seemed to be doing a pretty good job as they played competitive points with lundi on hand to make comments. there wasnt really anyone else there, cept for a few girls who were interested in delic! they didnt seem to know who the British number 3 was.

After they finished up we wandered back to catch the end of the may match who had a mp which was saved with an ace b4 he lost out in the TB. still an impressive performance by may. surely he will get a wimby q wc now. watched muller deal with boparra comfortably, then caught the end of childs v bastl. thought childs might have a chance but it kinda drifted away from him.

At this point things were staring to wind down, but ended up watching one of the best matches last in ward v vemic. ward still in the horrible shirt was doing well and i really thought he could take it. i liked wards style, but i think his clay experience shown though as he was often too defensive. at one point he was receiving a 2nd serve bp and he was moving so far back he was almost hitting the ball girls! needless to say he lost the point and vemic went on to hold and take the match. nevertheless i liked wards style. had a very nice forehand and i think he can defiantly improve. he is very tall and thin, maybe could do with putting some muscle on, but he could hit hard. also had quite a strange service action. it was now getting on for 7 and time to go home.

good day overall, just a shame that none of the brits could make it through.

-- Edited by Count Zero at 19:07, 2007-06-10

seagull wrote:

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Boggo second up on show court tomorrow so will be on BBC!

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As long as Lloyd isn't commentating on that match, everything should be fine for Boggo, and it is a good chance for him to get a win

Strange scheduling for the rest of the matches though, as in any other country in the world, Bloomers and Baker would have been on centre court, but instead we get Mirnyi/Verdasco and Tojo/Del Potro, which will probably be decent matches, but not what you would expect

Be very interested in seeing what the BBC show when Bootie/Murray are on court... whether they stick with the doubles, or switch to another court and show whatever is on at the time (likely to be Lopez/PHM)

Nice report count, think you got it spot on, altough was childs before or afte the end of the may match?? At least that Serbian woman had the consolation of seeing vemic win.

You're camera is pretty good as well.

-- Edited by Josh at 21:18, 2007-06-10

-- Edited by Josh at 21:18, 2007-06-10

lol i cant remember josh - too much tennis blur
i cant remeber the order of marray or bozo either.

Here what the BBC say:-

Right up until the semis and final, play will start at 1230 BST featuring four singles matches. BBCi will cover every ball struck prior to coming on air on BBC TWO and will continue with live tennis once network coverage has finished.
 

BBC comprehensive coverage:

Monday 11
1200-2000, BBCi, BBC Sport website
1330-1715, BBC TWO

Tuesday 12
1200-2000, BBCi, BBC Sport website
1330-1715, BBC TWO

Wednesday 13
1200-2000, BBCi, BBC Sport website
1400-1715, BBC TWO

Thursday 14
1200-2000, BBCi, BBC Sport website
1300-1715, BBC TWO

Friday 15
1200-2000, BBCi, BBC Sport website
1330-1800, BBC TWO

Saturday 16
1200-2000, BBCi, BBC Sport website
1300-1630, BBC ONE, BBC Sport website

Sunday 17
1400-1630, BBC TWO, BBC Sport website

-- Edited by mjd at 22:28, 2007-06-10

Hey josh and count, I was there on first day of qualies and I watched most of the same matches as you. Have to say you've read them all pretty much the same as me and can't find much to disagree on really. Would you agree Josh was really lacking in confidence and had his head down the whole time? Imo a few wins will sort him out in that respect and he'll be fine.

Do you agree that James Ward is a PROPER player. Did really well. I loved your comments bout Ward playing far behind the baseline because I said to my brother exactly the same thing. He was playing a clay court game on a grass court and whilst that is exciting to watch and it so nearly got him his reward, it wasn't quite enough. Would you agree that Ward probably has the weapons to do well on grass and that he would benefit from a coach who knew how to utilise those weapons?

Jim May did great, simply awesome to see him out there pushing Kuznetsov to the limit and nearly pulling it off.

The Childs match I can't explain. First set, Childs wasn't in it. Bastl's serve was dominating and Lee's was awful. Second set the other way round. Start of the third and Lee had one or two really dominating holds. In Bastl's first service game Lee was in every point. Then Lee played one bad service game, got broken and things turned around.. He started serving well again but by then Bastl was confident and refound his serving form.

Dan Evans looked a prospect but I think he'll have to grow some as his serve was somewhat weak. Seems a really nice lad though and I hope he does really well. Has some great stuff in his armoury and looked impressive at times but does beat himself up a little. To be expected for someone so young I suppose.

David Rice looks like someone who probably wins Junior matches by dominating physically. If he wants to win matches on the Senior tour, he's either going to have to really beef up a lot or find something else to his game. Arthur's serve looked as good as it ever has done and I would say Ricey only got about 10% of them back in play. Think he probably only won 4 or 5 points on Arthur's serve throughout the match. Ricey's serve is pretty damn good for someone his age to be fair and that's how he hung in the second set but he never ever looked like getting close to breaking.

Had a great day, watched Henman and Roddick practise together and saw Hewitt and Safin practise too. Also saw Stretch and Bootie off to have a hit. Only disappointing part was no Brits survived the day but there was some great performances from guys really badly outranked so was pretty happy to see so many guys whose results I follow but that I've never seen play.

Hoping to go to Nottingham qualies next week, but first we have the Queens main draw to look forward to. COME ON THE BAKER BOY!