I hope that Morgan will try out a few ITFs in the next few months. His 14s career is over, so he'll have nothing to do at the bigger stage. If he can get his ranking to something like 1000 by December, he'll be in a great position next year.
Is he really this tall? Or is he standing on something?
He is a big chap, but if you reckon that the average head is about 10" from the chin to the top, that makes him a full 15" or so taller than Amy Askew.
Looking at the pictures of Dan Cox and Naomi Broady, she is 6'1", and so that makes Dan about 5'6" I reckon.
__________________
"Where Ratty leads - the rest soon follow" (Professor Henry Brubaker - The Institute of Studies)
Incidentally, James Marsalek has a tricky first rounder against George Morgan's brother Robert in the U16's. With Rob's height and mammoth serve, it's the rough equivalent of Federer getting Karlovic in the first round of Wimbledon, LOL.
Here are the Ratman's odds for the U16's:
Girls (Rae a banker):
Rae 50% (Evens) Slater 20% (4-1) Cornish 10% (9-1) James 10% (9-1) Watson 10% (9-1) The rest No chance
I recon carpenter is fave for the title this year, reaching a semis and a final of 2 ITFs in portugal recently shows that he is playing well at the moment. But marsalek is always going to be a tough opponent, especially on the clay
Yeah I agree, he's beaten Smethurst twice recently and Smethurst made the U18 semis. Bournemouth clay is slightly faster than the usual stuff though, being green so maybe that would also give Carpenter an edge over Marselek if they played....what's Marselek like, typical clay-court grinder ?
I disagree with Ratty about the girls event being such a one-horse race....Heather Watson really should have made the U18s final last week, really let Tasha Marks off the hook in the semis...she'll be a big threat. On clay, I doubt Slater will challenge for the title but she'll be in the latter stages. Cornish has the ability to be a threat on this surface
Jordan Mcculloch [6] def. Ahmed El Menshawy [1] 5-7 6-2 7-6(5) James Chaudry [3] def. Benedict Calnan 6-4 6-1 Greg Goodall [4] def. Daniel Regan [8] 7-5 6-1 Robert Morgan def. Callum Lloyd 6-2 6-3
Chaudry said that he aims to end the year inside the ITF top 50. Well, that's going to happen only if he comes to Asia and hopefully he'll do it.
It's funny that only one event out of eight was void of major upsets - the 18 and under boys one. And that's the tournament which we all thought would be the most competitive one!