Howe lost in 3 sets. took a set in ATP qualies!

I tihnk James Ward should be here or Bangkok. Probably Bangkok. COuld have qualified.

MrBaseliner wrote:

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Didn't Auckland get to the QFs here last year and take a set off Tursunov (?!?!?!?!?!)
Why on earth did he give up singles!

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Can't remember!  Maybe he just feels he would be better off specialising in doubles, a bit like Jamie Murray.  There's a fairly decent crust to be earned on the Stanford circuit by the more competent, after all.  He just needs to find a steady partner (  , though he seemed to have the makings of a decent  partnership with Stephen Huss).  That said, he's teamed up with Ross Hutchins this year for what seems to be a rain-blighted tournament:  they should've played yesterday, but couldn't & no sooner have they got on court & off to a flier today against the Indian WCS, Mustafa Ghouse & Karan Rastogi (they broke Ghouse's opening service game & consolidated it by holding their own! ), than the heavens open & play has to be suspended with them leading 2-1, still with the break.  Hope it doesn't break their momentum!

They won 10-3 in the champions tie-break

It will be Lindstedt/Nieminen as the other pair have withdrawn.

helki wrote:

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wolf wrote:

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Auckland/Hutchins d. Ghouse/Rastogi 6-2, 3-6, 10-3

They next play Robert Lindstedt and Jarko Nieminen or Nicolas Kiefer and Rainer Schuettler, who are next on Court 1 (match before just finished). Schuettler is into a 3rd set in his singles match though, so will have to wait a bit.

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 Good win there for the guys, even with the wobble in the second set Third seeds next.

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And the draw is opening up quite nicely:  the Serb pairing, Boris Pashanski & Victor Troicki, thrashed the top seeds, Mahesh Bhupathi & Fabrice Santoro, 3 & 2 earlier today, while the conquerors of the 2nd seeds (the Czech pair, Cermak & Friedl), Ivan Navarro (ESP) & Sergio Roitman (ARG), have themselves defaulted to Rohan Bopanna (IND) & our old friend from the Futures circuit, Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureishi (PAK) (w/o), which means that the 4th seeds, Yves Allegro & Kristof Vliegen (SUI/BEL), are the only ones left in the bottom half of the draw & (unfortunately) Aucks' & Hutch's next opponents, Lindstedt & Nieminen, the only ones in the top half.  Hope they can pull their socks up tomorrow...

*  What's with all these walkovers?

wolf wrote:

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[...] the Serbs didn't knock out the top seeds, they knocked out the lucky losers that replaced them.

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Ah, I see that now (Purav Raja & Vivek Shokeen), but I swear the draw didn't show that when I checked it prior to making my previous post...!

johnnylad wrote:

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Linstedt/Nieminen have had some big wins this year if I remember rightly...

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I think they beat Bjokrman/Mirnyi at Wimbledon, so obviously can play

Good luck to the Brits, and this will be a massive win for them if they can get it, and will give them a great chance of making the final here