Jamie Delgado has teamed up with Mischa Zverev in the doubles here: They play number 1 seeds Levinsky and Skoch first match up on the grandstand court, starting at 5pm Croatian time (I assume that's 4pm British Summer time)
Delgy and Zverev had 2 bps in the 1st set but missed both while L and S took their only chance. That's what makes the top teams, they just play the big pts so well....otherwise there hasn't been much different between them.
L and S have served slightly better just 57% 1st serves (compared to 66% from Delgy and Zverev) but L and S have won 74% 1st serve pts and 70% on 2nd serve
Delgy and Zverev have won 55% on 1st serve and 56% on 2nd serve which is still pretty good against most pairs !
Levinsky and Skoch are a regular pairing, playing all year round which does really make a massive difference. Levinsky's ranked 26 and Skoch is no 35. They've lost rd1 of their last two tourneys but did well on the grass, making rd3 of Wimbledon and quarters of Queens. Levinsky has also made finals in Zagreb and Munich and rd4 of the AO.
Delgy is now down to 129 after losing those grass season pts from 2006. He can definately work his way back up to the top 100, definately needs a new regular partner though now Aucks is competing mainly with Huss. I hope that Delgy and Zverev stay together as a pair. Both have got great volleys and Zverev's serve is so good aswell. This tourney is on clay, easily their worst surface (though Delgy can do well on it when in form, having made two challenger finals in Italy last summer). They'd be very dangerous on fast surfaces, this match would have been a lot closer on grass or indoors I'm sure. He played a fair bit with Childs and Hutchins on the grass, teaming up with one of those guys is an option though with Childs they wouldn't be seeded in the challengers.
Jamie has quite a lot to defend from mid-August onwards unfortunately...4 challenger finals and an ATP semi, could be a tall order to stay about 120ish in the rankings for the next few months but next year he's got nothing to defend till May !
guess it depends on what Goodall's doubles plans are...atm he's 120 in doubles and 340ish in singles...gonna have a decision to make, whether to keep playing challenger qualies in singles and get seeded in the doubs with Hutchins or whether to forget doubles for a bit and concentrate on getting his singles ranking back in the top 250 through some 15Ks
If they get broken here, it's pretty much curtains for the match
